The Complete Works of Sangharakshita
All twenty-seven volumes, one shelf
The definitive edition of a life’s work as a Buddhist writer and teacher — every previously published book, together with talks, seminars and writings appearing in print for the first time.
Browse the collection below. Each volume lists the works it contains, and links through to its hardback, paperback and eBook editions.
Foundation
The bedrock texts. Where the whole collection begins.
Volume 01
A Survey of Buddhism / The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path
- A Survey of Buddhism
- The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path
Two foundational texts that have inspired readers for decades. The Survey draws out the transcendental unity of Buddhism before turning to the teachings of the separate schools. In The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path, Sangharakshita leads us step by step from the mundane world to the transcendental as he vividly elucidates the Buddha's core teachings.
See the editions →Volume 02
The Three Jewels I
- The Three Jewels
- The Meaning of Conversion in Buddhism
- Going for Refuge
- The Ten Pillars of Buddhism
- The History of My Going for Refuge
- My Relation to the Order
- Extending the Hand of Fellowship
- Forty-Three Years Ago
- Was the Buddha a Bhikkhu?
You are a Buddhist because — and only because — you Go for Refuge to the Three Jewels. Nine texts composed over more than thirty years trace Sangharakshita’s unfolding insight into the meaning and centrality of Going for Refuge, including some of his most important communications to the Order he founded.
See the editions →Volume 03
The Three Jewels II
- Who is the Buddha?
- What is the Dharma?
- What is the Sangha?
The companion volume gathers three much-loved books. Original and imaginative perspectives on everything an introduction to Buddhism might cover — karma and rebirth, Nirvana and the spiral path, the nature of Buddhahood — alongside pragmatic guidance on individuality, fidelity, gratitude, parenthood and finding a teacher.
See the editions →Volume 04
The Bodhisattva Ideal
- The Bodhisattva Ideal
- The Endlessly Fascinating Cry (seminar)
- The Bodhisattva Principle
‘To consider this topic is to place one’s hand on the very heart of Buddhism, and feel the beating of that heart.’ The arising of the bodhicitta and the bodhisattva’s path to Enlightenment, followed by a commentary on Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra — a 1973 seminar given in the very early days of Triratna.
See the editions →Volume 05
The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation
- The Purpose and Practice of Buddhist Meditation
Can mettā take me all the way to Enlightenment? How much meditation is good for you? A substantial compilation in dialogue form, drawing on published work and unpublished seminar transcripts, revealing how Sangharakshita learnt the practices his ‘organic, living system’ is built on — and how that system evolved.
See the editions →Volume 06
The Essential Sangharakshita
- The Essential Sangharakshita
An anthology arranged according to the pattern of a mandala, drawn from Sangharakshita’s writing across many genres. Full of images and symbols, personal and traditional stories, poems and explanations — there is something here to give any reader an entrance to the world of the Dharma.
See the editions →India
Twenty years in the East, and the writing that came out of them.
Volume 07
Crossing the Stream: India Writings I
- Early Writings 1944–1954
- Crossing the Stream
- Buddhism in the Modern World
- The Meaning of Orthodoxy in Buddhism
- Buddhism in India Today
- Ordination and Initiation in the Three Yānas
- A Bird’s Eye View of Indian Buddhism
Essays written between 1944 and 1964 for journals such as Stepping Stones, The Maha Bodhi and The Middle Way. From The Unity of Buddhism, written in London at only eighteen, to the panoramic A Bird’s Eye View of Indian Buddhism, everything that distinguishes Sangharakshita as teacher, synthesizer and translator is already evident.
See the editions →Volume 08
Beating the Dharma Drum: India Writings II
- Anagarika Dharmapala and Other ‘Maha Bodhi’ Writings
- Dharmapala: The Spiritual Dimension
- Beating the Drum: ‘Maha Bodhi’ Editorials
- Alternative Traditions
Sangharakshita’s biography of Anagarika Dharmapala, founder of the Maha Bodhi Society, followed by ten years of editorials and columns written as its editor — sometimes poetic, sometimes trenchant. The third part collects book reviews spanning nearly fifty years, several written for the Times Literary Supplement.
See the editions →Volume 09
Dr Ambedkar and the Revival of Buddhism I
- Ambedkar and Buddhism
- Lecture Tour in India, December 1981–March 1982
How Ambedkar overcame the struggle of his early years to shape the Indian constitution and lead hundreds of thousands out of the caste system into Buddhism — and how, after his untimely death, Sangharakshita took on the challenge of teaching the new community. With 36 edited talks from the 1981–2 tour, many published here for the first time.
