Sangharakshita

Sangharakshita
At the Western Buddhist Order men's ordination course, Guhyaloka, Spain, June 2002
Religion	Buddhism
Dharma names	Urgyen Sangharakshita
Personal
Nationality	British
Born	(1925-08-26) August 26, 1925 (age 91) Tooting, London, England, United Kingdom
Senior posting
Based in	Coddington, England, United Kingdom
Religious career
Website	www.sangharakshita.org

Sangharakshita (born August 26, 1925 as Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood) is a Buddhist teacher and writer, and founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community, which was known until 2010 as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, or FWBO.

He was one of a handful of westerners to be ordained as Theravadin Bhikkhus in the period following World War II, and spent over 20 years in Asia, where he had a number of Tibetan Buddhist teachers. In India, he was active in the conversion movement of Dalits—so-called "Untouchables"—initiated in 1956 by B. R. Ambedkar. He has authored more than 60 books, including compilations of his talks, and has been described as "one of the most prolific and influential Buddhists of our era," "a skilled innovator in his efforts to translate Buddhism to the West," and as "the founding father of Western Buddhism" for his role in setting up what is now the Triratna Buddhist Community, but has also been criticised for having had sexual relations with Order members.

Sangharakshita formally retired in 1995 and in 2000 stepped down from the movement's leadership, but he remains its dominant figure, and lives at its headquarters in Coddington, England. Sangharakshita has often been regarded as a controversial teacher.

Sangharakshita was born Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood in , London, in 1925. After being diagnosed with a heart condition he spent much of his childhood confined to bed, and used the opportunity to read widely. His first encounter with non-Christian thought was with Madame Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, upon reading which, he later said, he realised that he had never been a Christian. The following year he came across two Buddhist texts—the Diamond Sutra and the Platform Sutra—and concluded that he had always been a Buddhist.

As Dennis Lingwood, he joined the Buddhist Society at the age of 18, and formally became a Buddhist in May 1944 by taking the Three Refuges and Five Precepts from the Burmese monk, U Thittila.