Free Buddhist Audio (FBA Podcast)

Free Buddhist AudioCheck out this week’s FBA PodcastWhat’s Race, Gender, Sexuality and Skin Color Got to Do with Non-Self by Vimalasara.

A timely and thought-provoking talk given at a People of Color (POC) day-long retreat at San Francisco’s East Bay Meditation Center 2019. The East Bay Meditation Center hosts teachers from all lineages to teach the Dharma to their POC, LGBTQI2, Differently Abled and Scent Free Communities.

Talk given February 2019 in San Francisco.

Direct download: podcast404.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:55am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast this week: 21st Century Bodhisattva Saravantu explores the role of active engagement in the world’s problems, and the various pitfalls along the way, into which activists can so easily fall. This talk launches a series of talks entitled “The 21st Century Bodhisattva”, inspired by Akuppa’s module in the Dharma Training Course.

Direct download: podcast403.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:24am EST

Free Buddhist AudioEnjoy our FBA Podcast this week: Communicating the Dharma Through the Arts – Show Don’t Tell by Sarvananda.

Be prepared for the unexpected in this very funny – and by turns wrongfooting – personal exploration of why the Arts are vital to the development of a genuine Buddhist community. Sarvananda discusses as background his attempts to find a synthesis between the Arts and spiritual life, leading to his current work as a successful playwright.

But it is in the three departures from a traditional Dharma talk that we glimpse something else – the crucial show-don’t-tell aspect of the title. Suffice to say, if you have not heard Stand-Up Tragedy, Dharma Ventriloquism, or a Ukulele Lady Visualisation before, best turn on your heart and your ears…

Direct download: podcast402.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:06am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is an important talk entitled Mindfulness and the Creative Disruption of Bias by Viveka.

Viveka explores the theme of racism from the perspective of the Dharma and what the Buddha had to say about complex conditionality. A timely look at understanding – and ultimately undoing – the patterns that lead to prejudice and bias, of all kinds.

Specifically, this talk investigates:

- Opening to the inter-personal, organizational, and societal conditioning that perpetuates racial bias.

- Understanding ‘implicit bias’, which is how thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions are influenced (largely unconsciously) by exposure to stereotypes and fears about targeted social groups.

- How can the mechanics of ‘implicit’ bias be disrupted by the power of mindfulness?

Talk given at San Francisco Buddhist Center, June 2016.

thebuddhistcentre.com/sanfrancisco

Direct download: podcast401.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:42am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk on Radical Inclusivity by Singhashri.

What does Buddhism have to do with belonging? What does belonging have to do with Buddhism? We live in a pluralistic society, where many cultures coexist while maintaining their cultural differences. One of the main concerns of our day is how we continue to create a sense of belonging, amid so much difference. For Triratna, we might ask ourselves, how do we create spaces where all feel welcome, regardless of age, race, nationality, class, gender, sexual identity, physical ability and even religion? And as we deepen our commitment and involvement, how do we honour the unique experiences and gifts of each individual, while also seeking a ground of connection based on the Dharma? Sangharakshita has said:

The Dharma should be communicated to as many people as possible and this means communicating the Dharma in as many different ways as possible…Avalokitesvara has a thousand hands, and each of the thousand hands holds a different object. Similarly, Order members of particular temperaments have different talents, aptitudes, and capacities, and in making their respective contributions to the life and work of the Order they should allow – you should allow – those talents, aptitudes, and capacities full scope.

Join us in an exploration of what the Dharma might have to say about radical inclusivity.

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre’s Transforming Self and World group in April, 2017. The morning included a led meditation and enquiry, a main talk and discussion, and a closing meditation. To access the meditations, please visit Free Buddhist Audio.

Direct download: podcast400.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a rousing, uncompromisingly radical talk from Maitriveer-Nagarjuna entitled The Lion’s Roar Of Doctor Ambedkar (with translation in Hindi).

Taking up the theme of the Convention, the great “Lion’s Roar” of the Buddha, Maitriveer-Nagarjuna evokes the fire that drove Doctor Bimrao Ambedkar to work tirelessly on behalf of the so-called Dalit “Untouchable” people in order to free them from the evils of the Hindu caste system. He reframes Doctor Ambedkar as a radical for the ages, of greater and broader relevance for a world where the forces that oppose liberation at all levels seem stronger than ever.

Listen and be inspired and uplifted! Jai Bhim!

This talk was given to start the 2018 Triratna Buddhist Order Convention at Bodhgaya in India and is part of the series The Lion’s Roar: Talks from the International Order Convention.

Direct download: Podcast399.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:02am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is by Vajratara entitled Dr Ambedkar and His Importance For the Future of Buddhism.

Vajratara argues that Dr Ambedkar is not just relevant for India or for the oppressed, but essential for modern Buddhism all over the world, challenging us to move beyond a comfortable Buddhism that fits neatly into modern consumer society. The talk was given at a retreat at Rivendell for young people comparing the teachings of Dr Ambedkar and Sangharakshita, 2014.

Direct download: Podcast398.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:43am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the mass conversion to Buddhism of Dr Ambedkar and thousands of his followers, Nagabodhi tells the story of Ambedkar and the role that Sangharakshita was to play in supporting the nascent Buddhist movement of ex-Untouchables.

This week’sFBA Podcast by Nagabodhi, Dr Ambedkar and Sangharakshita, was given at North London Buddhist Centre, 2016.

Direct download: Podcast397.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:35am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Subhuti offers The Significance of Dr Ambedkar In the West.

Speaking during a festival day in 2010 held to celebrate the life of Dr Ambedkar, Subhuti speaks about what significance Dr Ambedkar has outside India.

The main thrust of the talk is a list of three reasons why someone might convert to Buddhism, enumerated by Dr Ambedkar but applied to our situation in the West. Perhaps the most important is Dr Ambedkar’s insights into the need for society to be grounded in Ethics that are ‘sacred and universal,’ obviously he felt the Dhamma was the best expression of that.

The final section of the talk covers the importance of being engaged in wider society; this has topical relevance with the forthcoming General Election. Subhuti encourages to engage with the democratic process and make the Buddhist voice, calling for awareness and ethicality, be heard.

Direct download: Podcast396.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:22am EST

Free Buddhist AudioAll bona fide Buddhism is Activism. We want to make the world better right? The issue is energy; how can we cultivate energy in pursuit of the good. In this week’s FBA Podcast, entitled The 4 Gifts, Padmavajra considers 5 fundamental aspects of Virya – known as Energy for Enlightenment.

Direct download: Podcast395.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:13am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast is by Padmasuri entitled The Buddha Was a Friend As We Can Be a Friend. The fourth and final in our series of talks to mark the Year of Kalyana Mitrata at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: Podcast394.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:34pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this weeks FBA Podcast we offer In Conversation with Subhuti. Suryagupta converses with Subhuti about his life and practice. Subhuti has been the President of the London Buddhist Centre for over 30 years and was part of the original team who built the LBC in the 1970s.

Direct download: Podcast393.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:26pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is by Maitreyi entitled Spiritual Friendship and the Heart’s Release. Our teacher Sangharakshita has said: “It is in friendship (maitri) that we may find the emotional equivalent of the intellectual understanding of the doctrine of ‘no self’”. The gift of these teachings can help us move beyond self-clinging into a deeper and far more mysterious connection with one another; a Greater Love.

This was the keynote talk given at Taraloka for the 2018 Great Gathering (Order Members and GFR mitras).

Direct download: Podcast392.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast by Danadasa is entitled Faith and Wisdom. In this Buddhist path of transformation, how we relate to practice has a profound effect upon that which unfolds. How do we relate to the idea of path and goal? How do we relate to effort? How do we relate to not knowing? During this 4-week Sangha Night series, Danadasa will explore what is meant by a wise relationship to practice through the perspective of the 5 spiritual faculties, which are mindfulness, conviction, energy, meditation, and discernment.

This talk is part of the series The Five Spiritual Faculties.

