Sangharakshita starts by reading an extract from Facing Mount Kanchenjunga. He follows this by talking about and reading eight poems that he composed in Kalimpong which give a real feel for his appreciation of the place but also for his worries about the effect of logging in the mountains.
An editorial in the Maha Bodhi written nine months after the great conversion to Buddhism of hundreds of thousands of Dr Ambedkar's followers in 1956, in which Sangharakshita protests against the removal of eligibility of the new Buddhists to the scholarships and other educational concessions they were previously granted as members of the Scheduled Castes.
An editorial in Maha Bodhi written shortly after the occassion of Dr Ambedkar's death at the end of 1956.
A short editorial for Maha Bodhi written shortly after the occasion of Dr Ambedkar leading hundreds of thousands of his followers to convert to Buddhism in 1956.
A commentary based on a question-and-answer session given on a men’s ordination retreat in Tuscany, Italy, in 1986. Study groups on the retreat had been studying Dr Ambedkar’s article and were ‘finding their bearings in the Indian world’, as one of the participants explained. In the commentary, Dr Ambedkar’s article is quoted section by section, followed by Sangharakshita’s comments and reflections in answer to the seminar participants’ questions.
An excerpt from Great Buddhists of the Twentieth Century
In 1995 Sangharakshita gave a lecture at the London headquarters of the Maha Bodhi Society, which was founded by Dharmapala, the first of Sangharakshita’s choice of five great Buddhists. Sangharakshita had a connection with the society going back some fifty years, and edited its publication, the Maha Bodhi, for twelve years from 1952. The lecture was given – by an unforeseen but auspicious coincidence – on 14 October, the anniversary of the great mass conversion initiated by Dr Ambedkar in 1956.
For his first public talk for over four years, Sangharakshita visited the London Buddhist Centre on Saturday 14th October 2006.He talked about his personal memories of Dr Ambedkar, the plight of the Dalits in India, and the mass conversion of these so called 'Untouchables' to Buddhism exactly 50 years earlier, in 1956, led by Dr Ambedkar. He reflected on how this work has continued since Dr Ambedkar’s death that year.
The second of Sangharakshita's memoirs which covers the period 1950-1953, beginning with Sangharakshita’s arrival in Kalimpong as a twenty-four-year-old novice monk.
A collection of letters from Sangharakshita to his friend Dinoo. Complete Works publication includes an appendix by Kalyanaprabha on his friendship with Dr Mehta, which he talks about in the letters.
The fourth of five books of Sangharakshita's memoirs, Precious Teachers covers the latter seven of Sangharakshita's fourteen years in Kalimpong.
This period includes all twelve of Sangharakshita's tantric initiations, and the remarkable Tibetan masters who gave them to him. There's also a host of other remarkable figures who come to stay at Sangharakshita's vihara, including Jivaka - the first person to undergo a medical transformation from female to male, as well as fellow English monk Khantipālo.
One could see the Urgyen House exhibition ‘Precious Teachers’ as a companion to this book.