Masters Program

	The main purpose of studying the Buddhist scriptures is to develop good qualities such as love and compassion, and to eliminate negative emotions such as the mental poisons - attachment, hatred and ignorance - through understanding and applying the appropriate antidotes.
–Geshe Jampa Gyatso

The Masters Program is the FPMT’s most advanced study program. Based on the traditional geshe studies at the great Gelugpa monastic universities, the program offers in-depth study of five great texts and extensive retreat experience, providing a thorough grounding in sutra and tantra. Taught by a fully-qualified Tibetan teacher assisted by experienced Western staff, the Masters Program is currently offered as a full-time residential program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK), located in the Tuscan hills of Italy.

The Masters Program at ILTK is preceded by an optional three-month intensive Tibetan Studies Program for students interested in laying a stable foundation, primarily in scriptural Tibetan, prior to beginning the Masters Program. Several students of the current program have also completed the two-and-a-half year residential Basic Program offered by ILTK.

	I really enjoy the experience of living together with such an international group of students and practitioners who give much support to each other.
–Masters Program student

How it Works

The full-time residential Masters Program consists of five-and-a-half years of study completed by a final exam and a total of one year of retreat. Weekly quizzes, written exams each three months, review classes, meditations, and discussions support the daily teachings. Three optional one-month lam-rim retreats are scheduled at the end of the first three subjects; students arrange their own nine months or year of final retreat. Criteria for certification include academic, meditation, and behavior components as well as a minimum attendance in the various aspects of the program. A completion card records successful fulfillment of the requirements for each subject, completion of the final exam and retreat.

The Masters Program Certificate, the highest educational achievement within the FPMT, is issued by the FPMT Education Services upon completion of all components of the program. Masters Program graduates are eligible to become approved FPMT teachers. Many graduates of the first Masters Program have already become teachers, interpreters and tutors for the Masters Program and other FPMT programs in centers around the world, while several of them are translating Masters Program and Basic Program texts into various languages and contribute to preparing Masters Program materials for publication.

An Abridged Masters Program has been designed for centers interested in offering the Masters Program subjects on a non-residential basis, making use of the materials provided by the program at ILTK. Maitreya Instituut Emst in the Netherlands is currently offering a three-subject Abridged Master Program (in Dutch).

	My experience of the Masters Program has been extremely positive. My mind has been changing so much. Being in the Masters Program is a never-ending work on oneself.
–Masters Program graduate

Requirements

Homestudy

ILTK offers the current Masters Program as an online correspondence course in both English and Italian, supported by qualified tutors. In addition to written course materials and texts, this course includes audio recordings of the teachings, videos of reviews, forums supervised by the tutors, online quizzes and exams, and more. This course runs parallel to the residential Masters Program; a minimum of 20-25 hours a week are necessary to reach a good level of understanding of the material.

While a sincere interest in Buddhist philosophy for the development of personal spiritual practice counts as a minimum requirement, it is recommended to have some basic familiarity with the study and practice of the lam-rim, the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment in order to participate in the online program. Prior study of the FPMT Basic Program subjects Mind and Cognition and Tenets is very helpful. Students may enter the Masters Program online at the beginning of each subject. Specific requirements for tantra are applicable to the study of the last two Masters Program subjects.

A Masters Program Homestudy completion card issued by the FPMT Education Services records completion of the requirements for the individual subjects; students who successfully complete all five subjects and a final one-month retreat will qualify to receive the FPMT Masters Certificate in Homestudies.

The Masters Program Homestudy offers students who want to study individually on their own time the benefit of the wealth of transcripts, teachings and course materials resulting from the previous Masters Program. This method of studying the Masters Program subjects does not qualify the student for a completion certificate.

Masters Program Subjects

The Masters Program curriculum consists of five texts representing the essential teachings in the Mahayana tradition of sutra and tantra. As the foundation of the program, they are taught on the basis of traditional commentaries and supplementary texts.

Ornament for Clear Realizations (Abhisamayalamkara) by Maitreya
The Abhisamayalamkara is a commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) texts that serves as a support for understanding the profound teachings on emptiness. It includes a detailed explanation of the spiritual paths of hearers, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas, together with their clear realizations and abandonments on the various paths. It discusses the precepts and methods for obtaining the meditative stabilizations, clairvoyances, signs of irreversibility, and qualities of buddhahood, including the thirty-two signs and eighty exemplifications, the four buddha bodies, and omniscience. This subject is explained on the basis of the Commentary Clarifying the Meaning by Haribhadra, supplemented by reference to the Tibetan commentaries, Ornament of Essential Explanations by Gyältsab Je and Ocean of Sport by Jetsun Chökyi Gyältsen.

Supplement to [Nagarjuna’s] 'Treatise on the Middle Way' (Madhyamakavatara) by Chandrakirti
An explanation of emptiness as presented by the Madhyamaka-Prasangika system of tenets. The main body of the text consists of ten chapters, each one associated with one of the ten perfections and one of the ten grounds of a bodhisattva. Study of this text leads to an understanding of great compassion and how it serves as a cause for generating the mind of enlightenment (bodhichitta). This text also sets out the various levels through which one proceeds to the attainment of the completion of all ten perfections and enlightenment. This subject is explained on the basis of Chandrakirti's auto-commentary, Lama Tsongkhapa's Illumination of the Thought, and the First Dalai Lama's Mirror of the Clarification of the Thought.

Treasury of Manifest Knowledge (Abhidharmakosha) by Vasubandhu
A detailed presentation of the constituents, faculties, Buddhist cosmology, the six realms, karma, the afflictions and their antidotes, the various types of spiritual practitioners and their paths, and the knowledges, concentrations, and absorptions. This subject is explained on the basis of the First Dalai Lama’s Clarifying the Path to Liberation: A Complete Explanation of the Treasury of Manifest Knowledge, Vasubandhu’s self-commentary, and Chim Jamphel Yang's Clear Ornament Commentary to the Treasury.

Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra by Kirti Losang Trinle
A condensed explanation of the subjects covered in Lama Tsongkhapa’s Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path of Mantra. This text presents the most important features of the four classes of tantra as well as the initiation procedures and particularities of the deity yoga related to each class, with emphasis on the spiritual grounds and paths of highest yoga tantra.

To study the Grounds and Paths of Tantra, it is necessary to have received a highest yoga tantra initiation from a qualified teacher, including the bodhisattva and tantra vows and commitments.

The Two Stages of the Guhyasamaja Tantra by Aku Sherab Gyatso
A thorough explanation of the generation and completion stages related to Guhyasamaja. The presentation of the generation stage includes an explanation of the visualization and generation of the mandala and deities and how to carry death, the intermediate state, and rebirth into the path. The presentation of the completion stage discusses the six branches: the isolation of body, isolation of speech, isolation of mind, illusory body, actual clear light, and the union of clear light and the illusory body.

In order to study the Two Stages of the Guhyasamaja Tantra, it is necessary to have received the highest yoga tantra initiation of Guhyasamaja from a qualified lama.