News from FreeBuddhistAudio - new Dharma training resources

FreeBuddhistAudio have written celebrating the completion of the new FWBO “Dharma Training Course for Mitras” - a substantial four-year course in Buddhism and meditation, designed primarily for Mitras ('friends') involved with the FWBO Buddhist community.

They say - “After two years of work by many people throughout the FWBO, led by Saccanama, the new Dharma training course is finally ready online!

“We think it's pretty marvellous – a consistent, fully referenced, fully indexed, professionally produced web publishing project to lend a new coherence to the study we do together as an international community of practising Buddhists. The course aims to give people in the FWBO a thorough grounding in Dharma study and practice. It also makes an excellent general course for anyone interested in putting Buddhist teaching into practice in their life.

“We hope you'll enjoy using it as part of your own Dharma adventures. Please let us know how you get on! You can view the full course here, download the official Guide, or listen to the launch talk and other special course resources now!”

There’s also news of two companions to the main course -

The Way of Mindfulness – a companion website
Kamalashila's wonderful audio and video meditation instruction site to accompany his module on the Satipatthana Sutta from Year Two of the Course. A labour of love in progress, featuring material not available anywhere else.

Towards Insight – Contemplations of the Buddha
This is another matching set of excellent guided meditations from Dayanandi and Ratnaguna. Here we are introduced to the practice of Buddhanussati – recollecting the Buddha by dwelling on his great qualities. The reflections are based on epithets for the Buddha from the Tiratana Vandana ('Salutation to the Buddha') and is one of the earliest of Buddhist practices.  Listen to the talk here.


Free Buddhist Audio is committed to providing free access for all. Your financial support is essential for building a strong community. Help us spread the Dharma throughout the world!

That special Xmas gift - a Sangharakshita ringtone!

Just in case there’s anyone out there still wondering what to get their nearest and dearest Buddhist friends for Christmas; FWBO News is pleased to bring you this year’s most unlikely gift: a Sangharakshita ringtone! Specifically, it's a ringtone of Sangharakshita speaking on one of his teachers, the Tibetan Rimpoche Chetul Sangye Dorje...

We discovered it courtesy of Google Alerts, it comes to you from an outfit called "Bomb MP3" who offer a multitude of ‘free’ downloads and ringtones - once you’ve created an account, started a subscription, given your mobile phone number, and so on...

The original is one section of a longer talk by Sangharakshita called ‘On Tara’, given to a gathering of women at the FWBO's Taraloka Retreat Centre and posted on the FreeBuddhistAudio website - from which you really can download it for free by clicking here.

Happy Christmas!

FWBO Dharma Training Course now complete and on-line

More breaking news just spotted on Facebook -

Dharmachari Candradasa Dharma Training Course now complete! Two years in the making, a lot of work by a lot of people... 'Evolutionary Buddhism' is the final module to go live. Enjoy!

The FWBO Dharma Training Course is a four-year Dharma study course which aims to give people in the FWBO a thorough grounding in Dharma study and practice. It also makes an excellent general course for anyone interested in putting Buddhist teaching into practice in their life.

Find it at www.freebuddhistaudio.com/study

The course was commissioned by the FWBO Chairs Assembly, and developed by Saccanama in conjunction with many Order Members who prepared individual modules under his guidance.

New Dharma materials at FreeBuddhistAudio

Candradasa writes from FreeBuddhistAudio with news of new on-line Dharma resources.  He says -

Dear Friends,

We're delighted to let you know that - after a wee summer hiatus - we have a rush of new modules just posted for the FWBO’s Dharma Training Course for Mitras. The permanent web address to bookmark for the new course is: www.fwbomitracourse.com. 

Latest up are most of the modules for Year 2 -

Module 1 - Nature of Existence 1, Conditionality and the Middle Way
Module 2 - What is the Sangha, Spiritual Community
Module 3 - Vision & Transformation, the Buddha's Eightfold Path
Module 4 - The Bodhisattva Ideal
Module 5 - Transcending Views
Module 6 - Turning the Mind to the Dharma

We hope you'll enjoy using the online version of the Course, and that you'll make steady progress in your own Dharma studies.

