Thubten Norbu Ling: a Tibetan Buddhist center in Santa Fe, New Mexico

It was started twenty-one years ago by Ajna Seret. He’d been at Kopan Monastery in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal the year before where he was deeply moved by the teachings of the meditator Geshe Lama Konchog.

He learned there that Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who established the monastery with Lama Thubten Yeshe in 1970, the first of the centers that make up their Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, was planning to move the FPMT International Office to Taos, seventy miles north of Santa Fe, where he lived with his family. “I offered to show Rinpoche around when he came,” Ajna says.

The following year Ajna spent days with Rinpoche in Santa Fe and Taos, driving him around, organizing places to stay. He remembers well a conversation with Rinpoche and his attendant, Ven. Roger Kunsang, in a cabin in Questa, north of Taos. They were discussing the benefits of starting a center in Santa Fe and Rinpoche was suggesting that Ajna be the director. Ajna didn’t know what to say.

Finally, Rinpoche turned to him and said, “What would Geshe Lama Konchog say?”

Ajna thought about it for days. “It was a shock! I was 19. I had big plans to travel to India and Nepal. Running a Buddhist center was the complete opposite of what I thought I would do!” Finally, he realized that “since it came from Rinpoche, it was the right thing to do.”

He sat down with his parents, Ira and Sylvia, and came up with a plan. They were so supportive, offering their home as the venue and deciding to use the yurt in the back garden. “My mom was our marketing person, doing the ads, hanging up posters.”

Ven. Robina Courtin, who was then based at the International Office in Taos as the editor of FPMT’s magazine, Mandala, would come once a week to teach and lead meditations. And later, Ven. Connie Miller and Ven. George Churinoff were among the center’s regular teachers.

Ven. Robina remembers one thing well about the first teaching in the yurt. “It was a snowy evening and I fell into the adjoining pool!”

As the center grew, Rinpoche appointed Geshe Thubten Sherab and Gen Don Handrick as our joint resident teachers.

Moving from place to place through the years – many of them kindly offered by Ajna’s parents, and under the guidance of several kind directors, among them, Karen Meador, Rowena Mayer, and Alex Williams – we are delighted to now have bought our own property.

Five miles from downtown, our new center is a 5,000 square-foot former church sitting on three acres. The renovation of the building and development of the grounds are being overseen by our current executive director, Charmaine Hughes.

Our Los Angeles-based architect John Winston is honored to be involved in the project to help us “create a very happy building.” And renowned Feng Shui expert Hup Cheng, who runs the FPMT center in Singapore, has given us advice “to increase the center’s prosperity and harmony.”

“Even though these days our twenty weekly classes and meditations – given by Geshe-la, now our sole resident teacher, and a team of fifteen FPMT teachers worldwide – are held via Zoom, which attract an international audience,” Charmaine says, “we can’t wait to welcome our local community to enjoy our new building and beautifully landscaped grounds.”

We’ll have two event spaces to hold our many events, including Buddhist teachings and meditations, classes for children, and yoga and Qi Gong, as well as a vegetarian café and a bookstore.

“We envision it as a destination, not just for Buddhists but for everyone,” Charmaine says.