Direct download: Podcast391.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:53pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast by Sangharakshita a is entitled The Conscious Evolution of Man: Right Effort. Discussing the evolution of consciousness, this lecture explains that at the stage of reflexive consciousness, deliberate effort is required for any further progress. Right Effort is fourfold: preventing and eradicating the unskilful, and cultivating and maintaining the skilful.

Talk given in 1968 as part of the series The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

Direct download: Podcast390.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:40pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast by Dayasagara is entitled Quietly Revering the Unfathomable – Reflections On Guhyaloka. In the sparkling and wonderful talk, Dayasagara evokes the magic and mystery around his ordination, his time in ‘the secret valley’, and his new Dharma name.

Direct download: Podcast389.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:42pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast entitled Urban Metta Bodhilila talks about how city life offers constant opportunities for practising metta in quite challenging situations and can provide a crucible for our spiritual practice, particularly our ethical practice.

Direct download: Podcast388.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:51pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast, this week is called A Field of Kindness by Sona.
A talk on kindness, the quality of caring and the Bodhisattva Ideal, given at the Stockholm Buddhist Center, on 5 September 2005.

Direct download: Podcast387.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:01pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast, this week is called The Richly Endowed Buddha of the Southern Realm by Dhammadinna.

Third in a series of talks given on the 2012 Triratna International Retreat. For more talks, videos, photos etc from the retreat see www.thebuddhistcentre.com and navigate to page ‘internationalretreat’

Direct download: Podcast386.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:12pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast, this week is called Self Compassion For the Sake of All Beings. Munisha gave this talk in English to a Swedish audience, 5th March 2016, Dhammagiri Retreat Center, Sweden.

Direct download: Podcast385.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:08pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled The Sevenfold Puja: Worship by Maniraja. The Sevenfold Puja – drawn from the Bodhicaryavatara – is the main devotional ceremony of the Triratna Buddhist Community.

This talk is the second in the series on the Puja, given Manchester Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: Podcast384.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:02pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioCan ritual help us put the conditions in place through which bodhicitta may arise? In this week’s FBA Podcast Using Ritual to Cultivate Bodhicitta Vijayasri explores our reactions to the idea of ritual and how rituals can become meaningless. We then look at the concept of ritual as “entering into a realm of the imagination where we encounter Buddhas and Bodhisattvas”.

This talk was given at the Croydon Buddhist Centre in April 2016 as part of our regular Saturday morning sangha class, the first in the theme of “Transforming Self and World”, in which ritual was explored as a method of putting conditions in place through which bodhicitta may arise.

Direct download: Podcast383.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:42pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is the first talk in a sparkling, wide-ranging, thoroughly comprehensive ten talk series by Padmavajra on ‘The Diamond Sutra’ entitled Taking Mind to its Limits. We are taken through the work stage by stage, and here we begin with the opening scenes and the text itself as a revelation of Reality…

Talks given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004

This talk is part of the series The Diamond Sutra – Taking Mind to its Limits.

Direct download: Podcast382.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Bhadra introduces the archetypal magician, Padmasambhava, in a talk called The Art of Ritual and Descent, given at a day for men in Bristol, UK. He uses episodes from the magician’s life to illustrate how engaging the imagination through ritual and being willing to make the journey of descent are key elements of a fruitful practice.

Direct download: Podcast381.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:29pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled The Disappearing Buddha by Sangharakshita. The Buddha adopted the appearance and speech of his different audiences, and gave discourses on the Dharma which instructed, inspired, fired, and delighted. Then he would just disappear and leave them wondering, ‘Who is the Buddha?’
Talk given in 1994.

Direct download: Podcast380.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:25pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is called Bright Blue Sky, Deep Blue Sea by Suryadarshini.

Amitabha is one of the most well-known archetypal Buddhas, whose qualities of love and compassion attract myriad practitioners and devotees.

Suryadarshini shares her personal connections with Amitabha, from superheroes to phoenixes, and also explores traditional symbols and imagery of the red Buddha of the West.

Direct download: Podcast379.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:02pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is by Kulaprabha entitled Her Two Hands Are the Two Truths. This is the second in a four-part series by Kulaprabha on Nagarjuna’s ‘Lines Written to Tara.’

Direct download: Podcast378.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a cracking and wonderfully detailed talk called Vajrapani – Energy Unlimited 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 well 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…!

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2003

Direct download: Podcast377.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:40am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Padmavajra entitled The Motive. This is the first talk in an eight part series by Padmavajra exploring a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa’s ‘Jewel Ornament of Liberation’.

The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008

This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Direct download: podcast376.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:16am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Mahamati entitled Actualizing the 1000 Armed Avalokiteshvara. The third of four talks given on the Padmaloka May National Order weekend- Mahamati talks on actualizing the myth of the Order- symbolised in the 1000 armed Avalokiteshvara.

Direct download: podcast375.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:52am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Vajratara entitled The Power of the Archetypal Realm given at Sheffield Buddhist Centre on 29th May 2007 as part of a series of talks on Buddhist Symbols.

Direct download: podcast374.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:18am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Padmavajra entitled The Bodhicitta – A supra-personal spiritual force.

This is the second in a series of five talks given on a Going for Refuge retreat at Padmaloka called Living From The Bodhicitta.

Padmavajra explores some aspects of Sangharakshita’s insights into the Bodhicitta, as well as how we might live a life devoted to living from the Bodhicitta.

Direct download: podcast373.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:25am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Ratnaprabha entitled Sowing Seeds In the Soil of the Mind – The Alaya.

The alaya, or storehouse consciousness, is the Buddhist equivalent of the unconscious mind. It is like a garden, in which every experience and action sows a seed which may later sprout and create our unfolding life. This talk describes how this relates to the six sense awarenesses, the mind as a sense, and the contaminated mind which reads everything in terms of self and not self. Mindfulness finds a creative path between leaving the alaya on autopilot, and allowing the contaminated mind to interfere and fill the garden with weeds and rubbish.

Direct download: podcast372.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:43am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is called Mind and Mental Events by Subhuti.

These five omnipresent mental events (sarvatragas) constitute the basic mechanics of the mind; if you are conscious, they are present.

1. Feeling-tone (vedana)

2. Recognition (or conceptualisation) (samjna)

3. Directionality of mind (cetana)

4. Contact (sparsa)

5. Egocentric demanding (manaskara)

From this we can conclude that:

1. All our experience is feeling-toned. The more conscious we are of this, the less we will react and be driven by our likes and dislikes.

2. We are always interpreting our experience with varying degrees of accuracy and depth. We can make an ongoing effort to raise the level of our experience.

3. The mind is always moving towards things. We can use cetana skilfully to move in the direction of Going for Refuge by practising the precepts etc. But we need to want to go in that direction.

This talk is part of the series Mind and Mental Events (Subhuti 2001).

Direct download: podcast371.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:22am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is calledThe Buddha Beyond Siddhartha by Dassini.

The first half of the talk looks at the Buddha’s early life and his battle with and the defeat of Mara. Then Dassini looks at the traditional Buddhist concept of time, and the division of time into Kalpas, inconceivably lengthy periods of time.

The talk concludes by looking at the Dharma niyama, the order of conditionality through which the attainment of Enlightenment is possible.

Please not that as this talk progresses there is some sound disturbance that gets louder as the talk goes on. Apologies for this.

Direct download: podcast370.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:14am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is calledAnapanasati – Contemplation of Feelings given by Guhyavajra during the 2016 Anapanasati retreat at Padmaloka.

The Anapanasati meditation practice and Four Foundations of Mindfulness are woven into a system of practice which when developed and cultivated is of great fruit and great benefit.

Based on the Buddha’s principal discourse on the subject found in the Anapanasati sutta of the Pali Canon, we explore our human experience rooted in the six senses; from the perspective of body, feeling and mind in the context of mindfulness with breathing.

This talk is part of the series Anapanasati.

Direct download: podcast369.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:50am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is calledThe Sangha Context of the Anapanasati Teaching, a talk given by Shubha at the London Buddhist Centre’s Women’s Night Class, Nov 21st 2013.

Drawing out the full sutra where the Anapanasati teaching is given speaks to the sangha context as a condition for insight.

