with Ven. Losang Gendun

Thirteen Saturday classes
September 5 – November 28, 2026
6:30am – 9:00am Pacific Time
online

Program Category: Dharma Education — Intermediate

The FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training (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.

Based in the Lamrim and in the Gelug tenets, the training progresses from foundational shamatha and insight to mahamudra and kriya tantra. It contextualizes 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, prioritizing 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.

Suitable for students who have a thorough understanding of the Dharma, the course will be most rewarding for practitioners wishing to make Buddhist values and goals an integral part of their lives. With the benefit of a supportive community, meditation practice and lifestyle become mutually complementary; time on and off the cushion will be transformed into a path to enlightenment.

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 recognized as the very ground of awakening.

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, recognizing 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 realization 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 realization 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.

• The course consists of weekly online sessions of a 60-minute guided meditation, a 90-minute lecture with ample opportunity for Q&A. Sign up for a whole semester or drop in on a class by registering below.
• After registration, you will receive access to the Online Learning Center on The Buddha Project website. There you will find access to the Zoom sessions, the supporting materials, and recordings of past guided meditations and lectures.
  Online access details will be shared closer to the course start date. Once the course begins, please allow up to one week to receive your access information.
• Depending on the interest of participants, these classes may be embedded in practice days, guided by experienced students, which will provide a supportive environment for joint practice and discussion.

• This course is beneficial for practitioners who want to further develop their meditative practice, by receiving in-depth meditation instructions and by getting a deeper understanding of the (philosophical and psychological) foundations of meditation. It will provide a complement for those who study Buddhism, to investigate and verify experientially the various subjects taught by the Buddha.
• To participate you will need a basic understanding of Mahayana Buddhism, although the course will introduce many of the foundational topics. A basic understanding can mean having completed the FPMT Discovering Buddhism course or the FPMT Basic Program or having obtained a similar level through other means.