Teachers

Don Handrick

Don Handrick is a touring teacher for the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), sharing the Dharma with centers and study groups in North America and other parts of the world, both in-person and online.

Don’s study of Buddhism began in 1993 after reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Over the next two years he practiced with Sogyal Rinpoche’s organization, until he began attending classes in 1996 with Venerable Robina Courtin at Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco.

Don left the Bay Area in 1998 to attend the FPMT’s Masters Program of Buddhist Studies in Sutra and Tantra, a seven-year residential study program conducted at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Tuscany, Italy, taught by the scholar and kind Spiritual Friend, Geshe Jampa Gyatso. He successfully completed all five subjects of this program in 2004, receiving an FPMT final certificate with high honors.

Events with Don Handrick

Kopan West Lamrim Retreat
March 14 - 21, 2026

This is a Free, Pay It Forward Retreat! There are no fees for this retreat. The retreat is donation-based and offered freely to anyone who participates. It’s an experiment we started at 2012’s Kopan West – Lam Rim retreat in the spirit of making the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings) freely available to all. Your retreat is paid for by the generosity of previous Kopan West students who donated or “Paid It Forward” to support others in having the same heart-opening experience they had. This course is modeled after the famous 10-day Intro to Buddhism course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal.   About…