You’ve reached an archived site. We’ve kept it here to preserve some old links elsewhere. You can read about the work of the Triratna Preceptors’ College. See also the Adhisthana website.

The FWBO and Madhyamavani

Visit our new Mezzanine Section, featuring new and updated writing by members of the Preceptor's College of the Western Buddhist Order

The Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) was founded in London in 1967 by Sangharakshita, an Englishman who had spent many years as a Buddhist monk in India. Since then, the FWBO has since spread to many countries throughout the world. At the core of the FWBO is the Western Buddhist Order (WBO) — a spiritual community of men and women dedicated to practising the timeless principles of Buddhism in ways appropriate to the modern world. You can find out more about the distinctive features of the FWBO on the main FWBO website

In 2000, Sangharakshita handed on his remaining responsibilities for the FWBO to a body of senior Order members known as the College of Public Preceptors, which is responsible for ordinations into the Western Buddhist Order. Madhyamavani is a magazine that serves as a channel through which members of the College can communicate something of their lives, work and current thinking to other members of the WBO and the FWBO.

This website is the online archive of the printed magazine. From the menu on the left, you can navigate to any issue of the magazine, where you will find a contents page and short abstracts of all the articles published in that issue.

Anyone is welcome to read Madhyamavani, but please bear in mind that the articles often assume knowledge of, and involvement with, Buddhism as practised in the FWBO. As such, they are not the best starting point for beginners. For an introduction to the FWBO, please see our main website.

Unless otherwise indicated, the contents of Madhyamavani Online have not been subject to further editing subsequent to printing, other than that needed to present them coherently on this site. Prior to Issue Four, Madhyamavani was unedited. Copyright of each article resides with its author.

This website is ‘work in progress’. Please forgive its current shortcomings!

Comments (about the site) should be sent to Satyadarshin (designer and webmaster).

Comments about Madhyamavani itself should be directed to its editor, Subhamati.

For further online reading, we would also recommend visiting The Western Buddhist Review and Dharma Life Magazine. Windhorse Publications have an extensive catalogue of books on Buddhism and meditation.