Triratna Buddhist Community - The Triratna Buddhist Order

The Triratna Buddhist Order

The Triratna Buddhist Order is the focal-point of the community, and is a network of friendships between individuals who have made personal commitments to the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha, in communion with others. Members are known as dharmacharis (masculine) or dharmacharinis (feminine), and are ordained in accord with a ceremony formulated by the founder. At ordination they are given a religious name in Pali or Sanskrit. While there is an informal hierarchy within the order, there are no higher ordinations. A small number of members, however, take vows of celibacy and adopt a simpler lifestyle. Contrary to the traditional Buddhist structure of separating lay and monastic members, the order combines monastic and lay lifestyles under one ordination, a practice not dissimilar to that which evolved in some Japanese schools of Buddhism.

As with followers of the Shingon school of Buddhism, order members observe ten precepts (ethical training rules). These precepts are different from monastic vows and do not appear in the Vinaya Pitaka, but were formulated on the basis of the so-called "dasa-kusala-dhammas" (ten wholesome actions). These are found in several places in the Pāli Canon, as well as in some Sanskrit sources. The karma sections of the fundamental meditation texts of all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism also list these acts as basic guidelines for lay or ordained practitioners intent on observing the law of cause and effect.

Beyond this, a commitment to personal dharma practice and to remain in communication with other members are the only expectations. Ordination confers no special status, nor any specific responsibilities, although many order members choose to take on responsibilities for such things as teaching meditation and dharma. In mid-2008, there were around 1,500 members of the order, in more than 20 countries.