Year 3 coming soon!

with best wishes,

Candradasa,
The Free Buddhist Audio Team

ps. The new site has been developed to enable a free service to be kept in place for all users. To help us keep the service free, please think about making a donation. Many thanks!

Inspiring Young People with the Dharma

November saw a weekend gathering of 24 people from a range of FWBO Centres in the UK and beyond. They had met in Birmingham UK to explore the topic “How can we Inspire more Young People with the Dharma?”.

The meeting had been called because of what can only be described as the aging of the Order.

As the chart on the right makes clear, in the 1970s, when the Order was first founded, over half its members were in their 20s (the purple bars to the left of the chart). Although the Order has grown enormously over the intervening 40 years, both 20- and 30-year-old Order Members are now almost entirely extinct! (30-year-olds being represented by the yellow bars)

If we follow a trend of 'like-attracts-like' it’s hard to see how the FWBO (as a Sangha) will do other than grow older and older – and older. Hence this weekend. Interestingly, despite Buddhism’s positive reputation, this seems to be a problem across the whole Buddhist world, not just with us - the NBO (the UK’s main inter-Buddhist forum) is dedicating it’s next AGM conference to the same theme.

Over the course of the weekend the participants – who ranged in age from 17-60 - generated a rich collection of ideas for how we might move forwards.

A summary is available on FWBO Resources; they’re summarised in the mindmap...

Two talks from the weekend are available on the Community section of Free Buddhist Audio – one actually being three short talks, two highly autobiographical.

Lindsay’s, the third, was especially clear and practical, giving a three-point plan for how FWBO Centres could inspire more young people with the Dharma. She is currently living and working at Taraloka Retreat Centre. Her's is available here.

Also, Munisha used the opportunity to conduct video interviews with many of the younger people present, they were asked to answer in just one or two minutes one or another of the most popular (and tricky!) questions that Buddhists get asked again and again. They’re available on ClearVision’s excellent ‘VideoSangha’ site.

A Facebook group has been created, for any and all younger people who are Buddhists or are exploring Buddhism in the FWBO (Friends of the Western Buddhist Order). It’s a forum to get to know each other, discuss ideas and advertise events and retreats.

What comes next? There’s no current plans for any big ‘central’ initiatives, we’d welcome comments and ideas – just leave a comment here or write to FWBO News.

Postscript:
Other Western Buddhist groups are also looking at ways to involve more young people:

* Shambala have a special website http://www.youth.shambhala.info/, an annual Buddhist Youth Festival (focussing on the three themes of Discussion, Art, and Socialising); plus a ‘Vajra Dawn’ study programme for youth.

* Plum Village have a youth project called “Wake Up”, subtitled “Young Buddhists and non-Buddhists for a Healthy and Compassionate Society” – see http://www.wkup.org/.

* Soka Gakkai are reported to have a thriving youth wing but we have no information on it.
* In Germany there’s a BuddhaTeens website, in German - see http://www.buddhateens.de/
* In Australia there’s a Tibetan initiative “Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth” (LKPY) at http://www.lkpy.org/

* Books about/by/for Buddhist Youth have been published, especially ‘Blue Jean Buddha’, ‘Buddha’s Apprentices’, and ‘Dharma Punk’.

And - as mentioned several times on FWBO News - TBMSG in India have created the very successful NNBY, the National Network of Buddhist Youth – see www.justgiving.com/indianbuddhistyouth or their website http://www.nnby.org/.

FWBO Dharma Training Course for Mitras

This is just a wee note to let you know about the launch of the first all new sections of the Dharma Training Course. Modules on 'The Sangha', 'The Buddha's Eightfold Path', and 'The Bodhisattva Ideal' are now live...

In case you're not familiar with it, the new course is designed primarily for Mitras ('friends') involved with the FWBO Buddhist community. It aims to give people in the FWBO a thorough grounding in Dharma study and practice. It also makes an excellent general course for anyone interested in putting Buddhist teaching into practice in their life.

The first parts of Year Two are now available online, with full references embedded in the study files themselves. We've formatted these files to print out for use in a study group, and also to make them easy to read, navigate and search on-screen.

The rest of the course is currently being developed by a number of members of the Western Buddhist Order. New modules will be made available as they become ready through 2008 and the beginning of 2009. Check out each year's page for an advance preview of what's in store, and to sign up for regular updates on new sections as they become available.

