Welcome to Sangharakshita's Site
This site, previously called 'New Poems by Urgyen Sangharakshita', now includes both poetry and prose (and drawings) by Urgyen Sangharakshita, founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) and Western Buddhist Order (WBO).
Biographical Note
Welcome to my website!
Some of you will have had personal contact with me, others will have known me only through my books and tapes, while yet others may not have heard of me before.
I was born in London in1925, of working-class parents, and grew up largely self educated. After a year in the retail coal trade and two years in local government service, I was conscripted into the Army and sent, at the age of 19, to India. Having realised that I was a Buddhist three years earlier, after reading the Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Wei Lang (Hui Neng), I was delighted (unlike some of my fellow conscripts) to find myself in the land of the Buddha.
After a year in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and a year in Singapore I returned to India, where I spent two years as a freelance ascetic, wandering from place to place, often on foot, living on alms, and meditating in caves and ashrams. During this period I met, and spent time with, a number of famous Hindu teachers, including Ananda Mayi, Swami Ramdas of Kanhangad, and Ramana Maharshi.
Contact with Hinduism served to confirm and deepen my faith in Buddhism, and in 1949 I was ordained as a samanera or novice monk in Kusinara. In 1950 I became a bhiksu or fully ordained monk in Sarnath.
Early in the same year the venerable Jagadish Kashyap, with whom I had been studying Pali, Abhidhamma, and logic in Benares, took me up to Kalimpong, a small town in the eastern Himalayas, and told me to stay there and work for the good of Buddhism. I stayed there for fourteen years, founded a Buddhist organization and a Buddhist magazine, and engaged in literary work, A Survey of Buddhism being published in 1957. I also had the good fortune to come in contact with a number of eminent Tibetan lamas. From some of them, including Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche, Dudjom Rimpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche, I received initiations and teachings.
With my monastery in Kalimpong as a base, I went on regular preaching tours in the plains, visiting every State in India except Kashmir. From 1959 I was involved in the movement of mass conversion to Buddhism inaugurated by Dr. Ambedkar, the great leader of the former Untouchables, now known as Dalits. Together with meditation and literary work, my work among the New Buddhists was a major preoccupation for many years.
In 1967, after a preliminary visit, I returned permanently to England, where I established the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (1967) and the Western Buddhist Order (1968). The former conducts city centres, retreat centres, residential communities and team-based right livelihood businesses in many parts of the world, while the latter comprises some 1,300 ordained members of a score of nationalities.
In the year 2000, at the age of 75, I handed on my responsibilities as Head of the WBO to a group of senior disciples, and despite recent ill health I continue to take an active interest in the Movement I founded. Over the years I have authored more than fifty books (for details see the bibliography on this website) and have given hundreds of lectures, many of which are available as recordings. Together with my commitment to Buddhism, I have always been deeply interested in Western philosophy, comparative religion, literature (especially poetry and drama), the fine arts, classical music, and history.
If you would like to write to me about any of the items on this website please feel free to do so. I shall try to respond. My email address is sangharakshita@fwbo.org 
Site last updated 22nd November 2006: 'Forty Three Years Ago' and 'The History of My Going for Refuge' added to Bookshelf
ONLINE BOOKS
Now available for free download as PDFs:
ONLINE AUDIO
Most of my lectures are available at Free Buddhist Audio.
See the site's bookshelf section. 
For further information, please visit:
· For books on poetry and Buddhism by Urgyen Sangharakshita
· For more information of Buddhism and the FWBO
Initial site design by Sunanda
Double click on images to enlarge