Sangharakshita with U Zauara (L)and U Kaweinda (R) after his Bhikkhu ordination 24th November 1950
Sangharakshita (1925–2018) was born Dennis Lingwood in London. It was in 1942, the summer he turned seventeen, when bombs were falling in the heat of the Second World War, that he read the Diamond Sūtra and realised he was a Buddhist. ‘It seemed,’ he wrote later, ‘I had always been one.’ In 1944 he was conscripted into the British army and over the following two years was stationed in India, Ceylon and Singapore – but wherever he found himself he still tried to follow the principles of the Buddhist path.
After the war he returned to India and, in August 1947, a few days after Indian Independence was declared, together with a Bengali friend, he donned the traditional saffron robe and took up the lifestyle of a wandering mendicant. Over the next two years he meditated and reflected deeply on the Dharma. It was in the Virūpākṣa Cave on the mountain of Arunachala in southern India that he had a vision of the Buddha Amitābha. He took this as a sign that his ‘apprenticeship to the homeless life had come to an end’ and it was time to seek ordination as a Buddhist monk. This took place in May 1949 at Kusinara, the site of the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa.
Sangharakshita then spent seven months with the first of his Buddhist teachers, Ven Jagdish Kashyap, an Indian Buddhist monk and scholar, who went on to make one of the most outstanding contributions to the revival of Buddhism in India. He was then teaching at the Hindu University in Benares. Sangharakshita studied with him Pāli, Abhidhamma and Logic. In the spring of 1950, Ven Kashyap took Sangharakshita to Kalimpong. His parting words to the twenty-four-year-old English monk were: ‘Stay here and work for the good of Buddhism’. In obedience to his teacher, he was to remain there for fourteen years.
Kalimpong was tucked away in north-eastern India, within sight of the some of the highest peaks of the snowy Himalayas. Situated at the end of a busy trade route from Lhasa in Tibet to India, it was a bustling meeting ground for the peoples of India, Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal, all of whom traded with Tibet.
It was in this setting that Sangharakshita began ‘working for the good of Buddhism’: he set up the Young Men’s Buddhist Association, founded Stepping-Stones, a ‘magazine of Himalayan religion, culture, and education’, and for many years edited the Maha Bodhi journal which became the leading English-language Buddhist periodical of its time. He also founded a Vihara which emphasised all three yānas or paths of the Buddhist tradition. This was hailed by Lama Anagarika Govinda at the time as unique, East or West.
During these years, on three occasions, he met the great Dr B.R. Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution and leader of the mass conversion movement of the downtrodden Hindu ‘outcastes’ into Buddhism, thus freeing them (and himself) from ‘the hell of caste’. The example of Dr Ambedkar’s life and work affected him so powerfully that almost every year from 1956 until he left India he devoted some months to visiting the new Buddhists of India and teaching them the Dhamma. Through all his work, Sangharakshita formed friendships – including some deep spiritual friendships – with a wide variety of people from diverse backgrounds and very different spiritual traditions.
Kalimpong, India 1960s
Triyana Vardhana Vihara, Kalimpong 1950s
In the years after China entered Tibet in 1950, Tibetan refugees, including many famous Buddhist monks and lamas, increasingly found their way to Kalimpong. It was among these Tibetans who had fled Tibet that Sangharakshita met six of his Buddhist teachers.
He already had a profound grasp of the fundamental principles of the Dharma as reflected in all the main Buddhist traditions, so he was in an exceptionally unique and fortunate position to avail himself of some of the teachings of these great masters who, but for being refugees, might never have left Tibet. Meditation practices from these precious teachers have come down to us through Sangharakshita and are now kept alive by the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community.
One of Sangharakshita’s teachers from Kalimpong, Yogi Chen, was not a Tibetan but a Chinese hermit with an astonishing understanding of the vast Chinese recension of Buddhist texts. He spent most of his time in meditation in his small hermitage in the centre of the town.
Of Sangharakshita’s Tibetan teachers, Kachu (Khachöd) Tulku was the chief lama of Sikkim, the small kingdom to the north of Kalimpong. Dhardo Tulku was considered a very high lama of one of the largest monasteries in Tibet but had the good fortune not to be in Tibet at the time of the Chinese invasion. He had been in India since 1949, residing in Bodh Gaya and Kalimpong Both these lamas were life-long monks who were considered to be tulkus i.e. rebirths of previous lamas.
Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Dudjom Rinpoche were also tulkus of previous renowned lamas of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, quite famous in their own right. They are addressed by the honorific ‘Rinpoche’ which means ‘Precious One’.
Also styled ‘Rinpoche’ was Chattrul Sangye Dorje. He was neither a monk nor a tulku but an unattached (chatral) wandering yogi who sometimes lived and meditated in caves for years at a stretch and at other times travelled the land searching for caves where great yogis had meditated, for stupas, holy lakes and mountains. He was unconventional and unpredictable and highly sought after as a teacher – if you could find him!
Buddha Jayanti festival procession in Kalimpong, India. 1956
Sacred relics leaving Kalimpong, India, in procession. 1951
Celebration at Tharpa Choling Monastery, Kalimpong. Early 1960s
Khachöd (Kachu) Rinpoche demonstrating a mudra to Sangharakshita
These eight extraordinary men were regarded by Sangharakshita as his primary Buddhist teachers. They each recognised the depth of his commitment to the Three Jewels and the seriousness of his practice of the Dharma and responded by giving initiations and teachings. He for his part took great inspiration not only from their teachings but also from the example of their lives imbued as they were with the qualities of Wisdom and Compassion. The inspiration from these great teachers has entered into the life of the Triratna Buddhist Community.
All the items displayed in the exhibition are from Sangharakshita’s personal collection. Many are directly connected to his teachers. We have brought together objects, photographs, paintings, books and texts to try and evoke something of the relationship Urgyen Sangharakshita had with them. Some objects might seem prosaic, others esoteric; some may be puzzling and others inspiring. Reflecting on all the various objects here, and who they came from, can be a rich source of inspiration – how a young man from a London suburb could meet, communicate with, understand, and learn from these great Indian, Chinese and Tibetan teachers.
“I look up to Jagdish Kashyap, who taught me Pāli and Abhidharma.
I look up to Chattrul Sangye Dorje, who gave me the Green Tārā initiation.
I look up to Kachu Rimpoche, who gave me the Padmasambhava sādhana.
I look up to Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche, who initiated me into the sādhanas of Mañjughoṣa, Avalokiteśvara, Vajrapāṇi, and Green Tārā
I look up to Dudjom Rimpoche, who initiated me into the Vajrasattva sādhana.
I look up to Dhardo Rimpoche, who initiated me into the White Tārā sādhana
and gave me the Bodhisattva precepts.
I look up to Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche, who introduced me to the Yellow Jambhala, to Amitabha Phowa, and to Kurukullā.
To Yogi Chen, too, I look up, who shared with me the treasures of Vajrayāna and Chan.”
Urgyen Sangharakshita — Some Reflections on the Garava Sutta (2017)