Direct download: podcast368.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:55am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is called Inquisitive Mind, Thinking and Awakening. Here Yashobodhi talks about the relationship between thinking and insight. As long as we have a brain, we will have thoughts. Some of these thoughts are helpful. Some not so much. Becoming aware of thoughts is a good start. Whatever next?

Direct download: podcast367.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:05pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is called From View to No View by Jnanavaca on views and the need for a positive emotional engagement with those views.
London Buddhist Centre in 2007

Direct download: podcast366.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:38pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is called Training in the Six Paramitas: Shila – The Essence of Ethics by Padmavajra. This is the fifth talk in a six-part series by Padmavajra exploring the Perfection of Wisdom and specifically the practice of the Six Perfections. The usual order of the practices is reversed, so here we turn to the key issue of “Ethics”.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004 as part of the series Training in the Six Paramitas.

Direct download: podcast365.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:19am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Working with Energy In the Bodhicaryavatara, Suryamati explores the theme of Virya (energy) in Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Talk given at Sangha Night, Sheffield Buddhist Centre on 29th April 2008. Part of a series on Great Buddhist Texts.

Direct download: podcast363.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:12pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today is brought to you by Vaddhaka entitled The Evolution of the Bodhisattva Ideal. In this elegant description of the evolution of the Bodhisattva Ideal Vaddhaka draws on his extensive reading and study, and picks out Jan Nattier’s writing in particular. Given at Sangha Night at Stockholms Buddhistcenter, 8 March 2010.

Direct download: podcast362.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:54am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is by Sangharakshita from 1971. The Myth of the Return Journey has a theme which resonates with many similar stories in world literature. Here its important elements are related to the personal quest for meaning.

This talk is part of the series Parables, Myths and Symbols of Mahayana Buddhism in the White Lotus Sutra.

Direct download: podcast361.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:32am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, The Bodhisattva’s Practice – Six Perfections, Ratnaghosha, just back from four weeks of solitary retreat, explores the Six Perfections and how we practice them.

Direct download: podcast360.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:04am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Saccanama called Faith: the Key to the Mystery of Life. Saccanama speaks with passion, clarity and intelligence, weaving ideas with personal examples in this high quality talk.

Direct download: podcast359.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:36pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Ratnaprabha called Likes and Dislikes. On the Wheel of Life, the whole person is symbolised by a boat with passengers, the five skandhas. Ratnaprabha focuses especially on our habit energies, and our habitual preferences. Are we ruled by our likes and dislikes? Is there a creative response? How to the five Buddhas fit in?

Direct download: podcast358.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 2:00pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Subhuti called Beyond Karma – The Dharma Niyama. In this, the final installment of Subhuti’s three-part Ramble around Reality we go beyond the realm of Karma as we glimpse the glory of the Dharma Niyama.

Direct download: podcast357.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:13pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a wonderful Interview with Parami, Tiratna’s International Order Convener. Karunagita invites Parami to share snapshots from her decades in Triratna, starting with ordaining seven Mexican women the week before and going back through time and locations, roles, challenges, delights and contributions, including Spain to Glasgow and London in the late 1970s.

Recorded at the NLBC monthly women’s class in May 2017.

Direct download: podcast356.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:04pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, is a new talk on Writing As Spiritual Practice. Drawing on her experience as a poet, Varasahaya discusses creativity, imagination, and the writing process as a spiritual practice. She reads some of her poems, and explains the process by which they came to birth, and what she learnt about letting go of self as she grappled with writing. An excellent and very accessible talk given to Sangha night at the West London Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast355.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Shifting to Indras Net, Parami evokes the reality of interconnectedness in relation to the second Dasadhamma – My life is dependent on others. I am sustained by the gifts of others – She talks about how the experience of interconnectedness is supported by wisdom, and results in compassionate activity.
This talk is part of the series The Order as Practice: Shifting Paradigms.

Direct download: podcast354.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:55pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, Letting Go of What Isn’t There is a gentle and insightful talk by Dhammarati on the Anapanasati Sutta given at the LBC’s Dharma Day festival on July 12th 2009.

Direct download: podcast353.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:21pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, Spiritual Death and Radical Transformation is a rousing talk by Maitreyabandhu that goes into where Buddhism begins: with ourselves as we are and with the awake Buddha. But we don’t really know either ourselves or the Buddha. He emphasises that we don’t know because we so easily assume we know, or fix or lessen the goal. So what do we do? There are three approaches we need to balance and four things we have to do, to close the gap between the awake Buddha and us who are as yet unawake. Given at Sangha Night, 13 May 2013.

Direct download: podcast352.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is by Triratna’s International Order Convenor, Parami, speaking on one of her favorite topics: The Group and the Spiritual Community. Parami has lived and worked within Triratna for many years of her life. Sangha is very important to her and her years of experience will help us to get a clearer idea of what makes a spiritual community, rather than a positive group.

Direct download: podcast351.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:39am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Three Ways to Insight – Working with the 3 Prajnas Subhuti considers afresh this traditional teaching of cultivating insight through hearing, reflecting and meditating.

Direct download: podcast350.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:15am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is entitled The Meaning of Spiritual Community Revisited by Mahamati. One of the talks given at Padmaloka during the 2016 ‘Urgyen’ retreat.

The retreat was part of the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Padmaloka, and aimed to explore the life and teachings of our founder Urgyen Sangharakshita.

Direct download: podcast349.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is entitled The Buddhas Noble Quest by Dhivan.

In this talk given at a Sangha evening at Bristol Buddhist Centre, Dhivan considers what we can learn from the story of the noble quest of the Buddha. This story is recounted in the Discourse on the Noble Quest (Ariyapariyesana-sutta) in the Middle-length Discourses (Majjhima-nikaya). In it we can almost believe we are hearing a memory of the Buddhas own words, as he recounts his going forth, his study under great meditation teachers, his eventually leaving them, his austerities, and finally his awakening. Dhivan draws out some of the continuing significance of the story of the noble quest, as a kind of blueprint for the model of the Dharma life as heroic self-development.

Direct download: podcast348.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:02am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is entitled The Importance of Mindfulness by Kamalashila.

In this talk from September 1996, Kamalashila explores the centrality of mindfulness to the Buddhist path. He discuses the concept of intoxication, with reference to the 5th Precept and the Sutra of Golden Light. Kamalashila then considers the four foundations of mindfulness from the the Satipatthana Sutta and concludes that mindfulness is the basis of metta and allows us to embrace the realm of truth and beauty.

Croydon has been home to FWBO or Triratna Buddhist communities and centres since 1968. Many early talks by well known speakers were recorded, both at Aryatara, since 1979, and at the new Croydon Centre from 1981. These are now being transferred from their crumbling cassettes to digital format, as part of the Croydon Digital Archive Project, and are being made available to everyone.

This talk is in good condition but starts and ends abruptly.

Direct download: podcast347.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:39am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is entitled Sangharakshita, the Unenlightened Englishman by Ratnaprabha. A 1989 film on Sangharakshita was embarrassingly titled The Enlightened Englishman. He may not be enlightened, but he has had a fascinating life and a very positive influence on a huge number of people. This talk gives an account of his life, work and teachings, including personal reminiscences. It introduce a series on Sangharakshita.
This talk is part of the series Sangharakshita and his approach to Buddhism.

Direct download: podcast346.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:06am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast FBA Podcast is part four of a series of talks on the Triratna Vandana by Subhuti entitled Sangha Vandana. The most striking point from this talk is the importance of taking the Sangha refuge as the possibility of an Ideal Society. It is so easy to get dis-illusioned with people and groups. Yet human relationships are such an integral part of our lives we need some vision that more is possible – the arya sangha exemplify this as they relate to each other on the basis of metta as opposed to self grasping and egoistic desire.

Direct download: podcast345.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:44pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast FBA Podcast is a fabulous talk by Jnanavaca called The Wisdom of Words. The spiritual community, the Sangha, is the ideal context in which we can practise the Dharma. It is also a force for good in the world and an ideal in its own right. But how is the Sangha sustained? Continuing our exploration of ‘The Four Sangharavastus’ (or Means of Unification of the Sangha). Jnanavaca launches the year with a keynote talk on the second of these, Kindly Speech.

