The Sakura Signboard 

Object location: Urgyen House lobby

Sakura was the name of a shop in Monmouth Street in central London that sold Japanese artefacts. The proprietor, Emile Boin, was a friend who had attended Sangharakshita's lectures at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara. When, in spring 1967, Sangharakshita returned to England from a farewell tour in India having decided that what was needed was 'a new Buddhist movement’, he needed a place where he could hold classes and Emile was happy to offer the basement of his shop. Classes in meditation and Buddhism were held there regularly and on 7 April 1968 the private ordinations of the first members of the Western (now Triratna) Buddhist Order were conducted there. This was also the place where the Dedication Ceremony, composed by Sangharakshita and still recited in Triratna today, was first recited, to dedicate the basement or, as it was called, 'the Triratna Meditation Centre and Shrine'. 

See: Nine Decades: A Life in Objects (interviews with Sangharakshita)

https://soundcloud.com/thebuddhistcentre/01-introduction-a-signboard