User:James Paul-W

Timeline of Events Towards Establishment of the New Kadampa Tradition

1976 Creation of Manjushri Institute and Invitation to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

• July 1- Manjushri Institute was legally established as a charitable trust with four Trustees: Lama Yeshe, Peter Kedge, Harvey Horrocks, and Roy Tyson – and Lama Yeshe as Spiritual Director – Legally these four trustees had complete ownership of and control over Manjushri Institute.

• Manjushri Institue purchases Conishead Priory, a neglected Victorian mansion in Ulverston, England is purchased for £70,000.
• August Some members of the group moved from the London area to Conishead Priory
• Kelsang Gyatso is invited from India to teach the General Program at Manjushri Institute:

• Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche visited him to make this request, they sought the advice of the 14th Dalai Lama when choosing Kelsang Gyatso.
• Kelsang Gyatso later recounted that after a request from Lama Yeshe, Trijang Rinpoche suggested he teach Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Chandrakirti's Guide to the Middle Way and Lamrim, and then check whether there was any meaning in his continuing to stay."

1977 Kelsang Gyatso Arrives at Manjushri

• August: Geshe Kelsang arrived at Manjushri Institute and became the first Resident Teacher at Manjushri Institute

1978 Kelsang Gyatso Resignation, Petition to Stay and Plans to Sell Manjushri Institute

• Kelsang Gyatso Establishes Madhyamaka Center in York under his own Spirtual Direction
• Lama Yeshe sends letter to Kelsang Gyatso asking him to step down as Resident teacher at Manjushri Institute
• Kelsang Gyatso agrees to step down
• Geshe Rabten (on knowing about the resignation) invited Kelsang Gyatso to teach at Tharpa Choeling Buddhist Centre in Switzerland for three months and teach Dharmakirti’s Commentary to Valid Cognition, and Geshe Kelsang accepted this invitation.
• Community at Manjushri request Geshe Kelsang to stay. Everyone signed a card petitioning Geshe Kelsang to remain, and said that they would take responsibility for preventing any problems between Manjushri Institute and FPMT. Representatives of the community, including Jonathan Landaw, visited Geshe Kelsang and gave him the letter from the community, and requested him to stay.
• Geshe Kelsang accepts the request from the community although this decision was against Lama Yeshe’s wishes, he believed the Manjushri Institute community was purely motivated.
• Peter Kedge, the principal officer of FPMT made plans to sell Conishead Priory to raise funds for FPMT’s business projects in Hong Kong. Later it became clear that Lama Yeshe was in agreement with these plans.

1979 Establishing the Geshe Studies Program

• Lama Yeshe asked a Geshe at Manjushri Institute, Geshe Jampa Tekchok, to teach a twelve-year Geshe Studies Programme, recognised and validated by the Dalai Lama and modelled on the program of studies for the traditional geshe degree.

1981 Proposed Sale of Manjushri Institute

• January: Lama Yeshe appointed Chip Rodarmor (later Gen Tharchin) as acting Director.
• At first Chip made efforts to sell the building, but Geshe Kelsang gradually encouraged him not to.

1983: Peter Kedge Appointment Rejected & Manjushri Institute Vote to Separate from FPMT

• January Chip offered Lama Yeshe his resignation, it was not accepted
• May -

• Peter Kedge arrived unannounced to take over as Director.
• Peter Kedge began to take over the Office, changed the bank accounts, and planned to remove the Institute’s managers.
• Peter Kedge toldd Geshe Kelsang that he and his students may have to move out within six months because he was going to sell the building

• June: The Institute’s managers – then called the “Priory Group” – requested Geshe Kelsang for help and he accepted.
• July

• Geshe Kelsang and the Priory Group wrote to Peter Kedge refusing to accept him as Director and stating their wish that Manjushri Institute formally separate from FPMT.
• A meeting was called and the community was asked to vote on two proposals: (1) that Manjushri Institute separate completely from FPMT, and (2) that Roy Tyson remain as Manjushri Institute Director. Of those who signed: forty-four people voted “yes” to both proposals (this number excluded the Priory Group of eight members); eleven abstained; and two voted “no”. Unfortunately, this was a disappointment to Lama Yeshe

• August: After this meeting the Priory Group wrote to Peter Kedge telling him to leave by a certain deadline or the Police would be called to remove him. Peter Kedge then left.

Also in 1983

• The Priory Group made two requests to Lama Yeshe:

(1) to change the constitution of Manjushri Institute so that it belonged to the public and not to four private individuals , and

(2) that he remain as Manjushri Institute’s Spiritual Director and Spiritual Guide continually throughout his life and for life after life.

