The Rainbow Road cover art

The Rainbow Road

From Tooting Broadway to Kalimpong - Memoirs of an English Buddhist

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Rainbow Road

By: Urgyen Sangharakshita
Narrated by: Ratnadhya
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Having realized, as a 16 year old in pre-WWII London, that he was a Buddhist, the early life of Dennis Lingwood and his path to becoming a bhikkhu named Sangharakshita is a most extraordinary personal story. He was serving as a signals officer in India when, at the conclusion of the war, he threw away his official identity cards, took off his uniform, donned yellow robes and set off, barefooted, along the dusty paths of India as a spiritual seeker, begging for his food, as the Buddha did 2,500 years ago.

The determination and vision behind those early steps, combined with single-mindedness and intellectual rigour, transformed the path of Western Buddhism, for after 20 years in India Sangharakshita returned to England to found a Western Buddhist movement, now called the Triratna Buddhist Order.

The Rainbow Road tells of that early time in India, meeting spiritual teachers from Hindu and other religious traditions, encountering the disturbing caste system and overcoming obstacles, disappointments and numerous challenges. A totally absorbing autobiography.

©1997 Sangharakshita (P)2016 Ukemi Productions Ltd Buddhism England China Meditation Physical Exercise Yoga Taoism Ancient History

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path cover art
Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal cover art
Ambedkar and Buddhism, Annihilation of Caste cover art
Five Years, Eleven Months and a Lifetime of Unexpected Love cover art
The Sound of One Hand cover art
What is the Dharma? cover art
Who Is the Buddha? cover art
An Area of Darkness cover art
The Bodhicaryavatara cover art
Gautama Buddha cover art
Great Disciples of the Buddha cover art
The Quiet Mind cover art
Buddhist Meditation: The Heart cover art
From a Mountain in Tibet cover art
India: A Million Mutinies Now cover art
Buddhist Meditation: The Breath cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Very enjoyable, insightful and
fascinating. At times humorous, vivid and mind opening. Beautifully read.

Fascinating, humorous and beautifully read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An interesting life, however, I found this to be an unnecessarily drawn out and rambling autobiography. It could have been half the length and better for it.

I started off feeling quite agnostic about Sangharakshita. I enjoyed hearing about his vulnerable childhood and the adversity he faced and overcame.

I normally finish a good autobiography feeling closer to the protagonist but that wasn’t the case with Sangharakshita. He struck me as a conflicted character; an intellectually conceited Buddhist who isn’t honest with himself nor his readers about who he is or his motives.

A conflicted character and an unnecessarily drawn out and rambling autobiography

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.