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= Langri Tangpa Centre = Langri Tangpa Centre (LTC) is a Buddhist institution in Brisbane, Australia. It is affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an international non-profit organisation, founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche the Spiritual Director of the FPMT provide spiritual guidance and protection.

Spiritual Guidance
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso is the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He was born Lhamo Dhondrub on 6 July 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognised at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama, and thus an incarnation Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion.

Forced into exile in 1959 by the illegal Chinese communist colonisation of Tibet, which continues to this day, he has continued to inspire the Tibetan people and also inspires millions of others the world over. Unlike His predecessors who never came to the West, continues His world-wide travels, eloquently speaking in favor of ecumenical understanding, kindness and compassion, respect for the environment and, above all, world peace.

In 1989 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his unwavering advocacy of a non-violent solution to China's brutal occupation of his country.

Founder of FPMT
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered the great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where he studied until 1959, when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners.

In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and meditation centers—the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT)—began to develop.

In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in Spain in 1985, recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986, and, as the monk Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, began studying for his geshe degree in 1992 at the reconstituted Sera Monastery in South India. Lama’s remarkable story is told in Vicki Mackenzie’s book, Reincarnation: The Boy Lama (Wisdom Publications, 1996).

Spiritual Director
Rinpoche was born in Thami, Nepal, in 1946. At the age of three he was recognized as the reincarnation of Sherpa Nyingma yogi, Kunsang Yeshe, the Lawudo Lama. Rinpoche’s Thami home was not far from the Lawudo cave, in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, where his predecessor meditated for the last twenty years of his life. Rinpoche’s own description of his early years may be found in his book, The Door to Satisfaction (Wisdom Publications).

At the age of ten, Rinpoche went to Tibet and studied and meditated at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s monastery near Pagri, until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959 forced him to forsake Tibet for the safety of Bhutan. Rinpoche then went to the Tibetan refugee camp at Buxa Duar, West Bengal, India, where he met Lama Yeshe, who became his closest teacher.

The Lamas went to Nepal in 1967, and over the next few years built Kopan and Lawudo Monasteries. In 1971 Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the first of his famous annual lam-rim retreat courses, which continue at Kopan to this day. In 1974, with Lama Yeshe, Rinpoche began traveling the world to teach and establish centers of Dharma.

When Lama Yeshe passed away in 1984, Rinpoche took over as spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), which has continued to flourish under his peerless leadership.

1982 – 1997: A one-woman operation
Inta Mckimm, a Latvian refugee from the second world war, started LTC (then known as Chenrezig city centre) in the early eighties, after first meeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the famous diamond valley course in QLD in 1972. She ran the centre from her lounge, and financed it with her pension. Her bright dyed hair, elegant clothes and wild jewellery attracted a diverse group of students who found an oasis and spiritual home.

1997 – 2007: From a lounge room to an entire house
Lama Zopa Rinpoche bestowed the centre with a new name – Langri Tangpa Centre. It was at this time that Inta passed away from lung cancer. Her daughter Miffi Maxmillion left a costume business in Melbourne to run the centre and keep Inta’s life-work going. From running finances out of a biscuit tin, LTC had soon become an incorporated organisation. Khensur Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering gave regular teachings, and the class sizes grew until bursting at the seams.

2007 – 2012: Bigger is better
After four intensive years of searching we finally found a bigger premises at Camp Hill. On the strength of a 1-inch thick business plan, and Rinpoche’s advice to recite the Diamond Cutter Sutra many times, the centre received an unfathomably generous donation of $600,000 from one of its students. The centre secured a loan just a few months before the GFC dried up all credit worldwide, papers were drawn up, and the building was blessed by a great stupa holy relics tour within the first six months.

2012 – 2017: Coming home to Buddhism
LTC celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2012 and received a new logo from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It was at this time that a beautiful custom-made altar was installed and ready just one day ahead of the anniversary celebrations. A whopping 2,700 library books were catalogued. A life-size Buddha statue was installed in the bespoke altar.

Present day
The centre and its program continues to steadily grow, supported by LTC volunteers, LTC nuns, and visiting lamas from the FPMT. Most importantly, however, the centre remains a place for spiritual refuge for its students, visitors and the broader community - the living embodiment of Lama Yeshe’s “pamily peeling”.