LAMA YESHE WISDOM ARCHIVE 2024 YEAR-END APPEAL
Dear Friends and Supporters of LYWA,
We are deeply grateful for your support and interest in our work. LYWA serves as a global resource for anyone seeking to discover or deepen their understanding of the Dharma. In a time of unparalleled access to information, we are constantly confronted with news cycles, wars, political corruption, and climate crises. No generation before us has had such immediate awareness of the world's profound suffering. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of these challenges. Now, more than ever, the Buddhist teachings of equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy are what we all need.
At the Archive, we offer a wealth of Dharma resources to help individuals navigate personal and global challenges. The wisdom and compassion teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche provide a steady foundation in turbulent times, guiding us step by step in cultivating greater inner peace. We support the global Dharma community by casting a wide net, offering resources through various channels, including books for free distribution and sale, ebooks on a wide range of readers, social media, multimedia, audiobooks, podcasts, videos on our YouTube channel, lightly edited transcripts, free audio on our website, an online image gallery, monthly e-letters and foreign translations of our publications.
To further preserve and share the teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, we are working to expand our reach and continue serving as a vital resource for those seeking to cultivate compassion, wisdom, and stronger communities of care. To support these efforts, we are launching our year-end appeal with a goal of raising $60,000 by December 31. We invite you to join us in this important endeavor. Please read on to learn more about our recent accomplishments and the exciting projects we have ahead!
Dharma Books in Print and Digital: Compassion and Wisdom for Every Format
Our free print books and ebooks remain a popular resource for individuals and Dharma centers worldwide. This year, we published Silent Mind Holy Mind by Lama Yeshe and are excited about several new titles set for release in 2025. In February, we will release Rinpoche’s Animal Friends, a book featuring over 100 images and teachings from the plushie toys that appeared in Lama Zopa Rinpoche's video teachings during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Spring, we will publish How to Have a Happy Life With a Good Heart, a cookbook with over 100 vegetarian and vegan recipes inspired by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Also forthcoming in 2025 is Clean Clear: Collected Teachings, Volume 2 by Lama Yeshe.
In addition to these titles, our LYWA editors, in collaboration with Wisdom Publications, continue to publish various lamrim commentaries by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, including recent titles such as The Power of Meditation, The Power of Mantra, Perseverance, and The Six Perfections, with many more to come.
This year we also launched The LYWA Kopan Ebook Project, which aims to convert Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings from the annual Kopan meditation courses at Kopan Monastery in Nepal into a series of ebooks. This project will include both previously published teachings available on our website and new, unpublished teachings from these courses.
DIGITAL DHARMA PORTALS: Accessing a World of Wisdom
We share the Dharma through various digital platforms, including the LYWA podcast, the LYWA YouTube channel, and social media networks like Facebook, which have rapidly growing communities, now reaching 150,000 subscribers. Twenty of our most popular titles are available as free audiobooks on Google Play and for purchase on Audible. Additionally, we now offer thirteen installments of the Big Love Audiobook Heart Project on our YouTube channel.
Our website serves as a central hub for thousands of visitors each month, offering a vast collection of Dharma teachings. This includes over 2,600 entries from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book, where Rinpoche's guidance offers valuable insights into life’s challenges. New teachings published this year include those from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s 40th and 52nd Kopan Meditation Courses, as well as a series of nyung nä teachings Rinpoche gave at Lawudo Retreat Centre in Solu Khumbu, Nepal, in June 1977. Several new teachings by Lama Yeshe previously shared in our monthly eletters have now been published as stand-alone articles on our website.
In addition to our website, we have two auxiliary websites that we maintain and update with new resources and teachings: the Lamrim Year Companion site, designed to help with accessing the daily meditations found in our popular publication, Lamrim Year, and Teachings from Tibet, inspired by many of the teaching transcripts we’ve received over the years from great Tibetan lamas and by our popular publication Teachings from Tibet.
Another special feature of the LYWA website is the online Image Gallery, where visitors can browse a collection of images organized by year, highlighting key moments from each period. A recent addition to the site tells the story of the Image Gallery’s history, offering readers a deeper understanding of the work and dedication involved in preserving historic images of the Lamas and the FPMT lineage.
