What is the FPMT Online Learning Center?

Perhaps you’ve studied Buddhism for years in a town with no Buddhist center and feel you have no one to talk to about progressing on the path. Maybe you already participate in online social forums and would love to do so with a spiritual community. Or perhaps a question arises at 3:00 a.m. that needs an answer ASAP. Launched in spring 2009, the FPMT Online Learning Center provides an enormous opportunity for students to learn who, for whatever reasons, are unable to study onsite at a center but still want to benefit from the comprehensive programs developed by FPMT Education Services.

Even for those who already belong to a center, the Online Learning Center may offer additional connection and resources. Not only does this new forum cater to a growing number of people attracted to studying from the comfort of home, but also to a younger generation raised on Internet technologies.

Discovering Buddhism, FPMT’s first education program to be adapted to an online format, takes advantage of online forums, allowing individuals to communicate with teachers and fellow students. This is particularly useful for people who live isolated from other practicing Buddhists. Additionally, the forums also allow students to ask technical questions in case any problems with accessing content should arise.

Furthermore, the online format allows the program to effectively utilize video and audio, providing opportunities for more types of learners to feel engaged with the material. And by inter-linking to other resources, students of online courses have easier access to all the relevant and related materials on other FPMT-affiliated websites without the hassle of researching for the materials themselves.

By providing materials through the Online Learning Center, FPMT can also provide continuously updated materials to students quickly, easily and inexpensively, eliminating the need for students themselves to necessarily own and store hardcopy versions.

Visit the Online Learning Center

There are two ways to take advantage of this new online opportunity:

1. You can purchase individual modules of the programs at the Foundation Store. Choose the “online” version of your selected module.

2. You can gain access to the Online Learning Center, at various levels of involvement, by becoming a Friend of FPMT. Most Friends of FPMT levels also include a year’s subscription to Mandala Publications, which includes both print and online content.

In celebration of FPMT Education Services’ first adaptation of an education program to the Internet, the second module of Discovering Buddhism, “How to Meditate,” is being offered for free. For details, please visit http://onlinelearning.fpmt.org/