Triratna Buddhist Community

arose from this thought: Wherever Buddhism has put down roots and flowered, it has done so by adapting to the prevailing culture. The TBC draws from venerable Buddhist traditions to develop a viable strain of Buddhism for today.

Keep in mind that you cannot practice Buddhism or meditation simply by reading about it. You have to do it.

Sangharakshita, conscripted in World War II (as Dennis Lingwood) and posted to Ceylon / Sri Lanka, stayed in South Asia for the next 20 years. During that time, Theravadin elders ordained him as a monk in their tradition, naming him Sangharakshita. Both before and after his ordination, he visited and lived in different parts of India.

In India, Sangharakshita made a point of studying and directly observing as much as he could of the various religious traditions that surrounded him. Buddhists from Tibet, living in Northern India at the time, influenced him in ways that carry over into the TBC today.

When Sangharakshita returned to England, he saw the need for a Western Buddhism and started working on the chain of cause-effect-cause...that ends up, for now, with your reading this. Of course it does not end there. Nothing ever does.

For a brief bio, please click here: Sangharakshita