Expanding beyond Borders: Communications, TRANSLATIONS and books to bendigo
We began publishing our monthly eletters over twenty-one years ago, and we’ve continued this tradition ever since. With over 250 eletters now in our archive, we’ve documented the growth and evolution of our work over the past two decades. Each eletter features the latest video teaching excerpts, podcasts, written teachings, foreign translations, audiobooks, and updates on current activities. With more than 13,500 subscribers receiving our eletters each month, we are able to keep our global community connected and engaged with the Dharma they cherish.
On our website, you can also find links to foreign translations of our materials in eighteen languages. Several LYWA titles were translated into Czech, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese this year alone. We are deeply grateful to the dedicated translators who make our publications and transcripts accessible to non-English-speaking audiences.
This year, LYWA sponsored a major shipment of free books to the Great Stupa Library in Bendigo, Australia. The shipment included over 14,000 copies of LYWA titles, along with twenty boxes of Dharma materials. These free books were distributed to more than ten Australian FPMT centers, expanding our reach and enabling Australians to access Dharma books without the burden of high shipping costs.
The Dharma Vault: A Wealth of Teachings, Transcripts, and Images
The Archive contains a wealth of images, audio recordings, video and transcripts of the precious teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The collection is maintained in AssetBank, a digital asset management system that ensures the collection will be safely preserved and easily managed for future generations.
At present, the Archive contains recordings from over 2,100 teaching events encompassing approximately 18,000 hours of audio, almost 16,000 transcripts and hundreds of video recordings. Our Image Archive, managed in Lightroom, contains over 75,000 image files, including many unique, historically relevant images that document the Lamas' travels and teaching events, the origins of international Dharma centers, as well as activities of the many Sangha members, students and friends.
Together in Dharma: creating your dharma legacy and the LYWA Team
Discover how you can contribute to your Dharma legacy and leave a lasting impact by visiting our new Create Your Dharma Legacy page on our website. A planned gift will be vital in sustaining our efforts and making a meaningful difference for future generations. Learn how a legacy gift can ensure your Dharma impact lasts for generations by supporting LYWA's mission to preserve and publish the precious teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Please be sure to visit Who We Are to learn more about the amazing team that makes this all happen.
It is only through your kind and generous support that we have been able to do all this beneficial work for the sake of all sentient beings. Please donate and help us make our year-end appeal a success.
Much love,
Nick Ribush
Director
Read a summary of our achievements in 2023 below.
LAMA YESHE WISDOM ARCHIVE 2023 YEAR-END APPEAL
Dear LYWA friends and supporters,
Thank you so much for your interest in and support of LYWA. Our work in 2023 has taken on new meaning now that our shining beacon of wisdom and compassion, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, passed away in April. For the past twenty-seven years we’ve been custodians of the vast collection of Lama Yeshe’s and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s authentic and exceptional teachings and we hope to carry on for as long as we can.
The Lamas' legacy of unique Dharma instruction not only lives on in the work that we do but also in all of us. We aspire to continue our work to safeguard and preserve their teachings as well as to keep them alive and relevant in changing times.
We are launching our year-end appeal and aim to raise $60,000 by December 31. Please partner with us in 2023 to continue the meaningful work of preserving and disseminating the special expression of Dharma that was taught by the Lamas. We invite you to read on to see the work we have accomplished so far this year!
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive is one of a kind, Help Us preserve the unique Dharma of the Lamas
In order to make the Dharma easily accessible and as widely available as possible, we have the best team to do it! In addition to the books in print that so many of you know and love, we continue to reach interested seekers through our website, ebooks, free audiobooks, videos, podcasts, multimedia presentations and through two auxiliary websites.
Our e-publishing and social media manager Megan Evart disseminates the Dharma in digital format via the LYWA podcast and the LYWA YouTube channel while also reaching out to our ever-growing social media communities on Facebook and other platforms where we have over 140,000 subscribers. Along with the social media outreach, Megan has developed and published twelve of our most popular titles as free audiobooks through Google Play and YouTube and also designs all of our ebooks.