Direct download: podcast344.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:13pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio…There is poetry as soon as we realize there is nothing… Continuing the series celebrating the unique contribution of Urgyen Sangharakshita to modern Buddhism, Akasamitra explores his key teaching of Mind Reactive – Mind Creative in this week’s FBA Podcast.

Direct download: podcast343.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:59pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is by Parami, entitled The Path to Buddhist Engagement. This talk was given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre on Triratna Night, 27 June 2016, during Buddhist Action Month – BAM!

Direct download: podcast342.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:44pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week is by Mahasiddhi, entitled: Maitri, Friendship and Meaning – Being a Buddhist Chaplain In a Non-Buddhist Setting. As part of taking the Dharma into the world, Mahasiddhi talks about his experience as a Buddhist Chaplain and how the Dharma supports and informs his practice with mainly non-Buddhist patients. Mahasiddhi has been practising chaplaincy for nearly four years starting as a volunteer then for nearly past two years has been the Buddhist Chaplain at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

Direct download: podcast341.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:04am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week is by Vajratara, entitled: Kshanti (Patience): A Response to the Modern World. This talk was given in Sheffield at a unique time in British politics. A few days before, the UK had voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. At a time of political turmoil with reported hate crimes increasing by 57% since the referendum, Vajratara asks how can we have a Buddhist response to political change? How can we respond particularly to the rise of ‘ugly’ nationalism and hate crimes? Does kshanti mean doing nothing, or can it lead to more creative action?

Direct download: podcast340.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:49am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week we hear from Ratnaprabha on Gender and Sexuality In Buddhism. In this very rich and well researched talk at the Stockholms Buddhistcenter (13 June 2011) Ratnaprabha traces the view of gender and sexuality in Buddhism. He addresses these topics in an open and inquiring way, not afraid of treading on ground that many others shy away from; and he raises many new questions. Rich food for further thought.

Direct download: podcast339.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:26am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, Prasadachitta delivers a beautiful set of reflections on his personal practice in Whirlpools and Clear Water. This talk by Prasadachitta is like a beautiful stillness amid the whirl of a full Order Convention. His conversational style gradually brings forth the depth of reflection behind it. And the integrity of his personal practice bubbles easily to the surface when, with humility and good humour, he shares his own experience of working across two very human tendencies that have a bearing on friendship. ??

His evocation of the river – now full of whirlpools as it flows through the Neurotaloka, now becalmed as eddies meet and resolve themselves – and his inclusion of poems from Kathleen Raine and Naomi Shihab Nye make this a genuinely lyric talk. Like a closely observed discourse on consciousness meeting Walt Whitman and finding things, in the end, go along just fine…??

With an introduction by Danadasa. Con traduccion en Espanol.??Recorded outdoors at Chintamani Retreat Centre, Mexico, as part of the 2015 Triratna Buddhist Order Pan-American Convention.

Direct download: podcast338.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:09am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, The Muni and the Moonlight, Vajrasara reflects on the Buddha, his victory over pleasure and pain, and how we might bring him alive in our lives. Talk given May 2011 at Bristol Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast337.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:39am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a delightful talk in which Sangharakshita looks at his own poem ‘Sripada’, the translation of which gives the title:Footsteps of Delight. Evoking the more mythical side of his own spiritual quest, he challenges us in ours with an often good humoured look at what it is to Go for Refuge to the Buddha and his teaching in the context of vibrant spiritual community.
With concluding remarks by Dharmachari Kulananda.
Talk given in 2001.

Direct download: podcast336.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a dynamic talk by Vadanya calledIs the Buddha Dead for Us?. In this talk on the Buddha’s parinirvana, Vadanya explores how we can use our imagination to have a real living connection with the Buddha, and how we can make our own future potential for enlightenment a source of strength and guidance in our present lives.
Talk given at a Men’s Event, Padmaloka Retreat Centre, October 2011.

Direct download: podcast335.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:45am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast entitled Reverencing the Buddha – I Bow to No One Dead Or Alive Mahamani gives an incredibly passionate talk on reverencing the Buddha. Drawing on her own experiences of struggling to understand the place of ritual in Buddhism, Mahamani guides us on her own path to finally bowing before the Buddha.

Direct download: podcast334.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:33am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Padmavajra describes how we practice the Dharma so as to create Love, respect and unity within our community and the wider world. Creating Love, Respect and Unity given at the Mens Event titled Beyond Isolation, Building the Buddha Land.

Direct download: podcast333.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:22am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThe wonderful Dhammadinna brings us this week’s FBA Podcast entitled Seven Point Mind Training. This is the first of seven talks in a series based on Atisha’s famous ‘The Seven Points of Mind Training’, and influenced both by Chekawa’s commentary and Langri Tangpa’s ‘Eight Verses for Training the Mind’.
This talk was given on April 7th, 2008 and is part of the series Seven Point Mind Training.

Direct download: podcast332.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:04am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Maitreyabandhu entitledSpiritual Death and Radical Transformation. In this rousing talk Maitreyabandhu goes into where Buddhism begins: with ourselves as we are and with the awake Buddha. But we don’t really know either ourselves or the Buddha. He emphasises that we don’t know because we so easily assume we know, or fix or lessen the goal. So what do we do? There are three approaches we need to balance and four things we have to do, to close the gap between the awake Buddha and us who are as yet unawake. Given at LBC Sangha Night, 13 May 2013.

Direct download: podcast331.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:39am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Vessantara entitledThe Empty Boat. Early navigators were able to traverse vast distances using intuitive messages from the sun, wind, stars. Going for refuge is kind of a journey that needs ongoing mindfulness, a vision of the goal
The second in a series of four talks by Vessantara exploring Going for Refuge is an accessible talk on the Insight aspect.
From the four-part series, Aspects of Going for Refuge, given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in early 2016.

Direct download: podcast330.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:26am EST

Free Buddhist AudioParami delivers this week’s FBA Podcast entitledLiving In The Greater Mandala. She brings this theme alive in the most human, poetic, and inspired of ways.

Her range is broad as she evokes the mandala itself, and the profound, playful path of the Bodhisattva. Calling forth Rumi and Hafiz, the great Buddhist Perfection of Wisdom texts, Keats, Yeats, Robert Hass, and Kenneth White, she illustrates what it looks and feels like to live dedicated to the wellbeing of all as the most natural thing in the world.

As always with Parami, her great experience shines through in this talk – a terrific encouragement to anyone thinking of integrating this perspective of joy into the challenge of everyday life…

Recorded in Adelaide, Australia, October 2015 for the 2015 Triratna International Urban Retreat.

Direct download: podcast329.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:05am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a talk given by Vajrapriya entitledDescend with the View, Ascend with the Conduct. Vajrapriya makes the link between this saying, and Sangharakshita’s explanation of the Noble Eightfold Path as a path of Vision and Transformation; talks about what it means to ascend with the view; and to descend with the conduct; and explores the signs that we’re not keeping these two directions of practice in balance.

Direct download: podcast328.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:52am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are delighted to bring in Jnanavaca for today’s FBA Podcast entitled The Texture of Reality. In this talk, he explores the notions of conditioned and unconditioned reality, and the relationship between the two.

Direct download: podcast327.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:37am EST

Free Buddhist AudioVajratara headlines our FBA Podcast for today with a talk entitled Metta and the Path of Insight. Given on a Young Womens’ Weekend at Taraloka, she discusses how the practice of metta can be more than just the simple cultivation of loving-kindness and positive emotion, and how it can also be a window into deeper truths about the nature of reality.

Direct download: podcast326.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioFrom a landmark talk of the same name, our FBA Podcast today is from Parami entitled The Lineage of Inspriation. Here Parami speaks about the lineage of inspiration, one of the four lineages Sangharakshita has handed on to the Triratna Order and movement; lineages of teachings, practices, institutions and inspiration. She evokes the importance of the lineage of inspiration in this burning world, and talks about her own sources of inspiration since she came into contact with the movement in 1977, sharing quotes from a number of Bhante’s early talks which had a profound impact on her.

