The Manchester Buddhist Centre is part of the Triratna Buddhist Community, formerly 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 1967 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.
Returning to England, he experienced first-hand the limited context in which Westerners had to practise the Dharma and his response was to found a new Buddhist movement.
Bringing Buddhism into an entirely new culture suggested to Sangharakshita a need to go back to basics — to look at the principles underlying all forms of Buddhism and work out how best to apply them here. So, Triratna is an ecumenical movement, aligned to no one traditional school, but drawing on the whole stream of Buddhist inspiration.
Triratna has evolved new structures allowing people to live out Buddhist teachings as an authentic Buddhist way of life in the 21st century. For example, Triratna has many centres teaching meditation, and promotes Right Livelihood projects in which Buddhists can work together and turn their work into a spiritual practice.
A video, Who are the FWBO?
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox9zhke
Buddhism for the Modern World
In the Buddha’s time there was no television or internet to compete with. The Buddha never had to be concerned about globalisation or global warming. But Triratna 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.
Growing and changing
In the last forty years Triratna has grown into a movement with dozens of centres all over the world. And not only in the West — Triratna has a substantial presence in India, as well as Dharma activities in other developing countries, and its change of name from the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order reflects this.
Sangharakshita has now handed on responsibility for Triratna’s spiritual vitality to his followers. Triratna 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.
Compassion in action
Karuna was formed in 1980 as Aid for India, Triratna’s response to the suffering of India’s Dalit community and continues to work with some of South Asia’s most disadvantaged people
Triratna on the web
The main Triratna website acts as a doorway to many other sites, including a list of retreat centres, Sangharakshita’s own site and Free Buddhist Audio for talks, led meditations and study material.
Triratna News is an online newsletter celebrating what’s going on around the Triratna Buddhist Community
- Full list of links from the Triratna site
The Triratna Story
Published in May 2010, Vajragupta’s Triratna Story is an honest account of our movement’s growth, including an examination of mistakes made, lessons learnt and how a Buddhist community was built.
Available from the Buddhist Centre’s shop at £7.99
