Sakura Basement / Triratna Shrine Room, Monmouth Street
London, England · 1967–1970
51.51480°N, -0.12650°E
Key Facts
- ◆ Monmouth Street ran 'midway between Charing Cross Road on the one hand and Drury Lane and Covent Garden on the other… a narrow street of small, seedy shops'; Sakura was 'located halfway down on the right'.
- ◆ Sangharakshita took meditation classes here three evenings a week throughout 1967–70.
- ◆ The shrine room was formally dedicated as the Triratna shrine room on 6 April 1968 — the birth of what became the FWBO.
- ◆ Private ordinations into the Western Buddhist Order, with new Dharma names, were given here over the ten days preceding 7 April 1968.
- ◆ Described in the Foreword to *Moving Against the Stream* as 'a tiny basement in Monmouth Street in the West End of London, the birthplace of the new movement'.
“Monmouth Street was situated in the heart of London’s West End, midway between Charing Cross Road on the one hand and Drury Lane and Covent Garden on the other. It was a narrow street of small, seedy shops, a café or two, and a hotel; Sakura, the Japanese shop, was located halfway down on the right as one looked towards Trafalgar Square.”
— Moving Against the Stream
“The establishment of the Triratna shrine and meditation room marked the birth of the Friends of the Western Sangha which was to become, with the founding of the Western Buddhist Order a year later, the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.”
— Moving Against the Stream
“I had given them their private ordinations, and their new names, at the Triratna meditation and shrine room in the course of the previous ten days.”
— Moving Against the Stream
Source: Moving Against the Stream
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