A new fund - the Global Pioneers' Fund - was launched by FutureDharma at the recent Combined Area Order Weekend in Adhisthana.  Sanghadeva, a ‘serial pioneer’, painted a vision of 3,200 Triratna Centres around the world in another 50 years' time. The call to support pioneering work inspired about 150 gifts from Order Members totalling £54,000. 

Sanghadeva was speaking on Sunday to 350 Order Members from around the UK and Ireland who had gathered at Adhisthana to evoke Padmasambhava, the Second Buddha, and to celebrate Sangharakshita’s birthday. 

He told how 15 years ago he had helped Vajragupta, Chair of Birmingham Buddhist centre, to start four new Triratna groups, one in each of the cardinal directions. Today there is a thriving centre in Shrewsbury, and groups in Worcester and Warwick.

By his calculations, if each of Triratna’s 100 centres worldwide seeded a new centre every ten years then by our movement’s centenary in 2068 there’d be 3,200, one for almost every world city with a population over 300,000.
 
Karunadhi from Tiratanaloka told the story of how the life of Anna Markiewicz has been transformed by her contact with Sanghaloka, our Buddhist centre in Krakow, Poland.

Subhadramati then asked the Order Members present for gifts of £5,000 to £500 in a kind of ‘silent auction’ to launch FutureDharma’s new Global Pioneer’s Fund. As the Padmasambhava mantra was chanted, 150 Order Members placed pledges of £29,000 into a skull offering bowl. Together with two prior gifts of £20,000 and £5,000, this means there’ll now be £54,000 for Triratna pioneers around the world - to help spread the Dharma around this world that is on fire!

Find out more about Future Dharma Fund’s work and other projects they support.