Ethics to Insight

‘Love grows continuously like a ceaseless melody.  Love projects itself as open ended, with no set nature.  With no limited focus and being non-conceptual in its being, it exhibits the purity of body, speech and mind.  Thus love is transformed into compassion.’ Padmasambhava

‘Sangharakshita as Translator & Teacher’ Online Weekend 3

‘One brings what one has experienced on the mountain top down into the valley… or one brings what one has experienced in the depths up to the surface, from darkness into light.  It is in bringing down, or bringing up, of what one has experienced on the heights, or in the depths, of one’s own being, and giving it concrete form… that the essence of creativity consists’  St Jerome Revisited

What is the Order?

‘But there is something about the movement, the Order and even about me that is not easily definable. There is a touch of something that cannot be buttoned down, something that cannot in the end be defined. Even the desire to button it down or define it is a mistake – that was the mistake that the Theravada made in connection with its Vinaya. Everyone will need to take care of that rather mysterious, indefinable spirit that gives the movement life and energy.’ What is the Western Buddhist Order?

Regional Order Weekend October

‘I had the satisfaction of knowing that in founding the Western Buddhist Order I had founded a sangha or spiritual community that not only shared my realization that Going for Refuge was the central and definitive act of the Buddhist life but also shared … my conviction that that realization itself was capable of continued growth and development.’ The History of my Going for Refuge

Young Women’s Weekend: Unfolding the myth of our lives

‘You need to establish yourself in the right way of life, the right circumstances, and just leave it at that, just continue indefinitely in that way. Allow yourself to build up momentum. Allow your skilful lifestyle to have its effect over a number of years. This of course assumes that the lifestyle is one that really does suit you and is conducive to your growth and development.’  (Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship 2)

What is the Order?

‘But what was this [Triratna] Buddhist Order that after a year or more of preliminary work had suddenly blossomed lotus-like from the mud of the metropolis?  Essentially it was a body of people who had gone for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha and who, by virtue of that common spiritual commitment, now constituted a spiritual community - a spiritual community that symbolized on the mundane level, the same transcendental spiritual community or Sangha which was the third of those same Three Jewels to which they had gone for Refuge.’ The History of my Going for Refuge