This four year course offers a great opportunity for Buddhist practitioners. It is a collaboration between five FPMT Buddhist centers: Shantideva Center New York (USA), Jamyang Buddhist Centre Leeds (UK), Institut Vajrayogini in Marzens (FR), Yeshin Norbu in Stockholm (Swe) and Maitreya Instituut (NL) and therefore the course is attended by an international group of Buddhist practitioners. The course is given in English, with French translation, online via Zoom. Recordings of both the teachings and meditations are made available to students after each session. It isn’t necessary to be available every week to join each session live; you can catch up in your own time through the recordings.If you’re enrolling later on in the course, it is possible to request access to recordings of previous classes.

IDMT Year Three: Practical details

Year Three will have 3 terms. 

Term 1 runs from Sept. 6 to Nove. 29, 2025 (total 13 classes). 

Term 2: Feb. 7 - April 4, 2026 (9 classes), 

Term 3: April 18 to July 4, 2026 (12 classes).

If you are starting as a new student in year 3, don’t worry. You will get some preparatory advice on what previous recordings to have a listen to.

IDMT Year Three: The Radiant Ground: Emptiness and Buddha Nature

This year’s journey will weave together the profound view of Madhyamaka, as presented by Nāgārjuna and his successors, with the compassionate vision of Tathāgatagarbha, the Buddha-nature teachings that reveal our deepest potential for awakening. Far from abstract philosophy, these teachings offer a radical reorientation of how we perceive ourselves and the world—pointing us beyond habitual grasping to a space of clarity, openness, and profound compassion.

Having cultivated the foundational practices of shamatha and vipashyana in the first year and explored Yogācāra’s profound psychology of ignorance and awakening in the second, we now turn to the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism: the nature of emptiness and the luminous potential that resides within every living being.

Guiding us in this exploration will be core texts from India and Tibet. Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā will serve as a central pillar, systematically dismantling the illusions of inherent existence. In dialogue with this, we’ll study Kamalashīla’s Stages of Meditation, a practical and accessible map for cultivating deep meditative insight grounded in the view of emptiness.

Balancing the radical freedom of Madhyamaka, we will encounter the warmth and encouragement of Maitreya’s Ratnagotravibhāga, a poetic illumination of the Buddha-nature within all beings. These teachings remind us that beyond confusion and conditioning, there is a basic goodness that has never been lost.

To ground these profound insights in daily life, we will also study the beloved text of Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, The Seven Points of Mind Training. With its pithy slogans and deeply practical tone, it offers tools for transforming adversity and cultivating bodhicitta on and off the cushion.
Throughout the year, our study and practice will be enriched by meditative teachings from both the Pāli and Sanskrit sūtra traditions, inviting a direct and experiential understanding of emptiness—not as a concept, but as a liberating shift in perception.

This year is an invitation to let the view of emptiness infuse your practice—not as abstract philosophy, but as living experience: clear, liberating, and rooted in compassion. Our aim is not to gather concepts, but to transform how we see and relate to the world. Through study, reflection, and meditation, we learn to meet life with less grasping, more openness—and a heart that naturally responds with wisdom and care, held by the strength of community.

Student’s interests & profile

• An interest in deepening your knowledge about and your practice in (Buddhist) meditation

• Previous experience in a form of meditation either in retreats or other courses

• A basic understanding of Mahayana Buddhism is a prerequisite, you do not need to be a (Mahayana) Buddhist 

• Experience of studying Buddhism previously for example the FPMT study programmes such as Discovering Buddhism, Exploring Buddhism or FPMT Basic Programme.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development:

• Authentic traditional instructions, in contemporary language

• A comprehensive set of meditation tools for students to transform their knowledge of the Dharma into personal experience.

• Traditional and modern theories on supplementary topics such as models of healthy psychological and spiritual development, ritual, narrative, ethics, and social engagement.

• An international community of meditators, online and live.

Venerable Losang Gendun

Venerable Losang Gendun has dedicated nearly four decades to practicing Buddhism and has served as a Bhikshu (Buddhist monk) in the Tibetan tradition for the past 18 years. Prior to his ordination, he worked in diverse fields such as palliative care, technology, refugee organizations, and commercial management. His extensive training includes ten years of studying Buddhist philosophy and practice in monasteries across France, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Additionally, he spent over four years in retreat, immersing himself in Tibetan sutra and tantra, as well as the Burmese Theravada Forest Tradition.

For the last 15 years, Ven. Gendun has been a dedicated teacher, sharing his knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and meditation worldwide. He serves the aspirations of H.H. the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche as part of the FPMT (Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition). He is a registered FPMT teacher. Ven. Gendun is also a member of Mind & Life Europe, a multidisciplinary laboratory that brings together researchers and contemplative practitioners to explore the nature of experience.

Beyond his Buddhist affiliations, Ven. Gendun serves as an interreligious canon at the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia, and feels at home at a Mevlavi Sufi dargah in Istanbul. In 2023, he founded The Buddha Project, which engages in long-term guidance for Buddhist meditators, scientific research, art projects, and inter contemplative social engagement.

If you want to hear Ven. Genduns story in his own voice, listen to the Wisdom Podcast.

Recommended Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support our teachers in their cost of living and we keep our centre going, for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme. The recommended donation per calendar month is £45. If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month. If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month. There are also other options for donating annually or per teaching month if you prefer. If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

To complement FPMT In Depth Meditation Training course there will also be:

• Meditation Retreats – 4 – 6 annual retreats on vipassana, compassion, and mahamudra, offered both live at one of the centers and online. There are also opportunities to do Home Retreats in your own time supported by recordings from the Annual retreats.

• Yogi Bootcamp – an intensive, guided 1-year meditation training with weekly personal interviews (call) for a small group of international students.

This meditation course is part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun, a branch of which is the Buddha Research Project, an on-going collaboration between Buddhist contemplatives and scientific researchers from the universities of Nîmes and Lausanne, and the Mind & Life organization (founded by neuroscientist Francesco Varela in collaboration with His Holiness the Dalai Lama). It is aimed at investigating transformative processes in long-term meditators, regarding such topics as mental-health, perception, and self-transcendence. For the initial research it has been granted a European Varela Award. You can find out more about the Buddha Project here