See the editions →Volume 10
Dr Ambedkar and the Revival of Buddhism II
- Remembering Ambedkar
- Buddha and the Future of His Religion
- The Mass Conversion and the Years After, 1956–61
- Lectures in India and England 1979, 1982–92
- Wisdom before Words: The Udāna
The dramatic history of the Buddhist revival in India: the mass conversion of 1956, Sangharakshita’s crucial visit to Nagpur at the time of Ambedkar’s death, and his teaching among the new Buddhists. The volume culminates in a commentary on the Pāli canon’s Udāna, with new translations of the verses by Dhivan Thomas Jones.
See the editions →The West
Bringing the Dharma home, and founding a movement.
Volume 11
A New Buddhist Movement I
- Ritual and Devotion in Buddhism
- The Buddha’s Victory
- The Taste of Freedom
- Buddha Mind
- Human Enlightenment
- New Currents in Western Buddhism
- Buddhism for Today – and Tomorrow
- Buddhism and the West
- Aspects of Buddhist Morality
- Dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity
- Buddhism and Blasphemy
- Articles and Interviews
Books, articles, interviews and talks from 1965 to 2009, chronicling Sangharakshita’s unfolding vision of the Dharma after his move to England. In The Taste of Freedom and Buddha Mind he clarifies what he calls the essence of his teaching: the necessity of human spiritual development, and its progress through a series of stages.
See the editions →Volume 12
A New Buddhist Movement II
- Buddhism and the Bishop of Woolwich
- Buddhism, World Peace, and Nuclear War
- Previously Unpublished Talks
Previously unpublished talks tracing the development of Sangharakshita’s presentation of the Dharma in the West from 1965 to 2011, including characteristic teachings in their earliest forms. Drawing on sources from the Pāli canon and The Tibetan Book of the Dead to Beowulf and Wordsworth; the final talks are more personal — dreams, old age and rebirth.
See the editions →Volume 13
Eastern and Western Traditions
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Creative Symbols of Tantric Buddhism
- The Essence of Zen
- The FWBO and ‘Protestant Buddhism’
- From Genesis to the Diamond Sūtra
Two very different angles on communicating Buddhism in the West. Early talks introduce the apparently exotic worlds of Tibetan Buddhism and Zen, clarifying their mysteries while letting them work their magic. Then two later papers examine Buddhist practice within Western culture — including autobiographical material found nowhere else in his written work.
See the editions →Commentary
Sangharakshita reading the tradition, sutra by sutra.
Volume 14
The Eternal Legacy / Wisdom Beyond Words
- The Eternal Legacy
- The Glory of the Literary World
- Wisdom Beyond Words
The volume that opens the sequence of commentaries. The Eternal Legacy introduces the canonical literature of Buddhism; ‘The Glory of the Literary World’ considers how that canon is to be approached, East and West. It closes with Wisdom Beyond Words, his much-loved commentary on several Perfection of Wisdom texts.
See the editions →Volume 15
Pāli Canon Teachings and Translations
- Dhammapada and Other Translations
- Living with Awareness
- Living with Kindness
- Auspicious Signs
- Salutation to the Three Jewels
- The Threefold Refuge
Sangharakshita’s own translation of the Dhammapada — ‘best known and best loved of all Buddhist scriptures’ — with other Pāli suttas, plus his commentaries on the Satipaṭṭhāna, Karaṇīya Mettā and Maṅgala Suttas. It concludes with The Threefold Refuge, exploring perspectives on Going for Refuge found nowhere else in his writings.
See the editions →Volume 16
Mahāyāna Myths and Stories
- The Drama of Cosmic Enlightenment
- The Priceless Jewel
- Transforming Self and World
- The Inconceivable Emancipation
‘Once upon a time there was a rich old man who lived in a vast mansion …’ Three of the best-loved Mahāyāna sūtras — the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, the Sūtra of Golden Light and the White Lotus Sūtra — read as worlds from which, if we pay close attention, we can return with treasures in the form of teachings and advice.
See the editions →Volume 17
Wisdom Teachings of the Mahāyāna
- The Way to Wisdom
- Living Ethically
- Living Wisely
- Know Your Mind
How much knowledge of the Dharma do we need? ‘A lot less than we think’ — but we need to use what we have well. Four works from seminars in 1976 and 1978: the five spiritual faculties, two studies from Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland on how to behave and how to see, and a Tibetan Abhidharma text on knowing your own mind.
See the editions →Volume 18
Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship I
- The Yogi’s Joy
- The Shepherd’s Search for Mind
- Rechungpa’s Journey to Enlightenment
The less well-known stories of Milarepa’s encounters with those he met and taught after his own Enlightenment. Seven of them trace his relationship with the disciple Rechungpa — proud, distracted, stubborn, over-attached to book learning, and very human. It takes all of Milarepa’s skill, compassion and patience to keep them together.
