In the heart of Portland, Maine, there is a community of individuals who are dedicated to the study and practice of Buddhism, based in the Nagaloka Buddhist Center. This community was formed in April of 2002, when a small group of people gathered in Portland for an introductory class on Buddhism, and were inspired by what they learned. The class was led by a member of the Western Buddhist Order (known since 2010 as the Triratna Buddhist Order) named Manapa. The Nagaloka Buddhist Center is an independent and self-governing center, but it operates as part of the larger international network of the Triratna Buddhist Order. Since 2002, the Nagaloka Buddhist community has grown to the point where they have now been able to provide their own meeting space, a center dedicated to the community and its pursuit of Buddhism.
Their mission, as they describe, is, “to create the best possible conditions in which to explore and practice the Buddhist path”, cultivating a vibrant spiritual community around the shared values of, “compassion, generosity, mindfulness, and the cultivation of wisdom”. As a part of the Triratna Buddhist Community, the Nagaloka Buddhist community derives much of their spiritual perspective from the teachings of Triratna’s founder, Sangharakshita.
Sangharakshita, born Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood, was a British man born in 1925 and raised in the Church of England. Lingwood became interested in Buddhism at the age of 16 when he read the Diamond Sutra for the first time, and felt that its message resonated with him. When the Second World War broke out, Lingwood was conscripted by the British Armed Forces as a signals operator, and was sent to Sri Lanka. After the war, he decided to stay in India, where he lived for two years as a wandering mendicant before taking ordination as a Theravadin Monk, and being given the name Sangharakshita, which means “Protected by the Sangha”. He was actually ordained as a monk in Sarnath, the very place where the Buddha gave his first teachings on the Dharma. He then lived in the Himalayan town of Kalimpong for over a decade, where he founded a monastic community as the first step in his effort to work toward the betterment of the Sangha. While in Kalimpong, he followed the Theravada Monastic code, meditating, studying the Dharma, and observing the traditional yearly Rains Retreat. Sangharakshita spent a total of 20 years in India before returning to the United Kingdom with plans to form what would become the Triratna Buddhist Order, eventually founding it in 1967. While living in India, Sangharakshita had a number of Tibetan Buddhist teachers who influenced his style and practice of Buddhism, however, he was interested in all aspects of Buddhism, and did not want to limit himself to the teachings of a single school. Because of this, the teachings of the Triratna Buddhist Order draw on practices of the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools of Buddhism.
One of Sangharakshita’s main focuses as a student of Buddhism and as a spiritual leader was the importance of the three jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. It is from this concept that the Triratna community take their name, as “triratna” is a Sanskrit term which refers to the three jewels. Sangharakshita believed that one of the defining aspects of Buddhism was taking refuge in the three jewels. It was this core value that he used to unify aspects of many schools of Buddhism in the order that he founded.
In founding the Triratna Buddhist Order, Sangharakshita was primarily interested in creating an ecumenical form of Buddhist study and practice that highlighted how Buddhist teachings are relevant in the modern day. Although he learned a lot about Buddhism from Tibetan Buddhist teachers, as a Westerner he was not as embedded in the Himalayan culture that sets Tibetan Buddhism apart from other forms of Buddhism. This outsider’s perspective allowed him to look more broadly at the spectrum of Buddhist teachings as he thought about how to more effectively introduce Buddhism to Western audiences. Rather than getting too caught up in the particularities that differentiate the various forms of Buddhism that have developed around Asia, he chose to focus on those fundamental ideas and values which drew him in, perhaps most importantly, the Sangha, or the Buddhist community.
As evidenced by the name he took after his ordination, Sangharakshita deeply valued the Buddhist community. To this day, the Triratna Buddhist Order works to build and strengthen the global Buddhist community, and also to make a positive impact on the local communities outside of the walls of their centers. At Triratna Buddhist Centers, such as the Nagaloka Center in Maine, members of the community support each other in their spiritual journeys as they study the Buddha’s teachings and practice meditation. As well as cultivating this internal bond between members, the Nagaloka Buddhist Center also holds introductory meditation classes for members of the local community who are not yet familiar with Buddhist traditions. These classes are often free to increase their accessibility to anyone who may be interested, asking only for suggested optional donations of five to ten dollars to the center. Through these introductory classes, the Nagaloka Center aims, in part, to spread knowledge of the Dharma, and to invite more people into their spiritual community. In addition to this, they also seek to introduce the more immediate physical and mental benefits of a mindfulness meditation practice even to community members who are of different faiths, or who do not necessarily have an interest in fully committing to a Buddhist path.
The Nagaloka Buddhist Center, keeping with the Triratna Order’s dedication to being a force for good in communities around the world, features a number of articles on the home page of their website written by spiritual leaders of both local and international communities about Buddhist teachings as they apply to various societally relevant topics. Over the past several months, as the issue of racial injustice has entered the public focus, the Nagaloka Center website has featured articles and online talks with Buddhist thoughts on the Black Lives Matter movement, and race relations in the United States.
Prior to the ongoing global pandemic, the Nagaloka Center held multiple weekly classes, which featured guided meditations accompanied by lessons and discussions about the Dharma, led by some of the community’s ordained members. Additionally, there were weekly study sessions, where members of the spiritual community could gather to further study the Dharma, and connect with each other. In response to the pandemic, they made the decision to suspend all in-person meetings and meditation sessions for the safety of the community, and since then have shifted to virtual online gatherings over zoom. They have offered a number of individual online classes for both newcomers and established community members, and have regular meetings on Zoom every Wednesday and Sunday. Each of these meetings begins with a guided meditation session, and depending on the day, ends with either a lesson on the Dharma or a more casual opportunity for attendees to meet and catch up with one another.
As I previously mentioned, the Nagaloka Buddhist Community does have a handful of ordained members, several of whom are founding members of the organization who went on to take ordination. From what I could gather, the majority of this community is white, including their ordained members, which makes sense as the growth of the Triratna Buddhist Community has mostly been focused in the West. It is interesting to note, however, that the Indian branch of the community, the Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha, is responsible for perhaps the most effective and widespread reintroduction of Buddhism to India.
While the teachings of the Triratna Buddhist Community are drawn from a variety of Buddhist sources from many different schools of Buddhism, there is still evidence of the community’s Theravadin origins. Traces of the Tibetan lineage that Sangharakshita was a part of can be seen in the styles of meditation practiced by the Triratna Buddhist Community. Along with the fairly universal Buddhist practice of mindfulness meditation, they also teach metta meditation to promote loving-kindness and compassion for all beings, a practice that Sanghrakshita initially learned from his Tibetan Buddhist teachers which became very important to his spiritual teachings.
Written by Alex Hubbard