Survey of Buddhism

Sangharakshita's A Survey of Buddhism has inspired readers for decades. The great Buddhist teacher and writer Lama Anagarika Govinda wrote, 'It would be difficult to find a single book in which the history and development of Buddhist thought has been described as vividly and clearly as in this survey.'

This first chapter illuminates the doctrines and methods common to all schools and draws out the transcendental unity of Buddhism. Written for practitioners rather than scholars, Sangharakshita covers the nature of the Buddha and Enlightenment, and outlines core doctrines of the Dharma. He argues for the priority of the wise and altruistic Bodhisattva as a goal of Buddhist practice.

Sangharakshita (1925-2018) was a Buddhist teacher who spent twenty years in India before returning to the United Kingdom and founding the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community (originally the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order). He was an important translator of Buddhism into western culture in the latter half of the 20th century.

Born in London as Dennis Lingwood, he became a Buddhist monk in India in 1949. He studied with Buddhist teachers from Theravada and Tibetan traditions, and spent several months each year teaching the dalit Buddhist followers of Dr B.R. Ambedkar. In 1964 he returned to the UK and established the FWBO (now Triratna) in 1967, drawing on the riches of the entire Buddhist universe, as well as helpful aspects of Western cultural traditions.

Sangharakshita was a prolific author, from his first major work A Survey of Buddhism (1957), to edited lectures and seminars, to a series of memoirs of his time in India and the West. His Complete Works have now been published in 27 volumes by Windhorse Publications. The Triratna Buddhist Order and Community is now a thriving worldwide movement, in which his teachings continue to inspire practitioners new and old.

For more, go to www.sangharakshita.org.