‘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

‘Paradoxically, inspiration and spontaneity are the product of discipline and regular practice.  There is a gradual build-up of energy which gains momentum until finally we break free of all habits whatsoever, whether negative and unconscious, or positive and disciplined.’ Know Your Mind

Led by Tiratnaloka team + friends held at Adhisthana

‘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

‘Going for Refuge represents your positive emotional response - in fact your total response - to the spiritual ideal when that ideal is revealed to your spiritual vision. Such is its appeal that you cannot but give yourself to it.’ Going for Refuge

‘Beauty does give you some clue to the nature of reality.  There is also an ethical element, in as much as your whole being is tuned in to that experience of the beautiful through your imagination, you yourself are transformed, at least you are refined and sensitised.’  Seminar on the Kalama Sutta

‘Experiences on subsequent days included visions of ‘flowers’ made as though of flame, and of jewels of intense light, sensations as of a light trying to break through, as well as of vastness and emptiness, and an awareness of the importance and meaning of the White Lotus Sutra.’ The Rainbow Road

‘Morality is, as it were, the words of that most perfect of all poems, the holy life, the language which makes intelligent the secrets of spirituality.  Meditation and Wisdom... are its rhythm and its imagery.’ A Survey of Buddhism

‘The quest for holiness, which the study of the Dharma subserves, is a quest for spiritual wholeness, for complete integration of the ‘personality’ not with any subjective principle merely, but with Reality.’ A Survey of Buddhism

‘Nonetheless, there are times when, far from feeling that it was I who took on the responsibility, I feel that it was the responsibility that took on me. There are times when I am dimly aware of a vast, overshadowing Consciousness that has, through me, founded the Order and set in motion our whole Movement.’ My Relation to the Order