What need is there to say more?
The childish work for their own benefit,
The Buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them.
– Shantideva
In Gratitude . . . a series focusing on the incredible gifts offered by a handful of people over the past 10 years to create the unprecedented project of Maitripa College.
This collection is a physical representation of the incredible dedication, expertise, love, and determination a very special group of people have brought to the Maitripa College project for only one purpose—the benefit of others. This page is intended as a focal point from which to recognize and rejoice in those efforts, and to inspire all those connected to Maitripa College to remember how far we have come, and dream about how far we will go.
Working with Anger
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS RESOURCE GUIDE. ABOUT THIS GUIDE Buddhism distinguishes anger from simply feeling upset or recognizing injustice. Rather, anger is understood as "the wish to harm." Left unchecked, it disturbs our peace, damages relationships, and creates suffering for ourselves and others. Buddhist practice offers methods to prevent anger, purify it when it arises, and ultimately uproot its deepest causes. REFLECTION “When the environment and its inhabitants overflow with unwholesomeness, Transform adverse circumstances into the path to enlightenment.” – Geshe Chekawa, The Seven Point Mind Training BOOKS 1) Healing Anger by His Holiness the Dalai Lama 2) Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Alloine For kids Anh's Anger by Gail Silver, Illustrated by Christiane Krömer (Free video available of Ven. Yönten reading this book on her YouTube channel) Tiger-Tiger is it True? By Byron Katy (Free video with short teaching by Ven.Yönten) TALKS & TEACHINGS Dealing with Anger and Emotions, video teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, (1997) Free on the Meridian Trust Website Understanding Anger and Developing Patience, a Public talk at Maitripa College by Ven. Yönten (April 2026): Free on YouTube Working With Anger and Developing Patience, guided meditations and talk From the Lamrim tradition [...]
Compassion Guide
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS RESOURCE GUIDE ABOUT THIS GUIDE Compassion is a deeply complex Buddhist concept which includes not only empathy but also a strong determination to help. These teachings always have us start with ourselves. If we have no awareness of our own suffering and our own wish to free ourselves from that suffering, then we won’t be able to truly benefit others. Developing self-compassion and then bringing that strength to compassion for others is the way Buddhists train. REFLECTION “Compassion is the best healer. The most powerful healing comes from developing compassion for all other living beings, irrespective of their race, nationality, religious belief, or relationship to us. We need to feel compassion for all living beings, every single one of whom wants happiness and does not want suffering. We need to develop not only compassion, the wish to free everyone from all suffering, but great compassion, which means taking upon ourselves the responsibility for doing this. This brings deep and powerful healing.” – Ultimate Healing: The Power of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, pg. 21 Books Hopkins, J. (2001). Cultivating compassion: A Buddhist perspective. Broadway Books. Jinpa, T. (2016). A fearless heart: How the courage to be compassionate can transform our lives. [...]
Emptiness Guide
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THIS RESOURCE GUIDE. ABOUT THIS GUIDE Much of our suffering comes from believing that people, situations, and even our own identity exist in a fixed and independent way. Buddhism calls this misunderstanding the root of suffering. The study and meditation on emptiness help us see ourselves and the world more accurately, leading to greater freedom, compassion, and peace. REFLECTION “As human beings we are as impermanent as everything else is. Every cell in the body is continuously changing. Thoughts and emotions rise and fall away unceasingly. When we're thinking that we're competent or that we're hopeless--what are we basing it on? On this fleeting moment? On yesterday's success or failure? We cling to a fixed idea of who we are and it cripples us. Nothing and no one is fixed.” – Chödrön, Pema. The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2001. Books Dalai Lama. (2006). How to see yourself as you really are. Atria Books. Tegchok, G. J. (2007). Insight into emptiness. Snow Lion Publications. Tsering, G. T. (2010). Emptiness: The foundation of Buddhist thought (The Foundation Series). Wisdom Publications. Talks and Teachings Teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Emptiness from a Kopan Course [...]
