Triratna Day Celebrations
- Parami
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Sunday April 6th was the 58th anniversary of the founding of our community. Since 2025 is also the 100th anniversary of the birth of our founder and first Teacher, Sangharakshita (Bhante), Triratna day celebrations around the world focused on both. The online celebrations were called a Garland of Rejoicings and the rejoicings were about both the Triratna community and about Bhante. Over 3 sessions online there were talks from various Order members whose lives had been impacted by meeting Bhante and Triratna - some knew Bhante personally and some had come along too late for that and talked of meeting him through his writings or through meeting his more senior disciples. The recordings are available at this link:
Here in Glasgow we were fortunate enough to have a talk by Dharmachari Dharmapala, one of the very first people to meet Bhante back in the late 1960s and one of the people present and able to observe the founding of the Movement and the Order in 1967 and 1968 respectively. The talk came after a meditation together focussing on gratitude (and the obligatory tea break). We settled in to listen to the talk and we welcomed some folk from around Scotland to join us on zoom which was delightful. Thanks to Maitrinaga who oversaw our techie needs.
Dharmapala’s talk was fabulous. It was moving, funny, informative and insightful. It is always great to hear about the early days and Dharmapala was able to evoke some very interesting images of his experiences of knowing Bhante in those days. It is so good to get a sense of our origins and it was very entertaining. We also had some insights into the counter culture of the 60s which was certainly fertile ground for the creation of a new Buddhist Movement. Dharmapala was involved in the early days of sangha here in Scotland - in fact he was the very first Order Member I met when I stumbled into the Buddhist centre in Glasgow’s west end in 1977. As it was quite a personal and intimate talk, Dharmapala didn’t want it recorded so, for those of you who weren’t able to attend, I recommend that you take any chance you get to hear him talk. We will certainly invite him again on another occasion.
After a shared lunch, we celebrated a three fold Puja. After the second section - and the line “an ever-widening circle, the Sangha grows” - we left a space where people could speak out any thoughts or feelings about how Bhante and / or Triratna had impacted their lives. Unhindered by the rising crescendo of gospel singing coming up from our neighbours, the Unitarian church, quite a few folk shared and, as always it was very moving. Maybe it was actually augmented by the singing. I do love a bit of gospel and I sometimes wish we were as tuneful and passionate!
The official celebration ended after the puja but a handful of us stayed on together to watch the 4pm (UK time) session of international celebrations. I enjoyed the day and look forward to our next celebration day which is Buddha day festival on Sunday 4th May. There are details on the website.
Meanwhile: may all beings be well, may all beings find true happiness and its causes and may all beings be free from suffering.
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