The Manchester Buddhist Centre is part of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), an international network dedicated to communicating Buddhist truths in ways appropriate to the modern world
The FWBO was founded in London in 1968 by Sangharakshita. Having originally taken ordination as a Theravadin Bhikkhu in India, during his twenty years practising Buddhism on the Indo-Tibetan border he went on to take initiations from a number of Lamas escaping the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
When he returned to England, he experienced first-hand the limited context in which Westerners had to practice the Dharma and his response was to found a new Buddhist movement.
Bringing Buddhism into an entirely new culture implied to Sangharakshita that we needed to go back to basics — to look at the principles underlying all forms of Buddhism and work out how best to apply them in this new context. So, the FWBO is an ecumenical movement, aligned to no one traditional school, but drawing on the whole stream of Buddhist inspiration.
The FWBO has evolved new structures that allow people to live out Buddhist teachings as an authentic Buddhist way of life in the 21st century. For example, the FWBO has many public centres where meditation is taught, and promotes Right Livelihood projects in which Buddhists can work together and turn their work into a spiritual practice.
A video entitled Who are the FWBO?
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox9zhke
Buddhism for the Modern World
In the Buddha’s time there was no mass media to compete with — no television or internet. The Buddha never had to be concerned about globalisation or global warming. But the FWBO is exploring how the Buddha’s teaching of human potential is still crucially important, how Buddhists can be socially engaged and contribute to a better world.
In the last forty years the FWBO has grown into a movement with dozens of centres all over the world. And not only in the West — the FWBO has a substantial presence in India, as well as Dharma activities in other developing countries.
Sangharakshita has now handed on responsibility for the FWBO’s spiritual vitality to his followers. The FWBO is entering a new phase of growth and consolidation, learning from, and building upon its history, and developing into a broad-based, mature and experienced spiritual community. It is playing a significant role in bringing Buddhism to the West.
FWBO on the web
The main FWBO website acts as a doorway to many other informative and fascinating sites, including
a list of FWBO retreats and retreat centres, Sangharakshita’s own site and Free Buddhist Audio for talks, led meditations and much more.
FWBO News is an online newsletter celebrating what’s going on around the FWBO and the TBMSG in India, and is the main medium for keeping in touch with ourselves as an international and very diverse sangha.
- Full list of links from the FWBO site