Direct download: podcast325.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOurFBA Podcast today is from Ratnaguna entitled From Karma Niyama to Dharma Niyama, a talk given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre on a Day for Men in Training for Ordination, 13 March 2016.

Direct download: podcast324.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:12am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’sFBA Podcast Shifting to Indras Net Parami evokes the reality of interconnectedness in relation to the second Dasadhamma – My life is dependent on others. I am sustained by the gifts of others – She talks about how the experience of interconnectedness is supported by wisdom, and results in compassionate activity. This is the fourth talk of The Order as Practice – Shifting Paradigms retreat.

Direct download: podcast323.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:59am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast Beyond Heaven and Hell Vajrasara shares her ideas for managing the highs and lows of the 8 Worldly Winds. Talk given October 2011 at Bristol Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast322.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:05am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is entitled Wayfinding by Vessantara. A rich talk using the metaphor of wayfinding to navigate our way across the sea of suffering to the safe refuge of the Buddha Dharma. The first of 4 talks exploring Going For Refuge given on Sangha Night at Cambridge Buddhist Center.

Direct download: podcast321.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:49am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is possibly one of Padmavjra’s best talks given at Padmaloka. Compassion.
This. Given during the October Men’s event 2012.

Direct download: podcast320.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:43am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is so provocative we don’t even need a description. Who Hates the Metta Bhavana? by Jnanavaca. Week two of a five week seminar on the Metta Bhavana practice at the London Buddhist Center.

Direct download: podcast319.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:31pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, Evolution, Capitalism and the Buddha Vaddhaka argues that capitalist economics is based upon a narrow evolutionary view associated with social Darwinism and a distorted interpretation of the survival of the fittest. So the question is then: Can modern approaches to evolution help to develop a new approach to economics more in line with buddhist values?

Stockholm Sweden, 22 of February 2016

Direct download: podcast318.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:17pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast recounts the harrowing and revelatory tale of Kisa Gotami in a talk entitled “A Life-Changing Encounter” by Jvalamalini.

In the story, Kisa Gotami’s grief for her dead child is completely transformed after her contact with the Buddha through the experience of compassion and insight, leading her to a life of spiritual commitment and renunciation.

Direct download: podcast317.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:21am EST

Free Buddhist AudioPart of a series from Cambridge Buddhist Centre on the Six Distinctive Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community, today’s FBA Podcast from Aryajaya is entitled “Commitment is Key“. Here she discusses Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels, a thread that runs through all Buddhist traditions but which is drawn out strongly as a central principle in the Triratna tradition.

Direct download: podcast316.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:20am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is entitled “The Way to the Beyond” by Vimalavajri. Here she offers some reflections on how the Mahaparinibbana Sutta gives us glimpses of awakening by looking at three topics: Ananda’s request for last instructions, the Buddha’s comforting of Ananda’s grief, and the mystery of the Parinirvana itself.

Direct download: podcast315.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:19am EST

Free Buddhist AudioContinuing with our journey through the Five Buddha Mandala, we find ourselves at the centre with Vairocana. Today’s FBA Podcast is entitled Sitting At the Centre of the Mandala by Vessantara.

How do we balance the teachings of effort and openness? One way is through the image of the sun and relaxed being. The practice of the Dharma is simply to come back. Yet of course this requires effort.

Another question is the balance between practical and mythical approaches : can we hold both at once? What do we give significance to? what do we make real ? can we open to a world of richer and deeper meaning?

This is the eleventh and last talk of Padmaloka’s 2012 Winter Retreat and is part of the series The Mandala of the Five Buddhas.

Direct download: podcast314.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:31pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioContinuing around the mandala, we now enter the realm of story and imagination with a journey to the northern realm. In today’s FBA Podcast we move around to the North to meet Amoghasiddhi: Courage and Creativity. Amoghasiddhi is also connected with Spiritual Rebirth, we hear how this relates to insight, becoming more than we are, and the way in which we draw up courage and creativity to transform ourselves and maybe make a difference in the world.
This talk is part of the series The Mandala of the Five Buddhas.

Direct download: podcast313.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist AudioContinuing around the mandala, in today’s FBA Podcast we meet Amitabha in a talk by Padmasuri simply called Amitabha.

Direct download: podcast312.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioContinuing around the mandala, we enter the realm of Ratnasambhava, the golden Buddha of the South. In “A Personal Take On Upekkha, this weeks FBA Podcastby Ratnavandana.

Continuing the series of personal talks on each of the Brahma Viharas from the 2015 Rainy Season Retreat, Ratnavandana shares an intensely honest, psychologically intimate, beautifully forensic history of her personal relationship to the practice of upekkha (equanimity) throughout her spiritual life. We hear about ways to assess what is going on in the subtler realms of our experience – and how to look to move beyond them so we too can live like a river…

Direct download: podcast311.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:55am EST

Free Buddhist AudioHaving now entered the mandala, we begin in the East with Akshobya on the theme of Integration with “The Five Aspects of Dharma Life – Integration”, this weeks by FBA Podcast. Subhuti delves into the fundamental principles behind Integration and invites his hearers to apply them deeply in their own lives. We begin by taking fully responsibility for our karmic agency. This talk is part of the series The Five Aspects of the Dharma Life.

Direct download: podcast310.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:32am EST

Free Buddhist AudioFor the next month or so we’ll be entering the mandala with a variety of talks and reflections from members of the Triratna Buddhist Order. We’ll begin at the beginning with “Entering the Mandala” by Vessantara for the first FBA Podcast in this series. Vessantara introduces Mandalas, in terms of personal, symbolic and specifically buddhist representations. He then invites us to enter the Mandala as a initiatory voyage of discovery and development, making reference to the System of Practice and the need to balance effort with openness.
This talk is part of the series The Mandala of the Five Buddhas.

Direct download: podcast309.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:03am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is entitled “Sanghakaya and the Heart’s Release” by Maitreyi. She describes having somewhat of an epiphany on first hearing the term ‘Sanghakaya’ in a talk by Subhuti in India. It seemed to give expression to a whole direction and momentum of her life and practice, while simultaneously both deepening and opening out the mystery of the enlightened mind, expanding beyond any sense of individual consciousness or attainment. This talk is about the Sangha Jewel and it’s place in the spiritual life, given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre on Triratna Night, 14 December 2015.

Direct download: podcast308.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is a tribute to our teacher, Bhante Sangharakshita, given by Parami entitled “Revisiting the New Society”, the third talk of The Order as Practice – Shifting Paradigms retreat. Parami talks about the first verse of the Dasadhamma Sutta – “I am no longer living according to worldly aims and values.” She revisits Bhantes vision of the New Society, sharing her inspiration and love for the radical and transformative power of the Dharma.

Direct download: podcast307.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:14am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is a tribute to our teacher, Bhante Sangharakshita, given by Padmavajra entitled “Glimpses of the Mythic Life of Sangharakshita”.

Urgyen Sangharakshita, the founder of the Western Buddhist Order, is many things to many people. Yet all inspiration and controversies aside, he is first and foremost a follower of the Buddha’s way and his own evocations of his personal practice give many clues as to the nature of a committed Dharma life.
Here Padmavajra, one of his closest disciples, offers his own perspective on Sangharakshita as a practitioner with a rich sense of the mythic context pervading all his thinking about the Buddha and his teaching.

Talk given in 2008.

Direct download: podcast306.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe’ve been inspired to share writings and poems by Bhante Sangharakshita this month. Our FBA Podcast today, “Sangharakshita – Facing Mount Kanchenjunga”, is a delightful talk from 1991. Sangharakshita starts by reading an extract from the new volume of his autobiography, Facing Mount Kanchenjunga. He follows this by talking about and reading eight poems that he composed in Kalimpong which give a real feel for his appreciation of the place but also for his worries about the effect of logging in the mountains.

The talk was given on November 28, 1991, in Croydon Buddhist Centre as part of the book launch for his autobiography.