Buddhist Resource Guide Series: Death and Dying
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF THIS GUIDE. ABOUT THIS GUIDE Buddhism views awareness of death not as something morbid, but as a powerful support for living wisely. Reflecting on our mortality helps clarify our priorities, deepen meditation, and prepare us for death with greater peace and confidence. In this way, remembering death becomes a way of fully valuing life. REFLECTION “This life is as impermanent as a water bubble; Remember how quickly it decays and death comes.” – Lama Tsong Khapa, The Foundation of All Good Qualities BOOKS 1) Advice on Dying by His Holiness the Dalai Lama 2) Dying With Confidence: A Tibetan Buddhist Guide for Preparing for Death by Anyen Rinpoche 3) How You Live is How You Die by Pema Chodron For kids A Peaceful Piggy’s Guide to Sickness and Death, Sadness and Love by Kerry Lee MacLean TALKS & TEACHINGS 1) No Regrets: Dalai Lama’s Advice for Living and Dying, at Karuna Hospice 2007 Free on YouTube 2) Buddhist Tools for Facing Death: Living with the Imminence of Death, at Maitripa College 2025 with Ven. Yönten Free on YouTube PRACTICE 1) Wholesome Fear: Transforming Your Anxiety About Impermanence and Death by Lama Zopa Rinpoche 2) Guided Meditation 8 'Stages of death' Meditation led by Venerable Yönten Free on YouTube [...]
Buddhist Resource Guide Series
Please click on the links below to view and/or download a copy (PDF) of the resource guides in this series. The online guides contain live links to resources of interest to the student and practitioner: Anxiety Guide Compassion Guide Death and Dying Guide Emptiness Guide Working with Anger Guide
2027 Low-Residency Transformation: A New Chapter for Graduate Study
Beginning in Fall 2027, Maitripa College will inaugurate a new chapter in its graduate programs with the launch of new low-residency models for both the Master of Arts in Applied Buddhism and the Master of Divinity. This transition represents not a departure from Maitripa's distinctive educational identity, but a deepening of it — an intentional effort to translate our integrated pedagogy of scholarship, meditation, and service into flexible online and hybrid formats that extend access across geography and life circumstance. Faculty and academic leadership are currently engaged in the careful work of curriculum design and pedagogical development, ensuring that the relational depth, contemplative formation, and lineage-rooted rigor that define a Maitripa education are fully preserved and expressed within the low-residency model. This transformation is being undertaken in alignment with accreditation standards and reflects our commitment to serving a wider community of students who seek authentic, values-driven graduate formation in the Buddhist tradition.
Maitripa Rabjungma Community
The Maitripa Rabjungma Community is a lineage-rooted formation pathway for women pursuing Buddhist ordination and long-term spiritual leadership, integrating rigorous study, Vinaya training, contemplative practice, retreat, and communal life within the living Nalanda tradition. As the Community completes its inaugural year, this pioneering program continues to demonstrate what it means to cultivate ethical, scholarly, and spiritually mature women as teachers, scholars, and stewards of the Dharma for generations to come. Applications for entry in Summer 2027 will be available this fall, and we invite those who feel called to this path to begin discerning whether the Rabjungma Community may be their next step. To stay informed about the program, upcoming information sessions, and the application process, please sign up for updates and visit (click here).
Maitripa College at the Forefront of Higher Education
At a moment when higher education is reckoning with deep questions of purpose, pedagogy, and institutional culture, Maitripa College finds itself not catching up — but already there. The insights brought home from the DEAC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. this April (2026) confirm what has long been true of Maitripa: our commitment to human connection, meaning-making, and learner-centered formation is precisely what the broader field is now striving to become. In response to the convergent pressures reshaping higher education — the centrality of professional instructional design in online curriculum development, the institutional imperatives posed by artificial intelligence, the severity of the current federal policy environment, the cultural conditions required for faculty and student flourishing, and the urgent need to articulate institutional value with clarity and evidence — Maitripa's leadership has developed a concrete action plan. This includes embedding instructional design expertise at the heart of its low-residency transition, developing an AI governance framework, engaging higher education advocacy channels, strengthening the cultural conditions that define institutional life, and completing a forthcoming document, The Case for Formation: Articulating Institutional Value at Maitripa College, which will bring together alumni outcomes, a position paper on formation-based graduate education, employer partnerships, and our no-debt commitment into a coherent and confident institutional narrative.
