Looking Ahead to 2025

Next year will mark 100 years since Urgyen Sangharakshita was born. This is not just a large number; it’s an opportunity to reflect on the impact that one lifetime can have on the world, and particularly the world of Buddhism. It’s not just about looking back 100 years, but looking forwards into the centuries to come, and how Buddhists of the future can continue to Go for Refuge to the Three Jewels through a connection with Sangharakshita.

These are of course questions that go far beyond the scope of our Trust alone, so we’ve begun coordination efforts with other central Triratna institutions to ensure these centenary celebrations are joined up and build on each other to create a cohesive year across our community. We’ve convened a group of friends from Adhisthana, the College of Public Preceptors, Dharmachakra, International Council, the Order Office, and Windhorse Publications. Collectively, we’re working out what story we want to tell in 2025 and how we’ll do that with our various projects.

In terms of our Trust, we’re planning to use the year to tell Bhante’s Life Story for the first time in Hindi and Spanish, bringing those incredible series of events from 1925–2018 to vast amounts of people who are often highly devoted to Sangharakshita as a teacher but know relatively little about how he lived.

And Beyond...

Urgyen House contains a huge wealth of artefacts, including hundreds of paper documents: letters, diary entries, lecture notes, and much more. Some of these we’ve displayed in our first two Urgyen House exhibitions. Most of these documents are not yet digitised, meaning they are only accessible in-person and are more liable to deteriorate.

Cataloguing and digitising these documents will be a large project, and something our current finances don’t support. Over time, we want to improve our financial situation to allow us to take on this huge task.

Read the rest of our Year in Review here: https://www.sangharakshita.org/about/urgyen-sangharakshita-trust/annual-reports/2023-2024-annual-report