Croydon has been home to FWBO or Triratna Buddhist communities and centres since 1968. Many early talks by well known speakers were recorded, both at Aryatara, since 1979, and at the new Croydon Centre from 1981. These are now being transferred from their crumbling cassettes to digital format, as part of the Croydon Digital Archive Project, and are being made available to everyone.

Direct download: podcast305.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:43pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe’ve been inspired to share poems by Bhante Sangharakshita this month. Our FBA Podcast today is an unusual, early, talk from Sankharakshita which will be new to most people. “Sangharakshita – Reading Poems About Friendship”. Bhante was invited by the Croydon Arts Centre, in 1990, to choose, discuss and read poems about friendship. His selection ranges from the Epic of Gilgamesh to 20th century poets and clearly shows Sangharakshitas love of poetry and his desire to share this with other people.

The tape begins with an introduction by Dharmaruci, includes the Pearl Fishers friendship duet sung by Jussi Bjorling and Robert Merril and concludes with a personal reflection on Sangharakshita by Nagabhodi, as a book launch for A Taste of Freedom.

Croydon has been home to FWBO or Triratna Buddhist communities and centres since 1968. Many early talks by well known speakers were recorded, both at Aryatara, since 1979, and at the new Croydon Centre from 1981. These are now being transferred from their crumbling cassettes to digital format, as part of the Croydon Digital Archive Project, and are being made available to everyone.

The tape quality reflects its age, the sound is slightly distorted, but clear, during the readings and more distorted during the duet.

Direct download: podcast304.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:36pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast features Ratnaghosha in a talk entitled “An Ever Widening Circle”. Given as the key note talk at Sangha Day at the Cambridge Buddhist Center, launching the Year of Spiritual Community for 2014 and laying out a vision for the Sangha.

Direct download: podcast303.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:17pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast features Vajratara in a talk entitled “Buddhism and the Modern World”. Given on a retreat for young women training for Ordination, Vajratara describes the topical issues of the time and asks what the Buddhist response is. The refugee crisis, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the effects of neo liberal capitalism and environmental denigration; all point to a change in the way we see each other and the world. We live at a time where the world is opening to a new way of living. This new way of living is indicated both by the Buddha and, in modern times, by Sangharakshita.

Direct download: podcast302.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:44pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast features Jnanavaca in a talk entitled “Mind Over Matter”. Most people think of science as insisting that only dead matter really exists as a substrate of everything in the universe, and that mind is something that does not have the same reality as matter. However modern physics shows that matter itself is not made up of definite things, and that it may even be influenced by being observed by a conscious mind. Jnanavaca describes evidence from the double slit experiment, and draws lessons for seeing through the illusion of personal separateness and discovering the imperative of kindness.

Direct download: podcast301.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:25pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In the final installment of our long-running series on the Six Emphases of Triratna, this week’s FBA Podcast features Padmakumara in a talk entitled “What is Triratna Buddhism?”.

Padmakumara wraps it all up neatly with his own perspectives on what Triratna’s approach to Buddhist principle and practice is.

Direct download: podcast300.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In his typical engaging speaking style, Padmavajra illuminates the Triratna emphasis on spiritual friendship in this week’s FBA Podcast, with “Triratna Emphases – Spiritual Friendship”.

Wrapping up the last of the Six Emphases of Triratna that we’ve been featuring over many weeks, Padmavajra gives a through overview of the importance of companions on the Buddhist path.

Direct download: podcast299.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Dayabhadra is the distinguished speaker with “Triratna Emphases – The Arts”.

Dayabhadra gives us a comprehensive look at the importance of the arts in the spiritual life, one of the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community.

Direct download: podcast298.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Subhuti gives a very comprehensive introduction to one of the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community with “The History of and Value in Team-Based Right Livelihood”.

Subhuti gives a rousing talk on some of the history behind team-based Right Livelihood within the Triratna Buddhist Movement. He then goes on to explain why it is so important; because it represents an opportunity to live a ‘full’ Buddhist life for ourselves and present society with an alternative to consumerism and the myth of progress through buying a bigger TV.

Direct download: podcast297.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast features a talk by Manjuvajra on one of the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community - “The Triratna Emphasis on a Unified Order”.

Here, Manjuvajra highlights the fact that involvement and membership of the Triratna Buddhist Order is open to all, irrespective of gender, colour, sexual orientation, lifestyle, or any other personal characteristic.

Direct download: podcast296.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Dhammarati gives an excellent talk on one of the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community with “The Triratna Emphasis on Going for Refuge”.

In this talk Dhammarati explores Going for Refuge and its central emphasis in the Triratna Buddhist Order, bringing in the story of his own spiritual journey as an example of finding one’s unique response. He also looks to historical sources to identify some of the ways we can deepen our connection practically and experientially.

Talk given on the Men’s Going for Refuge Retreat at Aryaloka Buddhist Center, 2013

Direct download: podcast295.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Manuvajra discusses critical ecumenicism – one of the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community – with “The Ecumenical Emphasis in Triratna”.

In principle, and in contrast with other approaches to contemporary Buddhism, any approach to the Dharma that conduces to a deepening of spiritual practice is valued in the Triratna context with a critical eye towards what constitutes fundamental Buddhism, and what works in practice.

Direct download: podcast294.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Sangharakshita gives a full introduction to the Six Emphases of the Triratna Buddhist Community with “Forty Years On – The Six Emphases of the FWBO”.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly the Western Buddhist Order), he has some great reminisences about the early days, and is on top form as he considers the uniting factors of this diverse group of people who are engaged with the project of discovering Buddhism all over again for the modern world.

Direct download: podcast293.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, “The Individual and Community” Dhammarati explores the central importance the Triratna Buddhist Order places on communication and connection as a means of personal transformation and the basis from which we influence the world. This gives us the significance of the Triranta Buddhist Order as a community of individuals trying to change themselves and have a positive impact on society making them a nucleus of a new society.

Talk given at the Dharmapala College seminar on the New Society, 2010.

Direct download: podcast292.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, “Revering and Relying Upon the Dharma” Subhuti reflects on his recent conversations with Bhante which gave rise to his article: ‘Revering and Relying upon the Dharma: Sangharakshita’s approach to Right View’.

A talk given at the Triratna Buddhist Order Combined European Order Weekend at Wymondham College 21 August 2010.

Direct download: podcast291.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:48am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast is a tender and moving talk by Paramananda entitled “The Nature of Transformation”. Transformation is basically allowing the protective shell of self to dissipate. This shell only falls away if you come into relationship with your real, impermanent, fragile, vulnerable nature and soften into that or open up to that.

Direct download: podcast290.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:32am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “Discipleship”by Dhammadinna. This talk was given at the Triratna Buddhist Order December 2014 Women’s UK and Ireland Area Order Weekend at Adhisthana on 6 December 2014.

Direct download: podcast289.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “The Diamond Sutra”, is a talk given my Sangharakshita in 1969. If one does not want to ‘get caught in the grip of reality’, one should leave this great text alone! The Perfection of Wisdom Discourse that ‘Cuts Like a Diamond’…

N.B. Reference for this lecture: Buddhist Wisdom Books, translated by E. Conze. (Allen & Unwin, 1958)

Direct download: podcast288.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:26am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, is brought to us by Padmavajra called “Padmasambhava and the Magic Of Compassion”. Padmavajra is an ideal person to introduce Padmasamabhava, the great Tantric guru of Tibet. He is both a devotee and a good storyteller – a winning combination as we are brought into vivifying contact with the origins and mysteries of this central Vajrayana figure.

Please note, there is some audio skipping on this recording for a couple of minutes at around the 45 minute point. Oddly, the sense can still be followed.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2006

Direct download: podcast287.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:02am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “Breaking the Bonds of Selfhood Through Serving the Dhamma (with translation in Hindi)” by Parami. Here is a strong, beautiful talk by Parami from the final day of the Triratna Buddhist Order’s International Convention 2013 in India, bringing us back to the task in hand as members of the Order and as Buddhists: engaging with breaking the fetters and weakening the hold that self-clinging exerts upon our minds and our ways of seeing things.

