Special Mailing September 2009

By Nicholas Ribush

Dear LYWA Friends,

Today begins the Light of the Path Retreat, which is the first of a 5-year series of teaching retreats led by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The root text for the course is Lama Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. These are FPMT retreats hosted by Kadampa Center, the FPMT affiliate located in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.

The FPMT considers this to be a core set of teachings for FPMT teachers and students, and therefore is making them accessible via an array of internet technologies, including video-on-demand, audio downloads, discussion forums, and an online library.

Below is an email from FPMT about these online resources. We hope you can join in!

E-Mail From FPMT Education Department

Dear FPMT Family,

We are delighted to announce that Lama Zopa Rinpoche's upcoming Light of the Path retreat in North Carolina, USA (Sept 8-22) will be made available in a free video-on-demand format. As well, the teachings will be translated into French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese so you can watch Rinpoche and listen in these languages.

All of these videos will be hosted on FPMT's new Online Learning Center. Please check out the new Online Learning Center.

As of September 4, when you access the Online Learning Center you will see an option for "FPMT Media Center". When you click on the Media Center the videos (that will be uploaded daily) will be available in a daily digest playlist. The videos will remain available for several months.

Downloadable audio-only files will also be made available on the Light of the Path program page of the Online Learning Center after the retreat. The Light of the Path Online program will be further developed with more materials added over the coming year. Further announcements will be made as new material is available.

For centers without teachers, and for centers with existing programs, please consider watching the Light of the Path videos as part of your program. Again the videos can be watched at any time and they will remain available on the FPMT Media Center for many months to come.

A thorough FAQ page addressing technical issues will be available on the FPMT Media Center, also in several languages.

Note: The FPMT Retreat Prayer Book first launched at the Mani retreat in France, May 2009 has been updated for Light of the Path. For those with prayer books from the Mani retreat, all updates can be found on the prayer book updates page of the FPMT website (in English and Spanish). For those attending the retreat without a prayer book, the newest edition will be made available on site in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

We hope that you thoroughly enjoy these new resources!

Love,

Merry Colony
Director, FPMT Education Services