Founder
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered the great Sera Monastic University in Lhasa, where he studied until 1959, when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners. In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and meditation centres—the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition—began to develop. In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Osel Hita Torres in Spain in 1985, recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986.
Some of Lama Yeshe's teachings have also been published by Wisdom Publications. Books include Wisdom Energy; Introduction to Tantra; The Tantric Path of Purification; and (summer, 1998) The Bliss of Inner Fire. Transcripts in print are Light of Dharma; Life, Death and After Death; and Transference of Consciousness at the Time of Death. Available through FPMT centres or at Wisdom Publications.
Lama Yeshe on videotape: Introduction to Tantra, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, and Offering Tsok to Heruka Vajrasattva. Available from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche was born in 1985 as Osel Hita Torres in Spain. He was recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986. Lama Osel likes to be known as Osel Hita. Please see www.fpmt.org/teachers/osel/ for more information.
Osel Makes a Special Appearance
Osel Hita wowed everyone by turning up at Vajrapani Institute on Big Love Day for the consecration of Lama Yeshe’s new stupa and commemoration of Lama’s life. It was a special occasion which drew many of the FPMT’s early students.
Following that, Osel attended all three days of the FPMT Board’s meetings in Portland, Oregon where he mainly re-acquainted himself with the organization. Rinpoche and the other Board members were thrilled that he turned up, and invited him back with great enthusiasm. On his part, Osel said he would – if the timing fits.
In an interview with Mandala, Osel talked about his reconnecting with the FPMT:
“I turned 25 not so long ago, so it is time to return the help that was given me. It is time I returned the kindness. I feel it is time to get involved in the organization more. I want to learn more about everything because I haven’t been keeping up over the last few years. That could take some time...
People are starting to accept me for who I am, so it made it easier.”
Carina Rumrill’s full interview with Osel is in the July – September 2010 print issue of Mandala, which goes out on June 9. A report on Big Love Day will appear online as part of Mandala’s online exclusives.
