The Triratna Story by Vajragupta

The Triratna Story n All this work of building facilities for Buddhist practice and conducting social work required money, and there was precious little of that among the new Buddhists in India. In 1985 Lokamitra travelled to Taiwan and met an old friend of Sangharakshita’s.

Dr Yo was extremely helpful, and set up dozens of meetings with Taiwanese Buddhists who were very happy to give money to the Indian Buddhist movement. This area of fundraising has spread to Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, the USA, and even the Tibetan community in India. A number of Indian Order members, as well as Lokamitra, travel to these various countries each year as emissaries.

The other major source of fundraising was a charity – Aid for India – which, at Lokamitra’s request, was founded in the UK just a year or two after he’d gone out to India. In 1987, the charity became Karuna Trust,47 the name by which it is still known today.

Karuna is one of the big success stories of the FWBO. According to the Buddhist commentator Stephen Batchelor (writing in 1994), ‘In terms of the sheer numbers of people affected, the most extensive social action project undertaken by Buddhists in Europe is that of the Karuna Trust.’48 Karuna has focused on one particular method of fundraising – the door-knocking appeal. A team of four to eight men or women volunteers gather in a house in a UK city. For the next six weeks, they live, eat, meditate, study Dharma, train, and socialize together – looking after each other as they prepare for the evening’s work when they go, on their own, to their allotted streets to knock on doors and ask people if they’d like to give money to Karuna.

They leave a brochure with those who might be interested and go back a day or so later to see if they want to ask more questions, or commit themselves to making a regular donation.

The appeals have become something of an institution in the UK FWBO, with a twofold benefit. First, each appeal raises tens 46