At present, the course is being hosted on Free Buddhist Audio, and you can access it easily from there too via the 'Study' section.

Happy faring...

with best wishes,

The Free Buddhist Audio Team

ps. The new site has been developed to enable a free service to be kept in place for all users. To help us keep the service free, please think about making a donation. Many thanks!

Free Buddhist Audio News – RSS Updates, Podcast, New Sangharakshita, Top 10

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

This month, there's quite a lot to tell you about! We've been busy changing and improving the site, so here are a few of the things we've been up to...

Updates:

Whenever you see either of these symbols in your web browser's address bar, it means you can subscribe to a special version of the page you're on (a bit like a blog) and get updates whenever we add new content for that particular section – without lifting a finger...

So, it'll work to keep track of titles from a specialised area of the site (eg. meditation), or for uploads from any individual centre in our new community pages (eg. Taraloka). And it's really simple!

All you have to do is click the symbol itself. When the page changes, add it as a 'bookmark' or 'favourite' in your web browser (usually typing 'command-D' will work). And that's it. When we upload a new talk or series, you'll get a little notification in your bookmarks list.

Podcast

If you haven't discovered our free monthly podcast yet, then this is a great time to start! Over 10,000 people now subscribe to this service (you can get it easily via iTunes), and we've already distributed over 350,000 Dharma talks by podcast since late 2005.

The latest episode has just appeared online, a great talk by Ratnaguna: 'The Early Teachings of the Buddha' – a splendidly engaging evocation of the fundamentals of Buddhist thought and practice from the recent FWBO International retreat.

Come and give it a whirl!

Two talks by Sangharakshita

Over the last wee while, Sangharakshita has been steadily adding to his already considerable archive of recorded public talks. This week, we are delighted to bring to your attention two of his latest, which are well worth a listen...

'Growing the Spiritual Community' was also given at the FWBO International retreat, and is a timely exploration of what it's going to take to maintain the Western Buddhist Order and the FWBO as a vibrant and spiritually prospering community.

'Forty Years On – The Six Emphases of the FWBO' is a pleasing reprise of classic Sangharakshita, with some delightful reminiscences about the early days of the FWBO. The talk was given in Manchester, and marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of our spiritual community.

And finally...

Before we go, we thought it was high time we revisited with you our top 10 chart of most popular downloads. Try them - they're all marvellous!

1. The Mindfulness of Breathing: Introduction and Guidance by Kamalashila

2. Simplicity by Kamalashila

3. Buddhism and Quantum Physics by Jnanavaca

4. The Mindfulness of Breathing: Short Lead-through by Kamalashila

5. Mindfulness for Just About Everything by Paramabandhu

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

7. Cutting Away the Old by Abhaya

8. Breaking the Mould by Dhammarati

9. What Meditation Really Is by Sangharakshita

10. Entering the Mandala by Garava

Free Buddhist Audio – New Community Site

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

We're absolutely thrilled today to be able to announce the full launch of our new community site! This represents a very big shift for our service: now any Fwbo centre or institution – anywhere in the world – can upload its own talks, and have its own pages on the site. We've already got quite a few signed up, and the first talks are appearing – in English, French and German! Come and take a look...

What's very exciting for us is that the amount of material on the website will increase greatly over the next months, and is likely to be much more up-to-date and representative of what's going on in our international community. It will also allow us at the archives to concentrate on getting a lot more of the older talks and special recordings online.

Watch this space for more news of new features as we roll them out in the coming months. And if your centre or Fwbo project would like to get involved, we'd be delighted if you get in touch!

***

One other piece of news: in April, Free Buddhist Audio had its first 20,000 visitor month! We've come a long way since the days of selling scratchy old cassette tapes to about 200 people a year... Thank you to everyone for their tremendous support!

Free Buddhist Audio News - Mindfulness of Reality and Padmasambhava

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.

A prosaic enough subtitle for this week's update - but one that belies the rather marvellous diversity of the new material we're featuring today. The Western Buddhist Order is nothing if not diverse, and here we have two talks that, taken together, probably encapsulate that better than any plain old discourse ever could...

