The Centre and the Triratna Buddhist Order and The Triratna Buddhist Community
The term Triratna Buddhist Community covers all of us who work, practice around, or simply attend any Triratna Buddhist Community, The Triratna Buddhist Order refers only to those who have been ordained. Those who have been ordained* are given a Sanskrit or Pali name as part of the (thorough and sometimes long) process of becoming ordained. On this page we introduce the faces of the four order members who you might see at the Blackburn Centre, with an attempt to help you pronounce their names!
The Triratna Buddhist Order is a radical alternative to the model found in many forms of Buddhism in Asia, where practitioners are either monastic or lay. The Order is open to any man or woman who is sincerely and effectively committed to the Buddhist path, not just to those seeking a monastic lifestyle.
Some Order members are full-time meditators, living a monastic-type life in a rural retreat centre; others live with friends, or with their families, or alone. Most Order members have ordinary jobs, expressing their values in a range of professions and vocations. All of those who work at the Blackburn Centre give their time freely. We run what is called a ‘dana’ economy. We do not charge for classes. Dana is the Sanskrit word for generosity.
Sangharakshita
The founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community, formerly the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.
Dennis Lingwood (later ordained as Sangharakshita) was born in 1925 in London into a working class family. At the age of sixteen, he read the Diamond Sutra and realised he was a Buddhist.
He was posted to the Far East during World War Two. After the war, he stayed in India, and became a Buddhist monk. He lived in Kalimpong in Northern India for many years, where he studied with teachers from several major Buddhist traditions, including Tibetan lamas. He also helped the revival of Buddhism in India, through his work with the followers of Doctor Ambedkar.
When he returned to England in the mid sixties, Sangharakshita saw that people were open to Buddhism, and he felt that they needed a fresh approach that would address the western mind.
He disrobed as a monk in the Theravada tradition and founded the FWBO in 1967. In setting up a new Buddhist movement, Sangharakshita did not have a blueprint, but he did have clear principles around which it would evolve. It was to be new movement, not an organisation. Commitment to the Buddha’s path was to be central.
Not surprisingly, Sangharakshita’s boldness and style and approach has had its critics. Some Buddhists from other traditions question his right to break with tradition in setting up a new non-monastic ordination. Some question his teaching and practice as regards to sexual ethics. At the same time, Buddhists from several traditions welcome Sangharakshita’s courage, asserting that he has made it possible for westerners to hear the Buddha’’s teaching afresh.
In 2000, on his 75th birthday, Sangharakshita handed over his responsibilities as Head of the Order to a group of senior order members .
In 2010 he felt that we should unify the two names of the Order, the Indian branch, the TBMSG with the WBO as we were one order, not two. Also we are opening centres in countries not considered to be "Western" in a geographical sense.
He currently lives at Madhyamaloka in Birmingham where he concentrates on writing.
The Only Way
One need, and one need only,
All earthly things above,
This world hath now as ever—
The need of boundless love.
One way, and one way only,
There is to outward peace—
The Great Heart of Compassion
Which bids all sorrow cease.
Poem by Sangharakshita
