Teaching: Dharma Misunderstood

Sangharakshita never had a thorough grounding in traditional Buddhist doctrine and practice.  As a result, his approach to the Dharma is idiosyncratic, speculative, and in many places simply wrong, misleading his followers far from the realisation that the Buddha pointed to.  Various critiques of Sangharakshita's misunderstandings are presented here.

The following content has been tagged "Teaching: Dharma Misunderstood":

Why Triratna Cannot Support Insight

Buddhism is about “awakening”: shortly after the Buddha experienced this for himself, that was how he described it: “I am awakened”.  By this, any organisation which considers itself to be “Buddhist” must offer teachings and practices that lead to this goal. What has become clear is that Triratna cannot support true awakening, or “insight”, because true awakening is entirely different than the self-improvement scheme that Sangharakshita taught.

Sangharakshita's Version of Conditionality

This article explores why Sangharakshita’s unique understanding of “conditionality” was a profound misunderstanding of the Dharma, the teaching of the Buddha.  It is based on a public article, written by a Triratna order member in 2017, that explored Sangharashita’s “particular presentation” of the Dharma. 

The Order That I Joined

The Order depicted in this paper, and in the papers that have followed it, is very different from the Order I was told I was joining in 1993. In particular, the Order's relationship to Bhante, as portrayed in these papers, is fundamentally different from what I was led to believe when I was Ordained. This is not just the natural and organic development of what went before - it is, in some respects, a direct reversal of key principles that I had signed up to.

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