Maitri Media

The Maitri Project creates cinematic media that weaves ancient wisdom into powerful, modern storytelling. Working with world class, award winning directors, photographers, editors, and production teams around the world, we produce films like Rise of the Geshema that document living wisdom traditions and the women and men who keep them alive. Each project is both a preservation of fragile lineages and a vivid doorway for new audiences to connect with these teachings and the communities that depend on them.

Rise of The Geshe-Ma

In the remote Indian Himalayas, a quiet revolution is unfolding. Rise of the Geshe-Ma reveals the untold story of Tibetan Buddhist nuns who have broken centuries of tradition to earn the highest monastic degree the Geshe. Filmed inside hidden nunneries and sacred courtyards, this intimate portrait captures the fierce wisdom and spiritual awakening led by these trailblazing women.

For generations, the Geshe degree was out of reach for women. Through quiet perseverance and years of deep study, these nuns have gently shifted what was once thought fixed. Rise of the Geshe-Ma follows their journey, not in defiance of tradition, but as a natural unfolding of it. Their story is a testament to devotion, scholarship, and the slow, powerful rhythm of change within monastic life.

Sera Mey’s Gyalrong House

Sera Monastery

Founded in 1419, Sera Monastery is one of the three great monastic universities of the Gelugpa tradition within Vajrayana Buddhism. Now based in Karnataka, it remains a vital center for the study of ethics, logic, compassion, and Buddhist mind science. Home to more than 5,000 monks, Sera offers a course of study comparable in rigor to an Ivy League education, shaped by profound discipline and refined conduct. Within Sera, Gyalrong College has received a significant influx of new monks, pushing housing far beyond capacity. To sustain their development of the heart and their rigorous study of consciousness, a new dormitory is urgently needed.

Gyalrong College has produced some of the most influential teachers of the modern era, including Pabongka Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, whose teachings helped bring Buddhist wisdom to the West. Today, Gyalrong stands as a living beacon of peace, meditation, loving kindness, and insight for practitioners around the world. Through the efforts of The Maitri Project, six apartments for the new Gyalrong House have already been completed, a meaningful milestone made possible by collective generosity. More apartments remain to be built. A donation at this moment directly supports the continuity of these ancient lineages and the daily lives of the monks who uphold them, ensuring that this living tradition of wisdom and compassion continues to benefit the world.

Three young boys or monks sitting cross-legged on the floor in a prayer or meditation pose, dressed in pink and red robes, with a plain wall and window in the background.
Three young Buddhist monks sitting in a classroom, looking at the camera, with notebooks on the desk.
Monk and young boys in pink robes sitting on a red carpet, engaging in a learning activity inside a Buddhist temple.
A group of young Buddhist monks meditating in a prayer room, all seated on cushions with closed eyes, practicing mindfulness or prayer.