An ecumenical approach.

In the centuries and millennia after the Buddha’s death, his followers took his message outwards from India into a wide range of new cultures and circumstances. Spread over a vast area, in an age when travel was slow and dangerous, and other forms of communication over long distances were almost non-existent, a number of different schools developed which were largely isolated from each other. Members of these schools often had little knowledge of each other, and they had no historical overview of the Buddhist tradition in the modern sense. They therefore each tended to see themselves as the true representative of the Buddhist tradition at its best. For the first time in history all the Buddhist schools can be more aware of each other, and we can appreciate the historical processes through which each developed. 

The word ‘ecumenical’ is derived from the Christian tradition, where it means transcending the differences between different sects or churches. The underlying unity of Buddhism is an important principle behind Triratna. We seek to understand what the various schools of Buddhism have in common and what they each uniquely contribute. We draw inspiration and practices from the whole Buddhist tradition.

We aim to get back to basic truths of Buddhism that underlie most schools, and use what is useful under present circumstances from the whole range of the tradition. And we do this without simply taking a magpie approach, picking up the glittery parts of the various schools that attract our eye, while ignoring the apparently duller or more challenging teachings and practices that may be what we really need to transform ourselves. All this is what Triratna is trying to do, although we are still at an early stage. Our ecumenical approach is sometimes described as “critical” or “selective” — but we don’t all agree yet on what that means. We are aware that we are a young Buddhist movement and still have much growing and learning ahead of us.