Kulananda (Michael Chaskalson) is first up with his beautifully elegant take on the last of the traditional four levels of mindfulness - Mindfulness of Reality itself. This is potentially confusing territory, but Kulananda proves an excellent and calm pilot around the main streams and backwaters of Buddhist thought regarding the nature of life, the universe and everything. A good reference if you've ever lost your way a bit and needed to steady the boat.

Then contrast this approach to what really matters, with the almost rambunctious - Padmasambhava - by Danavira. To call this a 'talk' doesn't really cut it - more like a controlled explosion of sound, a 'performance piece' in the best sense of that phrase. And the Great Guru is, indeed, called forth onto the stage of things with much laughing and singing. "Uncle Padma" is doubtless smiling at this young "nephew" who is so clearly moved in praising him - listen and find out why.

So, there you have it: two of the fairest talks, most alike in dignity, and certainly worth an hour of your time...

Free Buddhist Audio News - New Sangharakshita & Lessons from the Mafia

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.

This week we have news of two recent talks by Urgyen Sangharakshita, which we've now posted to the site for your listening and downloading pleasure. The first is from the Buddhafield Festival 2007 - Entering the Sangha - and finds the man in splendid form in a summer field amongst the hot tubs and revellers.

The second - Recollections and Reflections on My Going Forth - is fresh from the Men's Order Convention, and has many a tale to tell from Sangharakshita's days as a wandering 'Dharma Farer' in India. It's also kind of challenging!

We also want to tell you about our brand new podcast for September - the splendidly titled Building an Ethical Underworld - Lessons from the Mafia - from Khemasuri.

To tell the truth, we would have picked this anyway because the title was just so good. And because we could put up a picture of Tony Soprano. Underneath Bhante. But it also just happens to be another thought-provoking and insightful talk from the Buddhafield 'Dharma Parlour' series. Listen and be inspired - and, well, not very afraid.

Free Buddhist Audio News - Launch of Audios Budistas Gratuitos

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.

¡Hola! Chicas and Chicos. Now that we have the site up and running in German - Audio Buddhismus Kostenlos, French - Audio Bouddhiste Gratuit - and also in Chinese - 免费 佛教 录音 - isn't it about time we launched in Spanish? Of course it is! Bueno, presentamos... Audios Budistas Gratuitos.

As ever, this has been a labour of love by several people connected with the site. So let's pay tribute here to our main translator, Samudra, and also to Abhayaka who helped check stuff. Both men have generously and patiently dedicated themselves to bringing the wonders of Free Buddhist Audio to the Spanish-speaking world. ¡Magnifico!

Watch this space for news of yet more languages to come.

Free Buddhist Audio News - Launch of Audio Bouddhiste Gratuit

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.

Some happy news this week, filles et garçons! Now that we have the site up and running in German - Audio Buddhismus Kostenlos - and also in Chinese - 免费 佛教 录音 - we are delighted today to announce that we're able to extend our service further still with the launch of our new French language site - Audio Bouddhiste Gratuit.

As usual, this is the fruit of many hours of toil by various folk connected with Free Buddhist Audio, and this time the main shout goes out to Jayamuni, who has generously and patiently dedicated himself to the task at hand over the course of many months. May the merit be his!

Watch this space for a forthcoming announcement regarding the site in Spanish, and news of yet more languages to come!

Free Buddhist Audio News - Christopher Titmuss, Violence & Emptiness

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. We've a couple of treats for you today, you lucky things. First, we're very pleased to announce the first talk on our site from a speaker who's not a member of the Western Buddhist Order! That maybe doesn't sound like such a big deal – but believe us, it's not so easy to organize as you might think... Anyway, we're absolutely delighted to welcome the wonderful Christopher Titmuss to the site, with his excellent piece What Self, What World? – his gently impassioned call to a socially and politically engaged Buddhist life. The talk was given as part of the Buddhafield Festival 2006.

Next, we've a brand new podcast - Violence and Emptiness - from San Francisco's very own Suvarnaprabha, in which she explores the Buddhist vision of compassion through her own experience of meditation and contact with inmates within the U.S. prison system. Moving stuff.