Action Research Project (Capstone)
The Action Research Project is where the MA in Applied Buddhism comes to life. This capstone integrates students’ development as scholar–meditator–practitioners through a values-based, action-oriented research process. Grounded in action research methodology and contemplative inquiry, students design a practitioner-led project to improve practice within a specific community, institutional, ministerial, or social context. Through cycles of inquiry, action, observation, and reflection, students identify a lived-practice concern, situate it in relevant scholarly and Buddhist contexts, and develop an ethically grounded plan for action and investigation. Emphasis is placed on reflexivity, relational accountability, and integrating Buddhist values in both the research design and the researcher’s stance.
Minimum Technology Requirements
The Maitripa College hybrid low-residency model offers students both onsite and online course delivery formats, creating the conditions for an educational journey grounded in spiritual and community formation. A computer (ideally a laptop) is required for all degree, continuing education, and auditing students. This document describes the minimum technology requirements students must meet in order to ensure a reliable and effective learning experience at Maitripa College. Students are responsible for ensuring their equipment and internet access meet these requirements before beginning coursework. 1. Recommended Student Computer Specification The following specifications ensure smooth performance for online learning, document editing, web browsing, video conferencing, and multitasking between applications: Operating System: Windows 11, macOS 12+, or Linux (Ubuntu 20.04+, Fedora 35+, or similar modern distributions) Processor: Intel Core i5 (11th gen or newer) or AMD Ryzen 5 5000 series or Apple M1/M2 RAM: 8 GB minimum, 16 GB preferred Storage: 256 GB SSD minimum, 512 GB preferred Display: 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) Webcam: 720p or better (required for synchronous sessions) Internet: 10+ Mbps broadband (wired or reliable Wi-Fi) Audio: Built-in speakers/microphone or USB headset 2. Required Institutional Platforms Maitripa College uses the following platforms to deliver coursework, facilitate communication, and support academic operations. All students must be able to access and use these platforms. Account credentials and on-boarding instructions [...]
Spiritual Formation Lab
What We Mean by “Spiritual Formation” At Maitripa College, spiritual formation is an intentional, lineage-rooted, and assessable process that integrates academic study, contemplative practice, ethical development, and, where appropriate, professional identity. Formation is not an abstract ideal or private devotional experience. It is a structured and supported developmental process through which students gradually integrate Buddhist wisdom into their lives, relationships, and work. Rooted in the Tibetan Buddhist lamrim (“Stages of the Path”) tradition of Atiśa and Tsongkhapa, and expressed through a contemporary four-stage developmental scaffold, spiritual formation unfolds progressively and recursively throughout a student’s time in the program. A Lineage-Grounded, Contemporary Process The lamrim tradition presents the path as a gradual cultivation of ethical grounding, mental clarity, compassion, and wisdom. At Maitripa, this traditional framework informs a modern developmental arc that moves: From ethical grounding and identity clarity Through mental stabilization and emotional maturity Toward compassionate expansion and relational capacity Into integrative wisdom and service This process is not linear in a rigid sense. Students revisit these stages repeatedly as their understanding deepens and their responsibilities evolve. Spiritual formation does not require religious identification. Students engage teachings within an immersive Tibetan Buddhist educational environment where lineage provides coherence, ethical context, and relational accountability. Individuals of diverse backgrounds are welcomed into serious study and practice without pressure toward formal [...]
