We’re pleased to say that very soon we’ll be launching the new look Free Buddhist Audio! We’ve been working hard at this for many months and should be up and running towards the beginning of July, so we thought it was high time we invited our users to come and see what we’ve got in store…

This is very much a work in progress (we’ll be changing it regularly over the next few weeks) but it’s already functional in various places and it’s kind of geeky fun playing with the new features we’re introducing!

Please feel free to look around, click away and get a feel for the new design. And leave any comments you think would be helpful (encouragement welcome!) below, including anything you find that’s not working (it’s useful to let us know what type of computer and browser you are using – eg windows xp with firefox version 3.6).

Enjoy!

Some things we already know about are:

1. Audio previews
2. Video
3. Online Chat
4. Some links aren’t live yet
5. New Donations section not live yet – links to old one (so you can still give!)
6. Audio download section
7. Text version of talk listings
8. Adding new images where needed to replace defaults
9. Text search
10. We’ve heard that some folk are having cookie trouble with the initial splash page for this test version. If you can’t get to the main home page when you try, refreshing the page in your browser should do the trick!

This fantastic talk by Akuppa, given at the 2006 Buddhafield Festival, focuses on how Buddhist practice weaves together with social awareness, and what an Earth Community built on sustainable values might look like.

(Please note: there are a few minutes missing at the start, and the original recording was very poor. But it’s worth it!)

Talk given at Buddhafield Festival, 2006

To help us keep this free, please think about making a donation.

 

 Towards an Earth Community [26:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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