Monthly E-Letter 278: August 2026 | | |
LAMA YESHE WISDOM ARCHIVE
The Archive of the FPMT
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Individually we have to question ourselves:
“Why am I afraid of death?” The answer has to come from within, not from somebody else.
—Lama Yeshe
| | Lama Yeshe at Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, Australia, 1981. Photo: Greg Moscatt. | | |
We hope you are safe and well, and thank you for staying connected with LYWA.
We want to acknowledge the devastating climate disaster in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, where climate change has contributed to severe flooding and landslides that have claimed many lives and left others missing. We share prayers and practices advised by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the hope that they may bring benefit to those affected.
In this issue, we're pleased to share three new LYWA editions, now available digitally, with print editions coming soon! We’ll let you know when they are available to order on our website. If you're a LYWA Member or affiliated with an FPMT center, service, or project, be sure to read below for information about free shipments of these latest publications.
This month’s video and podcast both feature teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The video explores how compassion is one of the best ways we can contribute to world peace, while the podcast invites us to feel immense joy, like a lottery winner, for having this precious human life. You'll also find several new excerpts from Lama Yeshe's Big Love, along with a new teaching and advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
We also have some inspiration and resources from Universal Education. And finally, our monthly teaching excerpt from Big Love shares Lama Yeshe's story of visiting his family in Tibet in 1982. We hope you'll take a look and enjoy!
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Free LYWA Books
Three NEW Editions
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We are delighted to announce the release of three new LYWA editions, now available digitally, with print editions coming soon:
- Teachings from the Mani Retreat
- Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment
- The Sutra of Great Liberation
We have made Teachings from the Mani Retreat and Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment freely available to you and a new generation of readers with carefully updated versions of these important texts in both print and digital formats. Digital editions of these two books, along with a PDF of The Sutra of Great Liberation, are available now.
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Teachings from the Mani Retreat is a transcript of teachings given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in December 2000 during the inaugural Mani Retreat at Chenrezig Institute in Queensland, Australia.
This book is a valuable resource for participants in the 2026 FPMT Global Mani Retreat and anyone wishing to deepen their practice of Chenrezig and the recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM.
The teachings have been edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron.
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Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment is a much-loved volume in which His Holiness the Dalai Lama interweaves a commentary on Atisha’s A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment with Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lines of Experience. These two foundational texts present the complete path to enlightenment, from developing renunciation and cultivating bodhicitta to understanding emptiness.
This book was sponsored by the Merit Creation Group (Singapore) and edited by Rebecca McClen Novick, Thupten Jinpa and Nicholas Ribush.
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The Sutra of Great Liberation is a profound Mahayana text that includes teachings on virtuous Dharma practice, proclamations of the names of many buddhas and bodhisattvas, and extensive descriptions of the benefits of the sutra. Long treasured in Tibet, it has traditionally been recited on holy days, for those experiencing difficulties, and for the benefit of the recently deceased.
It was translated by Ven. Gyalten Lekden and first published by FPMT in 2023. The LYWA edition is sponsored by Doren and Mary Harper.
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Books for LYWA Members & the FPMT Family
If you’re a LYWA Member—a supporter who has pledged at least $1,000 to LYWA—you’re eligible to receive print copies of the latest LYWA titles and Wisdom Publications books by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Contact us soon; we plan to ship our latest titles by the end of September!
Through the Family Feeling project, LYWA offers free Dharma books and free shipping to FPMT centers, projects, and study groups. Help your community by keeping LYWA books readily available. You can request up to two boxes per year, and in some cases, larger regional shipments may be possible, depending on available stock. If your center, project, or study group would like to receive our latest titles and stock up on LYWA classics, please send in your order today!
We also send a quarterly resource and support newsletter, Tools for the Path, to FPMT center leaders, featuring shareable images, quotes, short inspirational videos, and more for center newsletters and social media channels. Reach out, and we’ll add you to the contact list.
Photo: Students with LYWA books at Chandrakirti Meditation Centre, New Zealand, December 2025.
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From the Video Archive
Concerning World Peace
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This month from the LYWA video archive, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that the most important thing we can do for world peace is to practice compassion. When we practice this good heart, we will easily accomplish all our goals. But without compassion in our heart, no matter how powerful we may be, our efforts will fail. This teaching was given in Singapore in 2002 and hosted by Amitabha Buddhist Centre.
Visit and subscribe to the LYWA YouTube channel to explore our complete video collection of teachings by Lama Yeshe and many from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, available from our archive. For many more videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teachings, visit the FPMT YouTube channel.
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On the LYWA Podcast
Like Winning the Lottery
| | Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving oral transmission of the Vajra Cutter Sutra at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Photo: Ven.Losang Sherab. | | |
How do you liberate yourself and others from constant suffering? You use this precious human body to cherish others more than yourself. That’s the method, that’s the practice, that’s the solution.
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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This month on the LYWA podcast, Lama Zopa Rinpoche reminds us that being born into this precious human body affords us incredible opportunities to practice the Dharma and that we should feel incredible, unbelievable joy and bliss, just like a person who has won the lottery. These teachings were given at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, in December 2003. Read along with the transcript on our website.
The LYWA podcast contains hundreds of hours of audio, each with links to the accompanying lightly edited transcripts. See the LYWA podcast page to search or browse the entire collection by topic or date, and for easy instructions on how to subscribe.
| | What's New On Our Website | | Lama Yeshe with Frederik van Pallandt in Ibiza, Spain, 1978. | | |
This month, we’ve added two new teachings from Lama Yeshe, excerpted from Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe. In our first excerpt, Lama Yeshe Returns to Tibet, Lama Yeshe describes his 1982 visit to his family in Tibet, travelling as a tourist; this story is also featured in our monthly teaching below. In the second teaching, Embracing Impermanence, Lama Yeshe explains that we have no escape from our relative, impermanent existence if we do not understand it.