Low-Residency Transformation at Maitripa College
A Mission-Rooted, Student-Centered Evolution of Graduate Education Forming Scholar-Practitioners for Our Time Maitripa College’s MA in Applied Buddhism (MAAB) and MDiv curriculum couples meditative experience of the path with training to integrate Buddhist principles into active service, grounded in philosophical study, logic, contemplative analysis, and research. Graduates are formed as scholar-practitioners prepared for doctoral work, translation, leadership in Buddhist communities, chaplaincy, and service in the wider world. The Low-Residency Transformation strengthens this formation model while expanding access, flexibility, and long-term sustainability. What Is Changing? Maitripa College is transitioning our MA in Applied Buddhism and MDiv programs into a low-residency model designed to uphold our contemplative, lineage-rooted approach to education while expanding access, flexibility, and sustainability. Why We Are Making This Change This transformation allows us to align with accreditation best practices, integrate emerging educational technologies, and reach a broader community of practitioners and scholars—while preserving our traditional strengths in scholarship, meditation, and service. What Will Not Change Our mission, our lineage, and the heart of our educational model remain unchanged. The integration of Scholarship, Meditation, and Service continues to define the structure of the MA and MDiv curriculum. Faculty access, mentorship, advising, and spiritual support remain central to Maitripa’s contemplative pedagogy. How the Low-Residency Model Works The model includes a blend of asynchronous coursework, synchronous online sessions, and thoughtfully [...]
Dr. Willis on Scholar-Practitioners
Please enjoy this short clip:
Dr. Michael Ium (1984-2025)
The Maitripa College community mourns the sudden loss of a brilliant and most kind alum, Dr. Michael Ium (MA 2014). We delighted in his passion for Buddhist Studies and community while he was a student here, and have been so proud of his subsequent achievements and promising career. Michael will be missed by his many friends here. Dr. Michael Ium Michael Ium was born and raised in Toronto as the child of South Korean immigrants. He studied psychology at the University of Toronto, earning a BA in 2008. Becoming disillusioned with his subsequent career as a professional poker player, he wrote, “As a backpacker going through a quarter-life crisis, my interest in Tibetan Buddhism and the Geluk tradition was sparked by a ten-day ‘Discovering Buddhism’ retreat at Kopan Monastery [in Nepal] in 2011.” It was there that he learned about Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon, and enrolled that fall. Michael completed a Master of Arts in Buddhist Studies at Maitripa College, in 2014. He then received a prestigious Chancellor’s Fellowship and entered the PhD program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He won a 2020 International Dissertation Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion, studying for over a year in India, and completed his PhD in 2023 with a dissertation entitled “The Early History of Ganden Monastery [...]
Lapis Spring 2025
Please enjoy our Spring 2025 issue of Lapis The Learning Story, A Digital Journal. This issue features articles by Maitripa scholars on the topic of "Translating Classical Tibetan at Maitripa College." Click on "read now" and use the quick menu across the bottom of your screen for viewing options.
Thank You for Joining the Maitripa Membership Mandala!
Thank you for joining the Maitripa Membership Mandala! You will be hearing more from us very soon!
Maitripa Mandala Membership
ANNOUNCING! Under the direction and vision of Yangsi Rinpoche, the mandala of Maitripa College is growing! We are excited to bring you the opportunity of Maitripa Mandala Membership in order to connect you more closely to our vision, and to increase support for sustaining and expanding our many projects and the benefits they bring to countless beings, and especially to you, our friends! MOVING TOWARD A FISCALLY SUSTAINABLE MODEL While the Mandala’s vision and potential is unlimited, our present resources are not! In fact, Maitripa College has been subsidizing community programming for many years. We realize that in order to live our values in our operations, and to create an innovative and transformative institution for the study and practice of dharma that will endure long beyond our lifetimes, we must focus on achieving a more fiscally sustainable model. To this end, this year, we are introducing the Maitripa Mandala Membership opportunity, along with transparent suggested donation tiers for registration events, in order to sustain and strengthen our foundation, the College and Jokhang community. Generous patrons like you will enable us to go beyond breaking even to actualize our growth potential, while also offering support for expanding the mandala through the creation of the Maitripa Tara School and the Maitripa Rabjungma Community. We are also introducing new ways to connect! [...]
Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe
Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe was born in 1930 in Lho-Kha, Central Tibet and became a monk at the age of 13. He is a genuine contemplative master and a member of the last generation extensively trained in old Tibet. He received his monastic education at Drepung Loseling Monastery and, in 1969, was awarded the Geshe Lharampa, the highest degree of scholarship conferred within the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism. He is an emeritus professor at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (formerly formerly called Central University for Tibetan Studies) as a professor of the Indian Tradition of Buddhist Philosophy. He is an eminent scholar of both Madhyamaka and Indian Buddhist studies. His scholarly work includes a translation of The Essence of Good Explanation of Definitive and Interpretable Meanings (Tib. Lek-Shey Nying-Po) by Tsongkhapa into Hindi, and A Commentary on the Rice Seedlings Sutra (Skt. Salistamba Sutra) by Vasubhandu. He has facilitated numerous other research works, including the complete translation of Lama Tsongkhapa’s The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Tib. Lam Rim Chen Mo), a major project undertaken by The Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in New Jersey, where he teaches regularly.
Education of the Heart Children’s Curriculum
"Education of the Heart" is a unique and enriching curriculum designed by educators and spiritual teachers to support the development of young people’s minds. Rooted in Buddhist thought and inspired by the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this program aims to nurture the hearts and minds of young participants. Among the learning objectives of this curriculum are a focus on mindfulness, friendship, empathy, wisdom, compassion, and love. This curriculum aims to provide a nurturing and supportive environment in which children will thrive as they learn valuable life skills, develop emotional intelligence, and internalize essential inner values, preparing them for a compassionate and mindful future. Education of the Heart Summer Camp Curriculum V1.0 Summer 2023 V2.0 Summer 2024 In Summer 2023, Maitripa College piloted its Education of the Heart curriculum at the Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association (NWTCA) Summer Camp in Washougal, Washington. Over 50 Tibetan young people ages 5-16 attended five days of sessions exploring themes crucial to personal and social development. This opportunity was extremely precious and a joyful opportunity for our collaborative of teachers, students, and practitioners from Maitripa College. As a result of the work over centuries of so many Tibetans, and as a result of the generosity of the Tibetan people from the 20th century into our present day, and especially as a result of [...]
Venerable Tenzin Drolma
Tenzin Drolma was born in Chicago, US, in 1961. She received her undergraduate degree in religious studies, philosophy and psychology. She has graduate degrees in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver and in Buddhist Studies from Maitripa College. For 25 years she worked in the mental health field. Ven. Drolma was ordained as a nun in the Tibetan tradition in 2009. She moved to Vajrapani Institute and was resident sangha and assistant SPC for four years. From 2015 until 2022, she taught Introduction to Buddhism at Tushita Meditation Centre in India. Ven. Drolma’s teaching style includes the psychological aspects of Buddhism and she has been described as a very approachable teacher. While strongly based in the tradition of the Gelukpa school, her teaching emphasizes those aspects most helpful to modern students.
Compassionately Present with Grief as a Buddhist Chaplain
by Leigh Miller, PhD (Spring 2024) ... These were the gifts of grief ... And yet, the experience has also deepened my capacity to touch grief–my own, and others’ –in my clinical work as a Chaplain ... In my second unit of clinical pastoral education (clinical chaplaincy training), I had many opportunities to reflect on being a Buddhist, a mother, and on some experiences with death and grief. I had already been a Buddhist for almost 30 years, and a mother for almost 15 years. In the care of midwives, I gave birth naturally to two children, now ages 13 and 15. Between those two extraordinarily healthy pregnancies, I suffered a miscarriage. The thoroughly overpowering, singularly focused sorrow and loss that blew through me was shocking in its power, far beyond what I could have expected to grieve after less than two months of pregnancy. Part biology and hormones, part investment in the meanings I was starting to construct for this new life, this grief experience gave sobering depth to “motherhood”. In my bones, my two living children are inconceivably precious to me. I recall their early childhoods with much tenderness and wonder, remember the frustration and exhaustion of navigating it as a single working mother in graduate school, and marvel at their unfurling personhood. In our everyday [...]