This year we published a new Lama Yeshe free book, titled Knowledge-Wisdom: The Peaceful Path to Liberation. Collected Teachings, Volume 1. Compiled by Sandra Smith and edited by Uldis Balodis and me. Our next publication will be Lama Yeshe’s Clean Clear: Collected Teachings, Volume 2, containing extensive teachings from Manjushri Institute, England (1976) and Maitreya Institute, the Netherlands (1980) and more. This volume, too, will be free.
As always, our free print books continue to be popular and our customer service manager Venerable Ani Desal manages dozens of domestic and international shipments of our free and for-sale books to individuals and centers around the world. In addition to this Ani Desal looks after the ever-growing LYWA membership program, which is a major source of support for us, thanks to her expert management and great compassion.
Our website continues to be one of our greatest assets and offerings. Easily accessible and user-friendly, we offer thousands of published Dharma teachings, images, advices and multimedia resources, just to name a few! Our web editor Sandra Smith posts previously unpublished teachings every month, including transcripts of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings from the Kopan Courses, lightly edited by Gordon McDougall. Along with the monthly teachings, Sandy posts new advices in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book, which now includes nearly 2,600 of Rinpoche’s precious advices online.
You can also find on our website links to foreign translations in eighteen languages. We are grateful to work with so many amazing translators who make our publications and transcripts available in languages other than English. This year we have posted several new links to Vietnamese, German, Spanish and Italian translations.
In addition to our website, we have two auxiliary websites that we maintain and update with new resources and teachings: the Lamrim Year Companion site and Teachings from Tibet. The Lamrim Year Companion site was launched last year and is designed to help with accessing the daily meditations found in our popular publication, Lamrim Year. So far nearly 1,200 students have enrolled and close to 20 have completed the full year of study. Recently we updated the site with improved speeds and posted a new resource, the Lamrim Year Crosswalk, a navigational guide created to support students who wish to extend their understanding of the teachings found in Lamrim Year by reading the corresponding section of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.
The Teachings from Tibet website features the teachings of exceptional Tibetan lamas such as HH Ling Rinpoche, HH Trijang Rinpoche, HH Serkong Rinpoche, HH Zong Rinpoche, Khunu Lama Rinpoche and many others. Recently we posted teachings by Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and Venerable Geshe Doga, the resident teacher at Tara Institute in Australia. This site was inspired by many of the teaching transcripts we’ve received over the years from these and other great Tibetan lamas and by our popular publication Teachings from Tibet. Please take a look!
We also publish a monthly e-letter, compiled and edited by our content and communications manager Stacey Martin. The e-letter contains the most up-to-date published video teaching excerpts, podcasts, teachings, foreign translations, audiobooks and current activities. With over 13,500 subscribers receiving our e-letters each month, we are able to keep our community updated and plugged-in to the Dharma they love. The e-letter archive is also a great resource detailing all the activities and content we’ve shared over the past twenty years. Periodically throughout the year, we also send out special mailings to subscribers on Buddhist holidays and provide practice advice and teachings.
Preserving the Archive For Future Generations
The Archive's massive photo collection includes tens of thousands of image files dating back to the 1940s, with an estimated 50,000 images documenting the Lamas’ travels and teaching events among other historically relevant events. Our digital imaging specialists David Zinn and Francine Fagundez continue to digitize, optimize, preserve and catalogue this exceptional collection of historical images.
This year our IT and finance director Jen Barlow, along with the support of Stacey, completed the migration of our entire video, audio and transcript collection—more than 30,000 digital files—into our new digital asset management system, AssetBank. This new system is shared with FPMT and ensures that the entire Archive collection, along with all the precious digital assets of the FPMT, will be safely preserved and easily managed for many years into the future. We rejoice in all the hard work and effort it took to make this happen!
It is only through your kind and generous support that we have been able to do all this beneficial work for the sake of all sentient beings. Please donate and help us make our year-end appeal a success.
Much love,
Nick Ribush
Director
You can donate directly on www.LamaYeshe.com, or send a check to this postal address. Thank you!