See the editions →Volume 19
Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship II
- Rechungpa’s Journey to Enlightenment, continued
The continuing story. Matters come to a head when Milarepa burns the books Rechungpa went all the way to India to acquire; by the end of the volume Rechungpa is able to set out on his own mission to teach the Dharma. Much happens in between — and much of it is advice for any would-be practitioner.
See the editions →Memoirs
A life told in five volumes, from Tooting to Kalimpong and back.
Volume 20
The Rainbow Road from Tooting Broadway to Kalimpong
- The Rainbow Road from Tooting Broadway to Kalimpong
Sangharakshita read the Diamond Sūtra the summer he turned seventeen, and it decided the whole future direction of his life. This first volume of memoirs describes how, from a working-class childhood in Tooting, he came to Kalimpong in the eastern Himalayas as a twenty-four-year-old novice monk — by way of the army and years as a wandering ascetic.
See the editions →Volume 21
Facing Mount Kanchenjunga
- Facing Mount Kanchenjunga
- Dear Dinoo: Letters to a Friend
The second volume of memoirs covers 1950–1953, beginning with Sangharakshita’s arrival in Kalimpong as a twenty-four-year-old novice monk and his response to his teacher’s injunction to ‘stay here and work for the good of Buddhism!’ Alongside it, the twenty-nine letters of Dear Dinoo span 1955–1974, giving a sighting of his life as he experienced it at the time — including the day of Dr Ambedkar’s untimely death.
See the editions →Volume 22
In the Sign of the Golden Wheel
- In the Sign of the Golden Wheel
- Precious Teachers
- With Allen Ginsberg in Kalimpong
The ‘middle period’ of the fourteen years Sangharakshita was based in Kalimpong, as the whole Asian world prepared to celebrate 2,500 years of Buddhism — from tea estates in Assam to a film studio in Bombay, and on to Nagpur, where he spoke to hundreds of thousands of Dr Ambedkar’s bereaved followers. Precious Teachers brings his own teachers to the forefront, among them Dilgo Khyentse, Dudjom and Dhardo Rimpoches, and Yogi Chen.
See the editions →Volume 23
Moving Against the Stream
- Moving Against the Stream
- 1970 – A Retrospect
Sangharakshita arrives back in England after twenty years in the East, expecting to stay no more than a few months. The months become years, and he realises it is here that he may best ‘work for the good of Buddhism’. Against a backdrop of 1960s Britain — and a friendship with Terry Delamare that was to be deeply significant — here is the answer to why he founded a new movement and Order.
See the editions →Volume 24
Through Buddhist Eyes
- Travel Letters
- Through Buddhist Eyes
Nineteen travel letters and one talk, covering journeys across five continents and two decades. The growing network of friendships, teams and communities comes alive in a late twentieth-century world of airports and motorways, Beat poets and visionary social activism — supplemented here with over 800 endnotes, twenty maps and illustrations.
See the editions →Poetry and the Arts
The poet, the aphorist, and the guide to the whole.
Volume 25
Poems and Short Stories
- Complete Poems 1941–1994
- Other Poems
- Short Stories
‘It is its spiritual background which gives to Sangharakshita’s poetry its depth and emotional appeal,’ wrote Lama Anagarika Govinda. Sangharakshita called his poems ‘a sort of spiritual autobiography’; this is the truly complete collection, with six short stories, two introductory essays, and a sequence of conversations about his poetry recorded towards the end of his life.
See the editions →Volume 26
Aphorisms, the Arts, and Late Writings
- Sayings, Poems, Reflections
- Peace is a Fire
- A Stream of Stars
- The Religion of Art
- In the Realm of the Lotus
- The Journey to Il Convento
- Saint Jerome Revisited
- A Note on The Burial of Count Orgaz
- Criticism East and West
- Buddhism and William Blake
- Urthona Interviews
- Madhyamaloka Reflections
- Adhisthana Writings
The aphorisms, from the first phase of his teaching in the West, are by turns uncompromising, provocative, witty, gnomic and plain common sense. The sequence on the arts sheds light on one of his most distinctive perspectives on the Dharma. The late writings range from childhood memories to pieces written in the last weeks of his life — on Einstein’s 3-sphere, on Buddhism and Islam, on the symbolism of rainbows.
See the editions →Volume 27
Concordance to the Complete Works
- Concordance
- Complete Works Retrospective
- Bibliography
- Errata
- Omissions
A rather unusual reference work, with elements of index, dictionary, encyclopaedia, concordance and collection of quotations, designed as a comprehensive guide to the whole of the Complete Works. It answers your questions, raises others, and is full of signposts to help you find your own way through the vast forest of the Dharma. Over 1,000 pages; hardback and eBook only.
See the editions →Collect the set
Twenty-seven volumes. One complete edition.
Buy the full set in hardback, paperback or eBook — or build your own bundle of five or ten volumes and save between 25% and 50%.