Parami brings alive the possibilities in notions about how collective practice manifests (Order chapters, the Bodhisattva Ideal at ordination, ‘sanghakaya’) but grounds the whole thing movingly in her evident love of the Order and her inspiration at being gathered with so many sisters and brothers under one sky.

Talk given at Bodh Gaya, International Order Convention, February, 2013.

Direct download: podcast286.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:19am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “Yidams” is a talk given at Sheffield Buddhist Centre in 2007 by Padmavajra. As we approach the full moon of July, Buddhists around the world will be celebrating Dharma Day, the marking of the Buddha’s first teaching. We decided to fast forward several hundred years after the Buddha’s lifetime to introduce a host of Bodhisattva’s who emerged to help spread the Dharma throughout the world. Beginning with this full talk, we will follow over the next few weeks with talks, mantras and more in our Dharmabytes Podcast to introduce Tara, Manjusri, Vajrapani, Ksitigarbha, Avalokitesvara and Padmasambhava.

Direct download: podcast285.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:44am EST

Free Buddhist Audio ‘The dharma changes lives, it has changed our own and it can change others.’ This week’s FBA Podcast is a talk by Dharmashalin he called: “Reaching Out – Communicating the Dharma From Our Appreciation, Courage and Conviction.” Buddhism is a communication, the Buddha, gained Awakening and shared his experience with others which has led us to be here today. This is the origins of Outreach, taking the Dharma to others.

I have started working for the Birmingham Buddhist Centre to do just that, continuing a strong tradition here of taking the Dharma out. But, that communication needs to be grounded in our own awareness and appreciation of what we have benefitted from.

We can all cultivate this awareness and in fact any time we take the risk to tell others about our values – that is a moment of outreach. All of us associated with the Centre can do this, and together we can help spread the Dharma more and more widely.

Direct download: podcast284.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:34am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast entitled “Buddhism and the Language of Myth” is part of the series Ritual and Devotion in Buddhism by Sangharakshita. Buddhism is the most rational of religions. But it appeals no less to the heart than to the head, using the language of myth to do so. Examples are four ‘myths’ from the Buddha’s biography, here correlated with four of Jung’s archetypes.

Direct download: podcast283.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:59am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’sFBA Podcast entitled “Here Be Dragons: Pitfalls, Disasters and Dead-Ends on the Spiritual Quest” by Vessantara. A hugely enjoyable piece – and something a little bit different from the average Dharma talk. For here we have the Buddhist path laid out in terms of Arthurian legend and the Quest for the Holy Grail. Knights, chivalry, adventures and disasters – it’s all here. And, of course, true wisdom where the gallant, sometimes errant, hero least expects to find it. Just like in a story…

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Men’s National Order Weekend, August 2002

Direct download: podcast282.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:43am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’sFBA Podcast entitled “The Heroic Ideal in Buddhism” is a 1969 talk by Sangharakshita. Buddhism is sometimes seen as weak or negative. Using examples from the Pali Canon and Mahayana texts, this lecture shows that, on the contrary, heroic and positive qualities are essential in the Buddhist spiritual aspirant’s quest for Enlightenment.

Direct download: podcast281.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:17am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’sFBA Podcast, “Walking On Lotuses”, Punyamala offers a personal talk on receptivity on the anniversary of her seven year review as a private preceptor. To learn more about joining the Triratna Buddhist Order, see The Buddhist Centre Online.

This talk was given by Punyamala on the Triratna Buddhist Order European Order Gathering at Wymondham College August 26 2012. The theme of the gathering was Spiritual Receptivity.

Direct download: podcast280.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’sFBA Podcast, “Parables From the White Lotus Sutra – the Burning House”, Jnanavaca kicks off a new seminar series exploring the myths and parables of the glorious White Lotus Sutra. In this talk he unpacks the wisdom of the parable of the Burning House. Dharma Night at the LBC, April 6th 2015

Direct download: podcast279.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:56am EST

Free Buddhist AudioHow do we know? This week’s FBA Podcast is the first of three rambles from Subhuti, entitled “Knowledge of Reality – Ramble One”. Subhuti draws inspiration from Europe’s first Buddhist, Schopenhauer, and India’s ancient Yogachara. With immaculate clarity Subhuti takes us deep into the nature of mind and beyond. Talk given at the London Buddhist Centre in October 2014.

Direct download: podcast278.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:48am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’sFBA Podcast, “Sowing Seeds In the Soil of the Mind – The Alaya” by Ratnaprabha.

The alaya or storehouse consciousness is the Buddhist equivalent of the unconscious mind. It is like a garden, in which every experience and action sows a seed which may later sprout and create our unfolding life. This talk describes how this relates to the six sense awarenesses, the mind as a sense, and the contaminated mind which reads everything in terms of self and not self. Mindfulness finds a creative path between leaving the alaya on autopilot, and allowing the contaminated mind to interfere and fill the garden with weeds and rubbish.

Direct download: podcast277.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:17am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’sFBA Podcast is a talk from Vadanya entitled “Stirring the Depths.” From the depths of ourselves to the depths of the universe, Vadanya reminds us that to be fulfilled we need to live a life in harmony with the nature of reality Using images, mantra, mythic stories to bring us into the depths of our experience, this beautiful talk was given on a men’s ordination training retreat at Padmaloka.

Direct download: podcast276.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’sFBA Podcast is a talk from Parami on “Buddha Day (2012).” Celebrating the Buddha’s Enlightenment on the full moon day in May, Parami delivers an inspiring talk marking this occasion at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast275.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:20am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe’ve all read the words of the Buddha – but what did he SOUND like? What might it have been like to actually hear him…? In ourFBA Podcast: this week, Ratnaguna gives us a beautifully imaginative and well-researched evovation of the Buddha entitled:“The Voice of the Buddha.” Talk given on the 2012 Triratna International Retreat, under the overall theme ‘Imagining the Buddha.’

Direct download: podcast274.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:09am EST

Free Buddhist AudioDhammarati brings us this week’sFBA Podcast entitled: “The Triratna Emphasis On Going For Refuge.” Dhammarati explores Going for Refuge and its central emphasis in the Triratna Buddhist Order here, bringing in the story of his own spiritual journey as an example of finding one’s unique response. He also looks to historical sources to identify some of the ways we can deepen our connection practically and experientially.
Talk given on the Men’s Going for Refuge Retreat at Aryaloka Buddhist Center, 2013, Part 1 of a 4-part series.

Direct download: podcast273.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:01am EST

Free Buddhist AudioDharmashalin brings us this week’s FBA Podcast: “An Introduction to the Triratna Community.” A broad overview of the conditions and history behind the Triratna Buddhist Community, comes with a healthy side order of questions about narrative and how we tell stories.

Direct download: podcast272.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:46am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are delighted to share this week’s FBA Podcast entitled, “Introduction to the Brahma Viharas.” Here, Ratnavandana beautifully introduces the Brahma Viharas as an integrated set of practices flowing from metta – loving kindness. Her central image is that of a tree, deep rooted and spreading its canopy wide as she evokes a profound, personal connection to the cultivation of the sublime abodes – loving kindness, compassion, joy with others, and equanimity.

Ratnavandana also leads a guided meditation on cultivating a connection to the Brahma Viharas.

This talk was given as part of the 2015 Rainy Season Retreat at Bristol Buddhist Centre. The full archive of this retreat is available on The Buddhist Center Online.

Direct download: podcast271.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:31am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “Eros and Beauty – Beauty As Refuge,” Subhadramati continues the series exploring the place of Eros and Beauty in the Buddhist life by drawing out the experience of poetry and connecting with strangers. 26th January 2015, London Buddhist Center

Direct download: podcast270.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, Vadanya shares much to reflect on in the “Sutra of Golden Light.” This is the first of two talks given during the Men`s Event in November 2009 on the theme of the Sutra of Golden Light. Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Center, 2009

Direct download: podcast269.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:42am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThe Pure Land Sutras are described as practices, not texts to be read and understood, but rather engaged with as if a piece of music, inviting us to awaken our imagination. Ratnaguna gives us a in depth look at the beauty in the Sukhavati Sutras in this week’s FBA Podcast: “Adventures In the Pure Land – Beauty.” This is the 2nd talk in a series of four talks inspired by the Pure Land Sutras at Triratna Night at Manchester Buddhist Centre. February 9th 2015

Direct download: podcast268.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:25am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a gem from Vajratara entitled: “The Buddha, The Bodhicitta and Bhante.” Vajratara introduces the Bodhicitta in an easily accessible format: what, why and how. She starts with the symbolism of the Buddha’s own Bodhisattva vow at the time of Dipankara, the previous Buddha. She also draws out Sangharakshita s unique understanding of the Bodhicitta and how that has shaped the Triratna Order and Movement.