And finally, there are a series of small design changes to the site forthcoming - keep your eyes peeled! You may notice, for example, that all talks and individual tracks now display their timings... Ah, the things we do for you.

Until next time!

Free Buddhist Audio News - Launch of Audio Buddhismus Kostenlos

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. Little update this week. Small but perfectly formed...

Today we are officially launching the site in German - Audio Buddhismus Kostenlos. It's been a bit of a wait, but we are now ready and delighted to welcome all our German-speaking friends on board. As it happens, we have relatively few talks in German itself, so any ideas for contributions to the archive would be gratefully received! Meanwhile, our heartfelt thanks go out to Harald Eckhoff, who has worked away at this with us in a most heroic and generous-spirited way for several months. May the merit be yours, Harald!

Watch this space for imminent announcements regarding the site in Chinese, French and Spanish!

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!

FWBO Projects Receive Community Funding

The UK government recently announced the results of round 2 of the ‘Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund’, which attracted bids from over 1,200 UK faith-based organisations. The funding was given to “groups with practical solutions to build capacity among faith communities to support inter faith work”. The successful applicants were the Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Croydon FWBO Centres, the Clear Vision Trust, Dharmachakra (now known as Free Buddhist Audio), and the LBC’s Globe Community Project.

A full list of the 343 successful organisations is available online (pdf file). The fund is administered to the Community Development Foundation (CDF). FWBO News will be chasing up the recipients to find out how they will be using the money.

Story by Lokabandhu

Free Buddhist Audio News - Mental Health, the Sangha, and Vishvapani's Words

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, and welcome to this week's update. Three excellent new things for you today... First up, check out our new podcast. In this episode, we have Mindfulness For Just About Everything by Paramabandhu, a timely and invaluable talk inviting us us to consider the lessons Buddhist techniques around meditation and mindfulness training can bring to the field of mental health - especially to problems with depression and addiction.

This talk is also available on the website itself, fully indexed (ie. split into detailed tracks), and including a question-and-answer session on the material.

Next, we have a wee jewel from the San Francisco Buddhist Center - Suvarnaprabha's What is the Sangha?, an introduction to the idea of spiritual community in Buddhism. Suvarnaprabha is a thoroughly delightful guide as she explores her subject with a depth of feeling that comes startling through at times. There are also plenty of laughs here - it's a human and grounded presentation of one of the Dharma's best kept secrets, one of its greatest potential gifts to the West.

And finally, we have just added to the transcription archive Vishvapani's collection of thoughtful essays and articles on Buddhism in the West in general, and the FWBO in particular. These are worth some time - dealing, as they do, with many of the thorny issues that have arisen in these early phases of the development of the FWBO as an attempt to articulate the Buddha's teachings for our very different age. Vishvapani's is a sympathetic and honest voice, and he addresses his subject matter with an exemplary forthrightness and an appropriate lack of certainty.

Enjoy the updates - and stay tuned for more!

Free Buddhist Audio News - New Browse Feature, Akshobya, Two New Talks

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! Well, that was a longer break than we imagined... We've had a good few weeks off now - much needed after the big push to get the site launched. And since we got back from Christmas festivities, etc., we've been looking at ways to improve things, analysing statistics, and responding to feedback from our beloved users... So, a few tweaks under the hood, as it were - notably the new browse section on the main menu. This streamlines access to our talks grouped by theme, speaker, title, or year - so you can find general areas of interest at a glance.

We haven't been entirely lax with the archive itself though! We've been preparing lots of new talks in the background for release over the next month or so - including an extensive new archive from Taraloka on meditation. Look out for our new podcast too - Akshobya by Saddharaja... This talk is also now available fully indexed (ie. split into detailed tracks).

But we do have two new audio talks for you immediately:

Grabbing a Firebrand by Ratnaprabha.

And The Dharma of Denial by Manjuka.

This is a pair of talks taking as their lead-off point the often controversial aphorisms of Sangharakshita. Almost guaranteed to stir you up one way or the other!

So, lots more soon - but, in the meantime, enjoy!

FWBO Audio Books

Dharmacari Subhadra has created a website - Buddhist Audio Books - which features recordings of himself reading several of Sangharakshita's books including some of his most important works. Titles available include The Rainbow Road, the memoirs covering his early life; Wisdom beyond Words, on the Perfection of Wisdom, tradition; and Tales of Freedom a book by Vessantara.

