Our community has attracted its fair share of criticism over the past 50 years, much of it valid and useful. You can read about the history of our development as a new Buddhist movement in the section on our story. Controversial issues involved have been widely debated over the years, and still are. Sometimes those issues have been quite serious, as around events at the Croydon Centre in the late 1980s. There has also been controversy surrounding the past sexual activity of our founder, Urgyen Sangharakshita, and others. 

In late 2016, some of the historical controversy around Sangharakshita, sex, and the early days of the FWBO was the subject of renewed discussion after the broadcast of a BBC programme looking again at this area. You can read the public response at the time from Triratna. Sangharakshita himself later made a statement about his own past and the College of Public Preceptors offered a further response. 

We treat reports of abuse extremely seriously and will investigate in accordance with the law and our model policies for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, which follow best practice in the UK. Listen to a podcast on Triratna safeguarding. If you have questions or concerns safeguarding [at] triratnadevelopment.org (please get in touch anytime).