Complete Works Study Bundle

This first volume of Sangharakshita’s Complete Works includes two foundational texts that have inspired readers for decades: A Survey of Buddhism and The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Of the first, the great Buddhist teacher and writer Lama Anagarika Govinda wrote, ‘It would be difficult to find a single book in which the history and development of Buddhist thought has been described as vividly and clearly as in this survey.’

In this video, Prajnagita talks about her response to A Survey of Buddhism.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options

One of Sangharakshita’s outstanding contributions to Buddhism has been to survey the whole range of Buddhist schools, each with its own approach, own language and so on, and to distil out what is most fundamental. You are a Buddhist because – and only because – you Go for Refuge to the Three Jewels. But how did this become clear to him and what in any case does it actually mean practically to go for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha? The nine texts in this volume, composed over a period of more than thirty years, show Sangharakshita's unfolding insight into the meaning, significance and centrality of Going for Refuge.

This volume includes the following texts:

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?

In this video, Abhayavajra talks about the effect that one of the texts in this volume, The Three Jewels, had on him.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options

Three much-loved books are gathered in this volume: Who is the Buddha?, What is the Dharma?, and What is the Sangha? This volume also contains new endnotes, which take the reader to the original sources of the many teachings given in these commentaries, i.e. to the Buddha’s teachings in the Pali Canon and Mahayana Sutras.

In this video, Vajrashura talks about one of the texts in this volume, Who is the Buddha?

In this video, Holly Hopkins talks about one of the texts in this volume, What is the Sangha?

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options

The first part of this volume describes the arising of the bodhicitta and the bodhisattva's path to Enlightenment in a weaving together of the sublime and the inspiringly practical, and the second part is a commentary on Śāntideva's classic 8th-century text, the Bodhicaryāvatāra, based on a seminar given in 1973.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options

This volume, which introduces the sequence of Complete Works volumes that include Sangharakshita's commentaries on a range of traditional Buddhist texts, begins with The Eternal Legacy, an introduction to the canonical literature of Buddhism, which succinctly and with great feeling gives the context for the commentaries to follow, and ends with Wisdom Beyond Words, Sangharakshita's much-loved commentary on several Perfection of Wisdom texts, another way of seeing how, in Aśvaghoṣa's words, 'We use words to get free of words until we reach the pure wordless essence.'

This volume is augmented with a new Foreword by Vajratara, and a note by Śraddhāpa on the translation of the Perfection of Wisdom texts, bringing us up-to-date with some of the latest scholarship.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options

This volume brings together The Drama of Cosmic Enlightenment: Parables, Myths and Symbols of the White Lotus Sutra; The Priceless Jewel (essay); Transforming Self and World: Themes from the Sutra of Golden Light; The Inconceivable Emancipation: Themes from the Vimalakīrti-Nirdeśa and new endnotes reflecting original sources. A beautiful foreword by Ratnaguna introduces the volume.

In this short video, Vishvapani describes the effect one of the texts in this volume, The Drama of Cosmic Enlightenment, had on him.

In this short video, Akuppa explains how one of the texts in this volume, Transforming Self and World, changed his life.

In this short video, Vajragupta shares his enthusiasm for one of the texts in this volume, The Inconceivable Emancipation.

In this longer video, Vidyadevi talks about The Complete Works project and introduces this volume.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita: information and subscription options