• Letters received from Lama Yeshe indicated that he was unhappy with Manjushri Institute. He mainly expressed his displeasure and did not agree to change the constitution.
• The Priory Group wrote many letters to the FPMT managers, especially to Peter Kedge; but the request to separate from FPMT and create a new constitution were continually rejected .
• The Priory Group then began to prepare legal proceedings against the FPMT managers.
• Zong Rinpoche stays at Manjushri Institute

1984 Manjushri Institute becomes Independent from FPMT and Death of Lama Yeshe

• When the FPMT managers realized that this legal action was being prepared, they requested the Dalai Lama’s Office to send mediators to help solve the problem.
• February 13 &14

• Then at London Manjushri Centre there were two days of meetings with the Dalai Lama’s two representatives, Peter Kedge and Harvey Horrocks as FPMT representatives, Geshe Kelsang, the Priory Group, and two Manjushri community representatives.
• With the Dalai Lama’s representatives, both sides reached a peaceful agreement to formulate a new constitution such that Manjushri Institute would be owned publicly. A legally binding agreement was made, which was signed by the FPMT’s representatives, Kelsang Gyatso, the Priory Group and the community representatives.
• Another part of the agreement was to confirm that Lama Yeshe was the Spiritual Director of Manjushri Institute. The community did not want to separate from Lama Yeshe, only to separate from FPMT."

• March 3: Lama Yeshe Dies

1985 A New Constitution for Manjushri Institue

October: Four new Trustees of Manjushri Institute were appointed, two chosen by FPMT and two by Manjushri Institute. A new constitution was formulated

1987 to 1990 Kelsang Gyatso Retreat, New Books and Visiting Teachers

• Kelsang Gyatso made a three-year retreat in Dumfries, Scotland
• Geshe Losang Pende from Ganden Shartse monastery was invited by Kelsang Gyatso to lead the General Program in his absence
• During Kelsang Gyatso's period of retreat he wrote some of his books and worked out the foundations of the NKT.
• Kay states: "The first major development that took place during Geshe Kelsang's retreat was the introduction of the 'Teacher Training Programme' (TTP) at the Manjushri Institute."

1990 Kelsang Gyatso Teaching Tour of USA and Removal of Dalai Lama Pictures

• Kelsang Gyatso teaches in the USA, including visiting the centre of Geshe Lhundup Sopa
• Pictures of the Dalai Lama are removed from Kelsang Gyatso's centres to clarify he was not a lineage Guru within those centres

1991 Formation of the New Kadampa Tradition

• April: Geshe Kelsang announced he creation of the NKT by sending a letter to his centres inviting them to be members of a worldwide family

1992 Manjushri Institute is Dissolved

• A new charitable company Manjushri Mahayana Buddhist Centre was incorporated, which was completely independent of FPMT. Manjushri Institute then passed all its assets to the new charity and dissolved. |ref name=mdk1></ref>
• The Manjushri Institute was renamed the Manjushri Mahayana Buddhist Centre, and later the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre. Since then, it has remained the NKT's flagship centre.
• Manjushri Institute Library, with over 3,000 books, removed.
• From this point onwards, only students of Kelsang Gyatso would teach within his centres.

Different Views on these Events

According to a disciple of Lama Yeshe from this time, Lama Yeshe intended the institute "to become the central monastery of the FPMT... one of the early jewels of the FPMT crown" and "the pioneer among the western centres". Kay sees the opening of Madhyamaka Centre in 1978 as the beginning of a conflict between Thubten Yeshe and Kelsang Gyatso. However, according to Kelsang Gyatso, "the opening of the Centre in York caused not one moment of confusion or disharmony". In the following years prior

Both Kay and Cozort describe the management committee of Manjushri Institute from 1981 onwards as made up principally of Kelsang Gyatso's closest students, also known as "the Priory group". According to Kay, "The Priory Group became dissatisfied with the FPMT's increasingly centralized organisation."

Cozort stated that different disagreements "led to a rift between Lama Yeshe and his students and Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and his, and eventually the Manjushri Board of directors (comprised of Geshe Gyatso's students) severed the connection of the between institute and FPMT." According to Kay, Lama Yeshe tried at different times to reassert his authority over the institute, but his attempts were unsuccessful.

The visit of Thubten Zopa in 1988 "is significant, indicating the ongoing devotion of the students to this lama and their desire to leave the negativity of the schism with the FPMT in the past."

===Part with Kay given full range of opinion - what to do?===

According to Kay, Kelsang Gyatso was gravely concerned that the purity of Tsongkhapa's tradition was being undermined by the lingering inclusivism of his Western students, something he had been outspoken for some years. Kay states that another result of these "radically exclusive policies" was that after the foundation of the NKT

===DELETE THIS?===

Kay states that after the death of Thubten Yeshe in March 1984, the FPMT lost interest because they saw it as a fruitless case. Since that time, Kay stated, the Manjushri Institute has developed mainly under the guidance of Kelsang Gyatso without further reference to the FPMT, but legally remained part of the FPMT until late 1990.

===DELETE or MOVE to MANJUSHRI Institute ARTICLE=== 

According to Kay, of the two Geshes at Manjushri Institute, it was Kelsang Gyatso who had always taken the greater interest in the running and direction of the institute, and most of the students there were closer to him. The courses offered by both Geshes complemented each other, but as Kay remarked, they "differed in one important respect: only Geshe Kelsang's General Programme included courses on Tantric Buddhism, and attendance upon these required the reception of a Tantric empowerment."

In 1988 and 1990 the uncle of Kelsang Gyatso, Choyang Duldzin Kuten Lama, the oracle of Dorje Shugden, also visited Manjushri Institute. Before that time Song Rinpoche, Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Geshe Rabten, as well as other Buddhist teachers such as Ajahn Sumedho and Thích Nhất Hạnh have taught at Manjushri Institute.