Publishing the FPMT Lineage - A Five-Year Plan (2008-2012)

I received a regular email from Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LYWA). The email outlined a 5 year plan that the LYWA is implementing to bring Dharma beyond the boundaries of English language and other barriers. I'm ecstatic to see that they are undertaking such good work in spreading the Dharma. It's really a great opportunity to contribute to the happiness of all sentient beings by supporting their project. I find their 5 year plan (click to view) is quite detail and well thought out but it will need plenty of resources, sacrifices and hard work to make it work. I thought it'll good to share the message here so many others will get to contribute too. You may find out more from their website: www.lamayeshe.com. Here's the email content.

Dear Colin,

Last month we sent out the following message, and I thank most sincerely those who responded. For those who did not, as 2008 draws to a close, please kindly consider this important initiative for making much more Dharma available to all.

Here at the Archive we are on the brink of being able to make many, many more teachings available. But we need your help. Here's what happened:

Direct Advice from Rinpoche to LYWA

Last year I received a strong written admonition from our precious guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, that we quickly publish more teachings from the FPMT lineage, basically Lama Yeshe's and his own (although Rinpoche was typically a bit low key on his own teachings). Some of the points Rinpoche made were:

It is definitely a big loss that more material is not being published; this is a big loss in regards to the activities of the whole organization. Every day this doesn't happen it is a big loss for the organization.

The main activity of the FPMT organization is to be able to benefit sentient beings and it is through the teachings and advice that this is done. This is the main way to benefit others.

We need to change the old view of how to publish the teachings. We need to think differently about how to do it so things don't get held up, stuck. I can ask people to help; we need to think differently so material is made available quickly: all the talks, all the teachings from so many years.

All that is available needs to be published now; we need to start thinking differently quickly. Otherwise it is a great loss, and we need to publish in different languages. If it gets stuck in English, then it gets stuck in all the languages.

Please remember this is the major benefit of the organization. This is how the organization can benefit sentient beings, through the teachings and advices.

Naturally, this shook me up a bit and I started to think of new ways of doing things. What it really came down to was that we could no longer rely on volunteers to record, transcribe and edit but would have to pay, or at least support, people to do these various tasks.

5 Year Plan: Publishing the FPMT Lineage

So I came up with a five-year plan for doing this. It would cost $1 million. That seemed a little unrealistic, but it was the best I could do, and I presented this plan at a meeting at FPMT International Office, where we were discussing how to better include Lama Yeshe's and Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings in FPMT education programs.

Then, a month or so later, out of the blue, I was contacted by a benefactor wanting to help the Archive achieve its objectives. I showed her our plan and, amazingly, she offered a matching grant of $500,000. In other words, she would match each dollar we raised with a dollar of her own, up to a million. She suggested we go out to the FPMT to find matching funds.

Details of our plan may be found on our website. (click to view)

Progress so far:

We have engaged Ven. Kunsang to travel with Rinpoche to record all Rinpoche's teachings and send them to us immediately.

We have hired a full time transcriber, as our efforts to hire part-time sangha (as outlined in the plan) were not successful.

We have hired a managing editor to supervise and participate in the editing of all of Rinpoche's lam-rim (and probably other) teachings.

We have launched a new website which enables us to post teachings more quickly and makes them easier to find.

We have received a wonderful pledge of $50,000 a year for three years from Vajrayana Institute, Sydney.

What We Now Need

We need to raise $350,000 to match the rest of the grant so that we can hire another four editors for five years. Each dollar you give will become two; $100 becomes $200; $1,000 become $2,000, and so on. Donate to this project on our website, or send a check to the address below.

Thank you so much. By working together we can accomplish Rinpoche's advice, when he says, "The main activity of the FPMT organization is to be able to benefit sentient beings and it is through the teachings and advice that this is done. This is the main way to benefit others."

Please do not hesitate to contact me for more information.

Much love

Nick Ribush
Director

~End of Post~




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