About Event:
The In-Depth Meditation Training program (IDMT) was developed in dialogue with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, inspired by his conviction that the true fulfillment of our precious human life lies in generating the awakened mind, bodhicitta – and that accomplishing this requires deep meditative practice.
The full range of traditional Buddhist methods will be gradually introduced in ways fit for a modern Western audience. It provides the opportunity to experience a genuine taste of the nature of reality and bodhicitta (the mind of awakening).
This term marks the beginning of Year 4 of this iteration of the 4-year IDMT course. Students are warmly welcome to join this term’s teachings and beyond.
Rest assured that due to the time difference, recordings will be available should you be unable to attend live Zoom sessions.
What is In-Depth Meditation Training (IDMT)?
The IDMT program is led by Venerable Losang Gendun, who recently gave teachings at Chenrezig Instiute as part of his inaugural Australian tour. Based in the Lamrim and in the Gelug tenets, this training progresses from foundational shamatha and insight to mahamudra and kriya tantra. It contextualises Buddhist ideas in Western philosophy, psychology, and science. Each year forms a self-contained module that can be joined independently.
Weekly guided meditations are combined with in-depth lectures and meditation training, prioritising the needs and levels of practice of the participants. This is a course that serves the students, adjusting itself in accordance with their needs, developing with them.
The IDMT course provides:
Authentic traditional instructions, in contemporary language, aimed at providing a comprehensive set of meditation tools for students to transform their knowledge of the Dharma into personal experience.
Traditional and modern theories on supplementary topics such as models of healthy psychological and spiritual development, ritual, narrative, ethics, and social engagement.
An international community of meditators, online and live.
This course is a collaboration between a cohort of FPMT Buddhist centres throughout the world. Therefore, the course is attended by a large international group of Buddhist practitioners.
If you’re enrolling later on in the course, it is possible to request access to recordings of previous classes.
Year 4, Term 1 –
The Vajra Ground: Mahāmudrā and Kriyā Tantra
In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself – its empty, luminous nature – and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognised as the very ground of awakening. While this round of the course is currently in its later stages, students are most welcome to join now or at any time throughout the class calendar.
As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding.
Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognising its clarity and openness as inseparable.
Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras – glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure.
These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly – both as the means by which the lineage's realisation is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method.
This final year is an invitation to let realisation ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity – wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.
Please note that these classes are offered online only. Zoom links will be sent upon registration, and students will have access to recordings of Ven. Gendun’s teachings if live participation is not possible due to the time difference.
Practical Details:
Term 1 dates: September 5 to November 28, 2026 (13 classes). Single‑class or full‑term bookings are available. If you book the full term after it has already begun, all 13 class recordings will still be provided to watch at your own pace.
Day & time: IDMT is broadcast live from Europe and runs weekly, Saturdays 11:30pm into Sunday 2:00am AEST.
Class format: One-hour guided meditation followed by 90 minutes of teaching with Q&A.
Language: English, with simultaneous French translation.
Online only: Classes will be offered online via Zoom and/or by recording.
The sessions are recorded and accessed via the Buddha Project website for viewing afterwards. Once you register and make a donation below, you will receive instructions on how to access the recordings via email.
About our Teacher:
Venerable Losang Gendun has spent nearly four decades in Buddhist practice, living as a fully ordained Bhikshu in the Tibetan tradition for the past twenty years. His training spans ten years of monastic study across France, India, Nepal, and Myanmar, and more than four years in solitary retreat in both Tibetan and Burmese Theravāda traditions.
For the past eighteen years he has taught Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and meditation worldwide within the FPMT, serving the vision of H.H. the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 2023 he founded The Buddha Project, offering long-term guidance for serious meditators and fostering dialogue between Buddhist traditions, contemplative science, and the arts. Its core program is the four-year FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training.
You can read more about The Buddha Project here. If you want to hear Ven. Gendun's story in his own voice, listen to the Wisdom Podcast.
Registration and Donations
You can register either for one or two classes (to try it out) or for a whole term (preferred option, total 13 classes for Term 1 with previous sessions made available via online recordings).
The suggested donation is $25 per class. For students and people with low income, the suggested donation is $15 per class. Please send an email to spc@chenrezig.com.au if you’d like to make use of this option. We transfer a percentage of all donations to The Buddha Project.
Sangha are always able to attend our courses free of charge. Please contact spc@chenrezig.com.au for a discount code to register.
NOTE: the IDMT events are all online from home only. Once you register for the event you will be sent a Zoom link for the session. Access to recordings is via The Buddha Project website – access instructions will be sent to you separately.