The FWBO 'Legacy Fund' - new projects for 2008

Vajragupta has sent FWBO News a report on how the Sangharakshita Legacy Fund allocated its money in 2008. The Legacy Fund is perhaps one of the less-well-known funds within the FWBO mandala, but one that’s doing important work.

Vajragupta, it's secretary, writes -

“The fund exists to help projects that are doing the following:

1) Preserving Sangharakshita's legacy: physically preserving and protecting archive materials, such as correspondence, personal effects, photos, videos, and seminars.
2) Dissemination: making accessible Sangharakshita's books, lectures, seminars, poetry, etc. to an ever-broadening audience
3) Translation: funding translations of Sangharakshita's Dharma teaching into many languages. See FWBO Translations for the current list.

In 2008 we had £32K worth of applications and £15K available to allocate, all given to us by Windhorse:Evolution. Our funds were less than last year because Windhorse:Evolution are undertaking a period of substantial re-investment in their business, in the hope of increasing profit (and therefore dana) in years to come. So, although we would have liked to fund all the applications we received to the full, it obviously wasn't possible.

We were able to give grants as follows:

* AOBO Paris: £500 towards the cost of publishing software for producing translations of Sangharakshita’s books.

* Clear Vision: £2000 towards filming Sangharakshita, making the archive of Sangharakshita photos available on the web, and preserving DVD footage of Sangharakshita and the FWBO on hard-drives.

* FreeBuddhistAudio: £3000 towards running costs and specific projects in connection with Sangharakshita material on the website.

* Lokamitra: £400 towards a translation of the TBMSG puja book.

* Manidhamma: £1100 towards the translation and publication of three Sangharakshita books (The Three Jewels, Religion of Art, and Selected Poetry) into Marathi.

* Shantavira: £1000 towards office and other costs to make pdf files of Sangharakshita’s books available on the web. See the Bookshelf on Sangharakshita’s website for titles already available.

* Vidyadevi: £2000 towards supporting her to do editorial and Spoken Word work for Sangharakshita.

* Windhorse Publications: £5000 towards converting Sangharakshita’s books into pdf’s and also reprinting some titles.

"Many thanks to Windhorse:Evolution for their generosity in funding these projects and making them possible. Like the FWBO Growth Fund, to date the Legacy Fund has been funded entirely by dana from Windhorse:Evolution - SADHU! once again to Windhorse!"

Windhorse:Evolution launch 'Friends' network

Windhorse:Evolution are by far the largest of the FWBO’s various Right Livelihood businesses. With a turnover in excess of UK £10 million/year, they are able to contribute generously to many Dharma and social projects around the world of the FWBO and TBMSG. Headquartered in Cambridge, their warehouse, ‘Uddiyana’, employs over 100 people from XX countries, many either ordained or training for ordination. They must be the only warehouse in the UK with a 7m high stupa at its centre!

They’ve already been the subject of a book by Padmasuri, ‘Transforming Work: An Experiment in Right Livelihood’, which details some of the many twists and turns they’ve encountered along the way as they experimented with practicing ‘Team-Based Right Livelihood’ in the modern Western world.

At the same time it’s been hard for people outside the business to really share in that sense of ongoing discovery: what DOES it mean to practice Right Livelihood, especially team-based right livelihood, in the modern Western world?

With this in mind – and to make it easier for potential new workers to contact them – they’ve launched the new ‘windhorse:evolution friends network’. Anyone who’d like to stay in touch is invited to write to Dharmasiddhi; you’ll then be kept informed of developments in the business. It’s a two-way thing – they’d ask you it help be an ambassador for Windhorse, even to look out for people who might be interested in joining them.

After a period of consolidation and restructuring, Windhorse has ambitious plans for the future: it’s a good time to get on board. Increasingly, their ‘dana’, or generosity, extends beyond the Buddhist world to include working with their suppliers on local projects – see FWBO News’ recent feature on their social dana projects. And you can see some more photos of the warehouse on FWBO Photos here.

Snow White meets Seven Buddhist Dwarves - whatever next…!

Last summer Locana, the hard-working director of Life At Work, a Buddhist Right Livelihood business based in Cambridge, UK, was feeling stressed – and found herself scribbling the opening lines of a “very silly little play”.

Over the following months that seed took root, sprouted, grew, and bore fruit recently as the Cambridge Sangha Pantomime, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ – but with a difference… Without wishing to give away too much of the plot, FWBO News can report that Snow White, the beautiful heroine, finds herself knocking on the door of one of the FWBO’s men’s Buddhist communities – only to be turned away! Of course, that is but the beginning – once the residents of the community see how beautiful she is, she is welcomed in and made most welcome. And the plot unfolds…

The production brought together people from all sections of the extensive Cambridge Buddhist Centre’s sangha, and benefitted among many others from the talents of Yashodaka the jazz musician, Subhadra, consultant on the inner workings of men’s communities, and Visada, assistant director. Locana described it as “fabulous experience of sangha-building” and, reflecting on it afterwards, amazed herself to realised that throughout the many rehearsals she had not heard a cross word among the cast – who were worked hard! For Locana, it was, in her words, an opportunity “to poke fun at all things Buddhist”.