Subhadra was born in London in 1952, and ordained into the Western Buddhist Order at the age of 29. He currently lives in Cambridge and works for windhorse : evolution helping to raise money for FWBO and aid projects around the world.

On the site Subhadra says the recordings "are offered as a free resouce for the visually impaired", but of course anyone can download and enjoy them.

Free Buddhist Audio News - Sangharakshita on Ambedkar, Podcasts, Vajrapani in da House

Here is a first news update from Free Buddhist Audio, the new, 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.

We'll be posting regular notices letting you know the highlights of our service as we add new material.

This week we have two major additions. The first is Remembering Ambedkar by Sangharakshita. This is our version of his recent webcast talk from the London Buddhist Centre. It's been digitally remastered and cleaned up a bit (we took out most of the coughs and sneezes!), and we have also indexed it to provide detailed individual tracks. It's available, as usual, in three different formats - so whatever your connection speed, you should be able to access the files easily enough.

Our second bit of news is that we've just posted a new podcast. We now have over 6500 monthly subscribers - if you haven't discovered podcasts yet, come and join in! It's free. You can find details of the service here.

This is the info on the current episode...

Vajrapani - Energy Unlimited. To get us moving again now the new site is up and running, we present a cracking and wonderfully detailed talk by Vessantara, author of 'Meeting the Buddhas'. He is the ideal person to introduce us to the complex and fascinating Tantric figure of Vajrapani - 'Lord of Secrets', embodiment of ''virya' ('Energy in Pursuit of the Good'). Vessantara's style is familiar and well-earthed, and therefore eminently suited to material that bristles with electricity and is not always so easy to communicate. We get the origin and development of the Tantra itself, as well as of this key figure who meets the impermanent nature of Reality head-on and embodies the tremendous possibilities of change. Look out too for a great introduction about darts!

Launch of Free Buddhist Audio!

We're totally thrilled to announce the launch of
Free Buddhist Audio, the new, 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.

The site features hundreds of free talks as well as guided meditations, retreat recordings, question-and-answer sessions and interviews.

There's also a very extensive searchable text archive, including full access to all of Sangharakshita's seminars and talks, and many texts by other speakers too.

The site has been several years in the making, and is now live!

Come and play...

New podcast from Free Buddhist Audio - Death and the Buddhist

Just to let you know we have posted a new episode of our podcast - a monthly, free series of talks from Free Buddhist Audio.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here.

Or copy this feed address into the podcast application of your choice: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreeBuddhistAudio

Here are the details and a direct download link for this month's talk:

This is pretty fantastic in its way. Danavira is one of the best speakers we know - he is very funny, can do poetic and profound, tends to the chaotic in his style, and has a particular genius for this kind of thing; this kind of thing being talking about death. The whole talk is a kind of respectful joyride through the hardest subject of all - sit back and enjoy a thoroughly adult treat that's likely to blow the heart wide open.

To receive more regular update information on the site, you can always subscribe to our own blog.

New Podcast from Free Buddhist Audio - Simplicity by Kamalashila

Just to let you know Dharmachakra has posted a new episode of its podcast - a monthly, free series of talks from dharmachakra.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here.

Or copy this feed address into the podcast application of your choice: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreeBuddhistAudio

Here are the details and a direct download link for this month's talk:

Kamalashila has spent a lot of his adult life exploring meditation - and this talk is a lovely little foray into the whole subject as a crucial aspect in life and practice, with special consideration given to reflection on the six elements. Oh, and look out for Brian the meditating dog...

Launch date for Free Buddhist Audio

We're thrilled to announce the launch date for the new, free download and streaming service from the Dharmachakra sound and text archives.

The site is presently in beta testing and will go live on December 1st 2006 — with over 500 recordings in various languages to listen to online or download. Many of the talks will be indexed and audio-searchable, to help you find the information you need quickly — and we'll be adding more every week. We'll also be making available (for the first time) an extensive, fully searchable, online text library of seminars and talks on many aspects of the Buddhist path.

For screenshots, podcasts, and free introductory talks, visit dharmachakra.com