Free Buddhist Audio News - Wine, New Texts, Top 10 & New Bhante

Welcome to the news update from Free Buddhist Audio, the free download and streaming service from the Dharmachakra sound and text archives. To receive more regular update information on the site, you can always subscribe to our own blog.

Hello again. It's funding season in the FWBO, and we've been off devising our plans for the coming financial year and trying to find the money to make them happen! That all probably sounds very dull - and it kind of is - but soon, at least, we will be able to report back about some of our fab schemes for the future! In the meantime, let us tell you about the latest things we've added to the site...

So, a few tasty morsels for you... First up, check out our new podcast. This month, we present for your delectation and delight the splendidly entitled We Have a Huge Barrel of Wine But No Cups by Vajradarshini. More poetry, more Rumi, more listening joy. Actually, we just liked the title so much we had to go for it - but, in fact, it's another splendid journey around the idea of Enlightenment, using the languages of surrender and discipline from the Sufi context. It's as heady as a sumptuous wine, but also sobering and down to earth, whether we're "following a railing in the dark" or "wandering inside the red world". Drink up!

Next, since web statistics are a wondrous feast, we thought we'd share with you our top 10 chart of most popular downloads. Try them - they're all good:

1. Simplicity by Kamalashila

2. Buddhism and Quantum Physics by Jnanavaca

3. Cutting Away the Old by Abhaya

4. Breaking the Mould by Dhammarati

5. Entering the Mandala by Garava

6. Mindfulness for Just About Everything by Paramabandhu

7. What is Enlightenment? by Jinapriya

8. Tibetan Book of the Dead (Talk 1): The Six Bardo by Padmavajra

9. The Transitoriness of Life and the Certainty of Death by Vajradarshini

10. Tibetan Book of the Dead (Talk 2): On Hell and Hungry Ghosts by Padmavajra

And for dessert, we want to invite you to sample some of the fare from our wonderful texts archive. Not everyone knows about this, so if you like what you see tell your friends! There are well over 17 million words here, to search, read and download – and we're adding more talks, essays and articles on a weekly basis from all over the FWBO ecosystem, and beyond. This year will see a lot of changes to this bit of our site, so keep your eyes peeled! But for now, if you're a regular visitor to our other speakers section, you'll notice that we've undertaken a thorough overhaul of all the texts here. We aim to complete this in the next month or so, but many of the works here have already been completely reformatted for clear, easy reading. We've also added bookmarks to the download files where possible - and even the odd image or two. There's a fascinating array of material, both personal and scholarly - from meditation posture guidance to quantum mechanics: something for every taste...

And finally, ladies and gentlemen, to settle and cleanse your palate, we've now posted an initial version of Sangharakshita's very latest talk: 'Looking Back - and Forward'. With many thanks to our good friends at Clear Vision for all their help preparing this recording. If you've never heard him before - and just to put this in context - the first talk we have in our archive by Sangharakshita was given in 1965! And here we are, 40+ years on and still going strong... Amazing!

Enjoy the updates - and stay tuned for more!