Mission
May Compassion and Wisdom Serve the World.
Maitripa College, a Buddhist institution rooted in the Nalanda tradition, offers graduate and lifelong learning programs in both physical and digital formats. Through the integration of contemplative practice, Buddhist scholarship, academic inquiry, and spiritual formation, grounded in three pillars of scholarship, meditation, and service, we educate students in critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and contemplative methodologies. Our programs prepare graduates to apply their learning in service to their communities and the world with compassion, joy, and equanimity.
Vision
To cultivate transformative leaders who embody Buddhist wisdom and compassion, integrating a good heart, tolerance, and joy in service to the world.
Lineage
Maitripa College is grounded in the living lineage of Tibetan Buddhism as transmitted through the Nalanda tradition of India and preserved and taught within the Tibetan Buddhist world. Founded by Yangsi Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Maitripa College draws from centuries of scholarship, contemplative practice, and ethical formation passed down through authentic lineages. The College maintains close relationships with eminent Tibetan teachers and lineage holders, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and integrates traditional methods of study, debate, meditation, and service with contemporary academic inquiry. This lineage-based foundation ensures that Maitripa’s programs are not only academically rigorous, but spiritually grounded—rooted in teachings that have been tested through generations of practice and dedicated to the cultivation of wisdom and compassion for the benefit of the world.
Educational Philosophy
Maitripa College is an affiliated member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and functions as a nonprofit organization. The College is dedicated to higher education through three educational pillars of scholarship, meditation, and service. We offer an education that not only teaches these principles as a theory but also guides students to integrate them into their minds, hearts, and daily lives inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility. Maitripa College provides an intellectual, experiential, and practical education inspired by Buddhist principles.
The core of education at Maitripa is a Buddhist Studies curriculum of philosophical study, meditation training, and service learning, under the direction of Yangsi Rinpoche, which provides a foundation for every degree program.
Developing the Wisdom to Sustain Compassion
Maitripa College’s educational program is based in the conviction that Buddhist thought and practice has significant contributions to make to American society and culture. On the basis of a worldview that emphasizes the interdependence of individual, society, and environment, Buddhism encourages the cultivation of wisdom to create compassionate individuals with a sense of responsibility for the community and world in which they live. Maitripa College seeks to do this through the powerful medium of higher education, through the offering and development of degree programs for adults. The core program at Maitripa integrates rigorous training in Buddhist thought and philosophy with the application of those ideas through both contemplative practices and active community service. In the process, Maitripa College combines aspects of a modern liberal arts education with traditional tools from Tibetan Buddhist scholarship.
Academic Freedom
Maitripa College is committed to maintaining a climate of academic freedom, which is essential to the fulfillment of the educational mission of the College, and of fundamental importance to any academic institution. Academic freedom is defined in this case as the freedom of scholars, faculty, and students within the College to pursue knowledge and truth, to speak, write, engage in research or other creative work in order to expand knowledge, publish research findings, teach, and learn in an atmosphere of free inquiry and exposition without unreasonable restriction. Students and faculty at the College should bear in mind that these freedoms carry corresponding duties and responsibilities, which should be kept in mind at all times in order to maintain the integrity of the educational process.
Maitripa College faculty members have a primary obligation to fulfill their teaching and research responsibilities, and to be effective teachers and scholars. The freedom accorded to faculty members to seek and state the truth as they see it is implicative of a corresponding obligation of self-discipline. Faculty members must make every effort to be accurate, objective, and restrained, and show respect for the opinions of others. Faculty members must practice academic honesty. All interactions with students and peers must be governed by this guideline. Evaluation of students’ work must be based on academic performance alone. Faculty members, students, and staff are not exempt from abiding by the rules of ethical conduct as put forth in this document.
History
Maitripa College is an affiliated member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). The name Maitripa was given to the College by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the founder (with Lama Thubten Yeshe) of FPMT. FPMT is an international nonprofit organization committed to creating harmonious environments and helping beings develop to their fullest potential of infinite wisdom and compassion.
Maitripa, whose name means “He Whose Protection is Loving-Kindness,” lived in the 11th century. He was the teacher of the famed saint Marpa the Translator, and counted the eminent Naropa among his contemporaries and teachers. Maitripa was at Nalanda during the time of the great Atisha, and at Vikramashila University at the height of its fame in India. He was renowned as a great scholar and yogi, but eventually left the monastery to continue his practice as a mahasiddha. Maitripa is particularly renowned for his transmission of the mahamudra teachings of the Uttaratantra Shastra, and for his spontaneous songs of spiritual realization.
Maitripa College represents the first steps in the fulfillment of the aspirations of our founder, Yangsi Rinpoche, who envisioned the development of a Buddhist College of higher education where students might gain a philosophical background in Buddhist thought while at the same time gaining a practical education and the tools to integrate both into the modern world.
History
Maitripa College is an affiliated member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). The name Maitripa was given to the College by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the founder (with Lama Thubten Yeshe) of FPMT. FPMT is an international nonprofit organization committed to creating harmonious environments and helping beings develop to their fullest potential of infinite wisdom and compassion.
Maitripa, whose name means “He Whose Protection is Loving-Kindness,” lived in the 11th century. He was the teacher of the famed saint Marpa the Translator, and counted the eminent Naropa among his contemporaries and teachers. Maitripa was at Nalanda during the time of the great Atisha, and at Vikramashila University at the height of its fame in India. He was renowned as a great scholar and yogi, but eventually left the monastery to continue his practice as a mahasiddha. Maitripa is particularly renowned for his transmission of the mahamudra teachings of the Uttaratantra Shastra, and for his spontaneous songs of spiritual realization.
Maitripa College represents the first steps in the fulfillment of the aspirations of our founder, Yangsi Rinpoche, who envisioned the development of a Buddhist College of higher education where students might gain a philosophical background in Buddhist thought while at the same time gaining a practical education and the tools to integrate both into the modern world.