Visit our Big Love Teaching Excerpts webpage, where you’ll find a growing selection of teachings featured in the book. The teachings are organized by chapters, with easy navigation links. Be sure to check back often, as we’re adding new content every month!
We've also posted a new teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, The Missing Education on Death. Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains that understanding death and rebirth can dispel the fear of dying and help us live wisely. This teaching was given at Choe Khor Sum Ling Centre in Bengaluru (Bangalore), India. Visit FPMT’s Rinpoche Available Now (RAN) to watch the video, listen to audio recordings, and read the full transcript from this event.
Don't miss the new entries we’ve added this month to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book. With more than 100 new pieces of advice published each year, the collection has now grown to over 2,600 entries on our website.
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Finding Happiness After Cancer Treatment: Rinpoche sent this advice to a student who had undergone treatment for breast cancer. Medicine Buddha mantras had helped her a lot, but she was unhappy with her life, had never had a partner and often cried.
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Lamrim, Preliminaries and Nyung Näs: A student wrote asking Rinpoche for life practices. Rinpoche advised lamrim meditation, preliminary practices and nyung näs, and explained the incredible benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM.
You can always find a list of all the newly posted advices from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on our website.
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Universal Education
Becoming free, universal beings
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Lama Yeshe at a family gathering at Vajrapani Institute, California, 1983.
Photo: Carol Royce-Wilder.
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Lama Yeshe envisioned Universal Education (UE) as a way to share the essential insights of Buddhist teachings in a language that could benefit people from all backgrounds. Within FPMT, this vision continues today through a range of UE initiatives and resources.
Each month we hope to share a teaching, reflection, or resource inspired by Universal Education. This month we're highlighting a resource from the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom (FDCW) that explores how we can better understand shame and work with it more constructively. You can also check out and download the 16 Guidelines for a Happy Life through the FDCW app.
Let us know if you or your center is involved in a UE project or service; we’d love to share it in our next newsletter! Either way, we’d love to hear from you and learn what you’d like to see more of in our monthly eletters.
Heartfelt thanks for all your generosity and support.
Big love,
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Nick Ribush, director
& the LYWA Team
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This Month's Teaching
Lama Yeshe on Returning to Tibet
| | Lama Yeshe with unknown friend or relative, Tölung Dechen, Tibet, 1982. | |
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I went to see my family and the Jokhang Jowo and to take the opportunity to make good prayers there before I die. Because of my heart, two days by bus and climbing and walking I cannot do, so I fly from Hong Kong to Chengdu, then to airport south of Lhasa.
Hotel so dirty you can’t image. I ask, “Is there somewhere clean? I am not in such good health.” They tell me this is the best, so I accept. The one latrine on each floor consisted of four concrete squat holes on a step with low wooden dividers.
Next day, knock on the door and my brother Rinchen is standing there. I surprise! I didn’t tell them I’m coming—that’s my style. I ask him how he knew I was there. He say he is in Lhasa for shopping for village festival and he made telepathic communication. He say to me, “Come, we go village right now!” But I say, “Wait, I want to relax, need time to build my view.” Also, altitude is around 11,000 feet and I have heart difficulty, difficult breathing and have to exercise two or three minutes. After one week, my breathing again normal. So that week I stay in Lhasa shopping for my family. I ask my brother what can I buy. He says nothing, just come. So I just buy Chinese silk things.
A friend from Nepal was in Lhasa, too, and his friend took me to my village north of Lhasa by car. One hour, PAM! I shocked! Before, was two long days to get there. The communist grip on Tölung had just broken down before I arrived. Seems the Chinese are paranoid by me being there. They make special good appearance for me. Interesting, isn’t it? The Chinese put on a festival in my home the day I arrive, with best clothes and best food to eat.
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Left to right: Rinchen Tashi (Lama Yeshe's youngest brother), Jampa Khedup,
Lama Yeshe, unknown person, Lhasa, Tibet, 1982.
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I wore tan jacket I buy in London especially for Tibet. Less tension, much better. My friend told me never to go there in robes or they make trouble. At the house all my sisters were holding me, touching me and going, “Woooooooo! Woooooooo!” The same old cloth from my childhood time was hanging from the ceiling. We used to say there was a protector in the mountains who helps the village at mundane levels, but now they say it is gone.
I stayed there one week and saw more than seventy people. Every day from waking until night I entertaining and talking blah, blah, blah. They know I am a monk, so I make blessings for them and brought them blessing pills. They were very happy. I don’t tell them about my lifestyle, very difficult for them to comprehend that. Even to my family I don’t tell so much what I am doing.
Tibet is not free, no gathering allowed at all. During the time I was there the Panchen Lama came from Peking to visit Lhasa. On the radio they said no one can come and see him, but when he arrived at least 20,000 people turned up and some died in the crush. All night the people stayed there.
My family is still interested in religion, even though they don’t see rituals anymore. When my brother and nephew came to Nepal and saw the Losar ritual, Rinchen was amazed. He said he never saw it before in his life. “Is this a Tibetan thing?” he asked me.
Lama Yeshe visited his family in Tibet in 1982, travelling as a tourist. In 1983, Lama Yeshe told his students at Vajrapani Institute, California, all about the trip in the following story. Edited from archive #619 and from a second transcript of Lama Yeshe speaking in Dharamsala about his Tibet trip, now missing. This teaching is published in chapter 20 of Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe by Adele Hulse. Continue reading the story here on our website.
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