A Moseley Miscellany: Prose and Verse 1997-2012

Sangharakshita, founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community, moved to Moseley, Birmingham in 1997. He was then in his early seventies. He stayed there sixteen years. In some ways it was one of the most important periods of his life: he was handing on his responsibilities to senior disciples. But what was it like to be Sangharakshita at this time? What kind of life did he lead? What did he think about? This miscellany of prose and verse brings us right into the life and mind of the author - and what scope is there to be discovered: a poem on dementia; a reverie on ‘principled vandalism’; a recollection of ‘a season in hell’. Secular Buddhism is the subject of one of the book reviews. He also pays a personal tribute to Ayya Khema, and looks back at his Family History. The poetry (plus an Apology), written in old age, expresses something essential of the Sangharakshita of these years; his themes include the Twin Towers, Merlin, and poems to a new friend. These are not ‘Buddhist teachings’ in the traditional sense but the output of someone whose whole life has been lived in and for the Dharma.To read them is to be brought into contact with the living stream of Buddhism; and perhaps to come away changed.