It's a strange but common experience to enter a Triratna Buddhist Centre bookshop in Spain, Finland or Belgium - and many other non-English-speaking countries - and see rows of Triratna books in English, alongside – maybe – a few in the local language.
It can be a big enough step to enter a Buddhist Centre. Who needs a language barrier too?
As you’ll know, we’re raising £100,000 for Sangharakshita’s 90th birthday, to fund the publication of his Complete Works over the next 5-7 years. This will include money for translations into many languages. You can contribute to this (in nine currencies).
A story featured on Triratna News in the last year illustrates the vital importance of translating Bhante’s writings: that of the new Triratna group in Odessa, Ukraine, sparked by one man's discovery of a single book by Sangharakshita in a street market - in his own language.
If the 90th birthday collection reaches its target of £100,000, there will be an estimated £15,000 for translations. (We're already up to £83,000.) Depending on the final cost of the Complete Works, any money over the £100,000 could well go to translations too.
Triratna’s translations budget is currently just £5,000 per year. (This comes from Triratna's European Chairs’ Assembly’s Development Fund – money given by European Centres and a few Centres further afield.) So it’s clear this new birthday money would represent a huge step forward for translations. (It also means the establishment of a formal translations committee to spend the money well, making strategic decisions about which books are needed most urgently, in which languages.)