The Buddhist Centre Online will be ten years old at the end of 2022. It's been an amazing journey building an online platform for Triratna—and FutureDharma has been with us all the way.
So I'm delighted to welcome the FutureDharma team to the site for a special focus on their renewing vision. Over the next two weeks you'll be hearing about the best of their work and their plans for the next few years, that will help bring the Dharma to tens of thousands of people around the world. And when I say "work" and "plans", I really mean: love, inspiration, exemplification—of what it is to live a full Dharma life. If you think you know what FutureDharma is, think again!
We don't often open up the whole site to major fundraising campaigns. But like the appeals we've made for India over the past 18 months, this one feels both special and genuinely urgent.
Since Covid hit humanity, FutureDharma supporters have reached out beyond their local contexts to create a truly global Triratna sangha. When our urban and retreat centres closed there was a real risk that sanghas might collapse or at best hibernate. But gifts from FutureDharma supporters have helped Triratna to thrive online and keep reaching out to the world. In fact, many more people have practiced the Dharma with us online than we ever could have hosted in our centres.
Without these gifts The Buddhist Centre Online could not have launched our vital program of meditations, retreats and large gatherings that brought us together from across the globe.
We’ve shared the very best of Triratna’s Dharma teaching in online retreats and courses, in seminars held by the Sikkha project, in beautiful Dharma books books given freely from Windhorse Publications. We’ve reached out to local sanghas with fundraising training, and supported our sanghas in India as they in turn gave urgently needed food and supplies to many thousands of people.
The global tragedy of Covid has reminded us of our fragile human condition. If your response was to give to FutureDharma/IDT, Thank You. The Buddhist Centre Online, and our new global Triratna sangha, wouldn't have been possible without you.
But even with all this generous help, we’ve had to borrow from the future to fund it. That future is now! Together, we need to raise another £50,000 by the end of the year or else our vital international projects are at risk. And this precious new international sangha will continue to be crucial as we enter ‘Covid-normal’ times, and get ready to meet whatever crisis may come next.
We hope you'll enjoy hearing some of the most inspiring stories you're likely to encounter in your community over the next two weeks. And feel moved to help however you can!
Candradasa, Director of The Buddhist Centre Online
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Meet the new FutureDharma team on our podcast | + Follow FutureDharma on The Buddhist Centre Online