free buddhist audio

I work quite a bit with our volunteer community at Free Buddhist Audio. These are all the people who take it upon themselves to devote hours of their own time listening to new talks, making transcripts, separating long talks out into smaller tracks, and sometimes even helping to translate talks into other languages. It is a big job – we have many hundreds of talks online, and more coming through the digital door every day from Triratna centers all over the world.

Currently, we have between 25 and 35 active volunteers working on our audio. Some are able to do many talks. Some, only one. Each and every volunteer is considered by our small, but dedicated staff to be an incredibly invaluable resource to the work that we do. To our current and past volunteers, we’d like to express our great thanks.

In my communications with volunteers, I hear one consistent message. Most feel that they receive more than they contribute. While from our perspective the balance might go the other way, we recognize the sentiment, because we feel it ourselves.

When you really spend time with these Dharma talks, listening carefully for breaks in topic, or working to accurately write down what is being said, there are wonderful side benefits. Not only have you listened to the talk, you’ve absorbed it. If you’ve taken on the work for a talk that you may never have listened to on your own, it can open up new doors in your practice and understanding. The act of working with the audio is in some ways similar to working with the breath – the application of mindfulness makes all the difference.

We can always use more volunteers! If you have a few hours and an interest in helping us to make these materials more user-friendly and accessible, in addition to enriching your own experience of them, please consider contacting us.

To volunteer for track marking, click this link: http://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/trackmarking

To volunteer for transcription, click this one: http://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/texts/volunteer.php

For other volunteer queries, contact me at eric@freebuddhistaudio.com

Thank you, and happy listening!

Eric Wentworth
Community Liaison – Free Buddhist Audio

In ‘Mindfulness of Reality’, the excellent Kulananda (Michael Chaskalson) brings a welcome compass to the maze of Buddhist teachings around the nature of existence itself. After all, it’s not easy, is it? Impermanence, dependent arising, becoming, etc. – it’s enough to make anyone think twice. Or a thousand times. And still get nowhere. But fear not – this is a clear, concise, eminently human and straightforward tour of the last of the traditional four levels of mindfulness. And Kulananda’s approach is born of his experience of over twenty year’s teaching on just this kind of thing. Ready? Then in we go…

Kulananda/Michael Chaskalson has published widely on many aspects of Buddhism and meditation, and runs a variety of mindfulness-based stress reduction programmes for use in personal and business life.

Talk given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2000

 

 Mindfulness of Reality [41:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pain and Suffering is the first of two talks that Ratnaguna gave earlier this year at the Stockholm Buddhist Centre. He explores the whole area of feeling, both pleasant and painful, but especially the pain side of the spectrum. Using storytelling, poetry, and clear Dharma teaching, Ratnaguna asks, “What kind of life are you living if you are not really in your body? When you resist the pain, you resist everything.” When we face our own suffering, then we find something else… a deep sense of wisdom and kindness.

Coming up next week… Part II Pleasure and Happiness by Ratnaguna.

 

 Pain and Suffering [60:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The ‘Just Sitting’ practice has been part of the FWBO’s system of meditation since the very beginning yet is not often discussed and not always understood. Here Subhuti gives his own inspiring and brilliantly refreshing take on the practice as a central element in his own meditative life. A must-listen piece for all those enthused by ideas of formal and ‘formless’ meditation – ‘Just Hear’ it and you”ll see what we mean!

 

 Standard Podcast [40:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the first in a series of talks from the Western Buddhist Order Convention in 2001 offering different perspectives on the Abhidharma and exploring from a personal perspective what the study of the 51 Mental Events can tell us about our minds and how they work. Based on the classic Tibetan text ‘Necklace of Clear Understanding’, this is a terrific, clear introduction by Dhammadinna to the whole area of how to ‘Know Your Mind’…

Tracked version includes the following detail:

1. Lineage of material on Mind; Yeshe Gyaltsen’s ‘Necklace of Clear Understanding’; Sangharakshita’s ‘Know Your Mind’; Subhuti’s talks on ‘Mind and Mental Events’

2. The Abhidharma – classification of mental events; transforming mental states and actions; sharing and confessing

3. What is ‘Mind’? Introspection – Dharma-Vichaya (dhammaviccaya); the seven ‘Limbs of Enlightenment’ (Bodhyangas); reflecting on the lakshanas and Pratitya Samutpada

4. Practical aids in working with mental events; different Abhidharma traditions; lists as tools

5. Defining and experiencing Mind; manas (state of consciousness); impossible to pin down; Milarepa and the Shepherd’s Search for Mind; mind and the subjective

6. Subjective versus objective; the Yogachara perspective; the skandhas and vijnana; the Enlightened person and non-identification with the subjective)

7. The eight vijnanas and the five Wisdoms or Jinas; Yeshe Gyaltsen’s focus on the senses

8. Characteristics of mind – i. clarity ii. cognition iii. momentary iv. conditioned v. karma

9. Primary Mind (chitta, citta); mental events as how the mind takes hold of objects; experiencing ‘Pure Mind’ through prajna; Milarepa’s list of requirements

10. A Look at the 51 mental events; six categories and two perspectives

11. Summary – transforming mental states; Padmasambhava on Mind

Talk given at Wymondham, 2001

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 Standard Podcast [48:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download