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Moving Against the Stream
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Moving Against the Stream

The Birth of a New Buddhist Movement
By Sangharakshita
ISBN 9781899579112
Read by Subhadra
In 1964 Sangharakshita, the seniormost Buddhist monk of British birth, left India for a visit to the UK. After twenty years in the subcontinent - travelling and lecturing, writing, working among the most deprived, and extending and deepening his knowledge of the Dharma - he had been invited by leading British Buddhists to help resolve tensions in the British Buddhist scene. While he was trying to ease conflicts and create harmony, an unexpected turn of events brought Sangharakshita to a crucial decision.
This fourth volume of memoirs, covering the years 1964 to 1967, deals with Sangharakshita's return to Britain and describes the difficulties he encountered in his attempts to unite English Buddhists. We witness the turning point at which he decided to dedicate his life to working 'for the good of Buddhism' in his native land. This culminated in the birth (in a shop basement in central London) of a new Buddhist movement. Thirty-six years later the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order is spreading the Buddha's message in more than twenty-six countries around the globe.

An extract from Moving Against the Stream

In recent years people sometimes ask how long did it take me to adjust to living in England, after my 20 years in East. In fact it took me no time at all. I might even say that the idea that one needs time to adjust to a new situation or set of circumstances and has just to sit there adjusting for a few weeks or months before being able to do anything, was meaningless to me, not to say absurd....There was no question of my being given an emotional shock by the new situation and no question therefore of my needing time to recover from that shock.

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