This weeks FBA Podcast, “The Buddha’s Gift To The World” is brought to us by Vajratara. Vajratara condenses nearly 50 years of the Buddhas life, using stories from the Pali Canon to show how the Buddha built a spiritual community that lasts to this day. Transcending the conflict between the desire to withdraw and the desire to engage, the Buddha wanders northern India out of compassion, teaching the Dharma by his presence and his words.

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This weeks FBA Dharmabyte, “Positive Emotion and The Spiritual Life“, is an extract from the legendary series by Sangharakshita, “Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow” given in 1976. From the talk “A Method of Personal Development“, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community speaks eloquently about how the practice of friendliness can bring about profound change in one’s life.

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This weeks FBA Dharmabyte, “Who Benefits?“, is a revisit to last weekend’s full talk podcast, “Brahama Viharas and the Key Moment” by Kulaprabha. In this extract, Kulaprabha reflects on who benefits when we engage in a process of cultivating loving kindness through the Brahma Vihara meditation practices.

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This weeks FBA Podcast, “Brahma Viharas and the Key Moment“, is a distillation of Kulaprabha’s 15 years of co-leading retreats on the development of Loving Kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. This talk was given in September 2001, before and after the Twin Towers attack, while Kulaprabha was on a six week retreat in Italy. She was one of only a few people on the retreat who knew what had happened and knew about the shock that had reverberated round the world. Some of her reflections from that time are included in the talk.

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Spreading the Dharma

Sharing our Practice

Connecting our Community Worldwide

Viriyalila’s UK Centre Tour – Spring 2012

Hi to everyone in our Free Buddhist Audio community. I’m currently in the UK visiting different centres, giving presentations and leading study to promote and fundraise for Free Buddhist Audio.

I’m about halfway through my trip so I thought I’d sit down and share a bit from the journey thus far. I started my tour  in Croydon with a very lively Sangha morning followed by a study afternoon focussing on the Seven Bodhyangas, or Limbs of Enlightenment. I led the same study in Sheffield last weekend, which was met with much enthusiasm. We had a very serious look at applying Dhammaviccaya to our various life experiences and shared lots of laughter listening to Bhante talk about joy. All in all two really good study sessions.

I’ve really enjoyed preparing for these study sessions as I’ve been reflecting on that teaching for more then a decade. I selected a series of excerpts from talks to listen to on each of the factors/’limbs’, and then we discussed them as applied in our experience of working with the mind. We explored specific conditions we might give our attention to in an effort to create more refined and positive states of being through the application of Mindfulness/Smrti, Introspection/Dhamma-Vicaya; which then gives rise to Energy/Virya; then to Rapture & Joy/Priti & Pramodya; then to Calm/Prasrabdhi and Concentration/Samadhi culminating in Ultimate Equanimity/Upeksha.

I’ll be doing this short day retreat again this coming weekend in Brighton on Saturday and in Colchester on Sunday. If you are in the area, feel free to join us!

I’ve also been going to different Sangha Gatherings to promote freebuddhistaudio.com. It’s been a real delight to meet many of our supporters in person, and to introduce people to the many talks in our collection. Along the way I’ve been meeting with Triratna Centre team members to answer questions and provide support for using our Community Upload Program – especially now that it is about to be integrated with our sister site: thebuddhistcentre.com.

So far I’ve enjoyed meeting folks at the Triratna Centres in Croydon, Birmingham, Nottingham and Bristol. Next week I’ll be at Windhorse:Evolution in Cambridge and the London Buddhist Centre on Monday, Liverpool on Tuesday and Manchester on Thursday.

In addition to promoting and thanking our current supporters I’ve been asking folks who are familiar with our project to consider taking out a regular donation. We are passionate about keeping the service free, so it’s really not about paying for your downloads, it’s about sharing the Dharma.We’ve called on Tara, with her hand extended in the mudra of generosity to emphasize that we offer the gift of the Dharma freely, and we ask those who are able to help us give that gift to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. By giving a donation to Free Buddhist Audio you’ll be joining a lineage spanning thousands of years – people just like you helping spread the Dharma because it matters in their own lives.

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