The FWBO’s Cambridge Buddhist Centre is blessed by having not only extensive centre premises close to the centre of town but, out back, an entire theatre! This, of course, was the venue for the two nights of performance, when the theatre was filled to capacity. The centre and theatre was purchased by Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s largest and most successful Right Livelihood business, ten years ago, and it has been gradually renovated since. The theatre itself dates from 1814 and is one of only a handful of pre-Victorian theatres outside London, in its time playing host to W.B.Yeats and Charles Dickens among many others (and as it happens, home to the first ever panto performed). Most strikingly, it has a large curved screen or ‘cyclorama’ facing the steeply-banked galleries for the audience. Click here for something of its history.

So have Snow White and the Seven Dwarves disappeared so soon, after just two days of fame? Not quite – they live on on YouTube, where you can watch a trailer created by Rosie Spiegelhalter (aka Snow White!) for Cambridge’s upcoming film night, the movie of the pantomime. And, technology permitting, a version may appear on the Arts section of VideoSangha - watch this space!

Windhorse:Evolution supports new social projects

Windhorse:Evolution is the largest and most profitable of the FWBO’s many Right Livelihood businesses, with a turnover of some £10 million and employing over 200 people – 100 at their main warehouse, ‘Uddiyana’ in Cambridge UK, and another 100 in a chain of ‘Evolution’ shops around the UK and elsewhere.

Besides practicing Right Livelihood, as chronicled by Padmasuri in her book ‘Transforming Work’, they have always aimed to make a profit and to give that profit away as dana. At first they simply asked Sangharakshita for direction in this; in recent years they have donated it to the ‘Windhorse Trust’ which has in turn created five independent funds and distributes the available dana among them.

Initially all available dana was given to FWBO projects; but in a new departure, one of the new funds created was the Windhorse Social Fund. This aims to invest in social projects close to Windhorse’s main suppliers, and they now contribute around £20,000/year to this as part of their ‘Trade for Aid’ initiative.

In a new feature on FWBO News, Samata writes about two new social projects supported by Windhorse - The Wheatfield Plan in China and The Kupu-Kupu Foundation in Bali. Click here to read it.

Alongside this they have been taking active steps to ensure their goods come from ethical sources, so far as this is practicable. You can read more about this on their Evolution shops website here, which includes the reply given by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile when asked if Windhorse should be trading with China at all, given its poor human-rights record.

Change and opportunity at Windhorse Publications

Windhorse Publications, the FWBO’s successful publishing company, is going in new directions. Jnanasiddhi, the present Director, says "As well as maintaining our current publishing of the FWBO tradition and bringing our movement’s evolving ideas into the world, we now have a new focus on flexibility and new sales."

This has led to TWO JOB OPPORTUNITIES - a Director/Commissioning Editor and a Sales and Marketing Manager. The salaries are negotiable and the jobs will be based in Cambridge.

Jnanasiddhi says "If you have an interest in books and publishing, good communications skills, ideas and commitment, IT and organisational skills and experience of business please contact, for further information, Sagaraghosa. The closing date is 30th September."

Help Spread the Precious Dharma through books!

Lotus Realm Traders joins the ‘Vans’

Akasadaka, from Lotus Realm, sends FWBO News this report –

“After a lot of hard work, Lotus Realm Traders, the Sudarshanaloka Mandala’s largest Right Livelihood venture in New Zealand, has given birth to… a van!”

They thereby join the proud lineage of Windhorse van drivers, who over the years have between them raised many many thousands of pounds in the UK for Dharma work. He says “Well it’s a bus actually. Her name is Rosa and she’s a Mitsubishi. She’s a good 6.0m long and weighs in at 3.2 tonne fully loaded with product. Her previous life was a Tokyo Library Bus and she still has a rather snazzy Seiko Wall clock above the dash.

We have just completed our first trip (van run) around the Coromandel Peninsula and the Bay of Plenty, surviving cyclonic weather which caused havoc across the top half of the North Island. To her crew’s delight Rosa received plenty of compliments along the way and sales were way beyond expectations. It is hoped that this will continue as Sudarshanaloka requires a lot more funds to complete its Retreat Centre project.

Lotus Realm Traders currently consists of six people, and we’re attempting to become a Team Based Right Livelihood, in the process of making squillions of moolah (lots of cash). How exactly this will be manifested seems to be an ongoing process, but we do have as our core principles ethical trading, building spiritual community, generating dana and having some insane fun.

“How can you help? If you have any expertise or skills to offer for free, we would happily accept. The Sudarshanaloka Mandala needs more people in all ways, from helping to run classes and looking after he Retreat Centre to packing orders from our warehouse and keeping shop. Please feel free to contact me (akasadaka [at] lrt.co.nz) if you have some interest in getting involved in what we are doing.