Given at Tiratanaloka on a retreat for women training for Ordination.

Direct download: podcast267.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:02am EST

Free Buddhist AudioDoes Buddhism have anything to say about the recent attacks in Paris? What about liberal democracy; does Buddhism agree? Our FBA Podcast this week, “The Diamond Throne” explores these very questions. With characteristic intelligence and sensitivity, Chairman of the Centre Jnanavaca launches 2015 by exploring such issues via the vision of the Vajrasana – the diamond throne.

Direct download: podcast266.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:46pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled “Building the Buddhaland”. Here Dayamala discusses the various aspects of the Buddhaland and how we, as Buddhist practitioners, can hope to take part in the building of it.

Direct download: podcast265.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:17pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is “Adventures in the Pure Land – Happiness”. Here Ratnaguna begins a series of four special talks at Manchester Buddhist Centre on the Pure Land sutras, with an exploration on the theme of Happiness.

Direct download: podcast264.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:05pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled “Death and the Self, and the Buddha’s Unanswered Questions”. Here Vaddhaka delves into the Buddha’s unanswered questions; questions that Vacchagotta, Malunkyaputta and others asked him. Among them: ‘What happens to a Buddha after death?’ And what happens at our own death; what did the Buddha really say; and why did the renowned Buddhist scholar Paul Williams convert from Buddhism to Roman Catholicism?

Direct download: podcast263.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:31pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled “Bodhicitta and Spiritual Death” by Vijayamala, a talk given as part of the Understanding, Exploring and Realising Spiritual Death retreat, led by Kamalashila and Vijayamala, at Adhisthana Dec 2014.

Direct download: podcast262.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:21pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is entitled “The Mystery of Exchanging Self and Other”. This is the fifth in a series of six talks given by Padmavajra, based on verses from Shantideva’s ‘Guide to The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life’, otherwise known as ‘The Bodhicaryavatara’.
Talks given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, on the Winter Retreat, December 2011 – January 2012.

Direct download: podcast261.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:08pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, “Awareness Is Revolutionary”, by Sona, takes a sharp look at Buddhism and secular mindfulness. Calling on his many years experience working with Breathworks, Sona explores how we use the Buddha’s teaching and mindfulness to alleviate pain and suffering.

Direct download: podcast260.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:46pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this wide-ranging FBA Podcast entitled “Understanding Money, Understanding Ourselves”, Siddhisambhava encourages us to talk about money more and suggests reasons why we often find that so hard to do. She outlines the Buddha’s approach to money and encourages us become clearer and more confident in it.

Direct download: podcast259.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:54pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Subhuti gives a rousing talk on “The History of and Value in Team-Based Right Livelihood” within the Triratna Buddhist Movement. He then goes on to explain why it is so important; because it represents an opportunity to live a ‘full’ Buddhist life for ourselves and present society with an alternative to consumerism

Direct download: podcast258.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Saddharaja discusses “Meaningful Work and Values” in light of his own experience in a Right Livelihood business. He posits that most people in the modern world might find meaning in their work, and explores how Buddhists can make meaningful work a spiritual practice.

Direct download: podcast257.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 6:52pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Guhyavajra explores “Ethics as Insight Practice”. Ethics is as an important stage in the path leading to wisdom, but how are ethics and insight interrelated?

Direct download: podcast256.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 5:48pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast entitled “The Texture of Reality”, is an early lecture from Sangharakshita on Insight, recorded in 1966, dealing with the three marks (lakshanas) of conditioned existence and their transcendence via the three liberations (vimokshas).

Direct download: podcast255.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:58am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast entitled “Meeting the Suffering of the World”, by Maitrisara, was the last in a series of talks at Dharmapala College celebrating “40 Years of the New Society”. Here Maitrisara takes on the topic of compassion in action.

Direct download: podcast254.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 2:15pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioA robust talk for this week’s FBA Podcast entitled “A Challenge to the Modern World”, by Sagaraghosa, critiquing structural elements of our society from a Buddhist standpoint, and exploring what we can do to bring about a society more in line with Reality.

Direct download: podcast253.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:11am EST

Free Buddhist AudioGrounding his talk in the Kosambiya and Anuruddha suttas in this week’s FBA Podcast entitled “Why We Need the New Society”, Vajragupta guides us through how we can create the conditions for the seeds of selflessness to grow and develop in the framework of the New Society as described by Sangharakshita: communities, centres and working together.

Direct download: podcast252.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:19pm EST

Free Buddhist Audioin this week’s FBA Podcast, Padmavajra, one of Sangharakshita’s closest disciples, offers his own perspective on Sangharakshita as a practitioner with a rich sense of the mythic context pervading all his thinking about the Buddha and his teaching, in a talk entitled “Glimpses of the Mythic Life of Sangharakshita”.

Direct download: podcast251.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:25pm EST

Free Buddhist Audioin this week’s FBA Podcast, Vidyadevi remembers her time working with Sangharakshita to edit books based on his lectures and seminars. Entitled “Simple Gifts”, it’s a reflection on friendship with her spiritual teacher.

Given during the Rainy Season Retreat at Manchester Buddhist Centre in February 2014.

Direct download: podcast250.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:13pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioAchala responds to the question, “Who is Sangharakshita?” in this week’s FBA Podcast, drawing from his own experiences and those of others. He looks at Sangharakshita’s significance as a spiritual teacher, his qualities and his life.

This talk was given at Nottingham Buddhist centre in April 2014.

Direct download: podcast249.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 3:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioVajratara brings us this week’s FBA Podcast entitled: “From the Bodhicaryavatara.” The Mahayana emphasizes the great goal of the spiritual life – the immeasurable energy, wisdom and compassion. This is what life is about, this is what the path of the spiritual practitioner is all about. Vajratara explores Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara at Sangha Night, Sheffield Buddhist Centre on 18th March 2008. Part of a series on Great Buddhist Texts.

Direct download: podcast248.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:38am EST

Free Buddhist AudioVessantara leads us on a journey to discover “Spiritual Receptivity” for this week’s FBA Podcast. This is the first in a thoroughly engaging set of talks and led meditations. From beginning to end, we get to experience the full flavor of the retreat that these segments were recorded from, held at Adhisthana in 2014. Vessantara deftly weaves Spiritual Receptivity together with the greater mandala of the Triratna System of Practice, bringing in aspects of each of the stages of the system and helping to put receptivity in the context of the spiritual life as a whole.

Talks given at Adhisthana, February 2014

Direct download: podcast247.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:25am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, “Great Faith, Great Wisdom,” by Ratnaguna, is from the 2014 Men’s Order Convention.

Direct download: podcast246.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:11am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, is another brilliant talk from the European Combined Order Convention. In “Wow! Opening to Insight,” Viveka gives us much to reflect upon in our practice in a world that needs our presence. Are we ready to awaken to all sorts of astonishing things? What do you know from direct experience? What we see is pratitya-samutpada, which isn’t a view, but rather a description of how things are. In the lasagnas we see that all of our conditions are a proximate cause for insight arising – just be curious…and have a look!

We need to be more unconditionally loving as a community in order to support the arising of insight.

Direct download: podcast245.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, is entitled “Singing the Song of the Order,” by Jnanacandra. One of two talks on more devotional approaches to Insight, given at the European Combined Order Convention held at Wymondham College on 24 August 2014.

The theme of the convention was “The Bodhisattva’s Reply: Triratna Paths to Insight”.

Direct download: podcast244.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:23am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, “Radical Change – Learning to Be Free ,” is a talk by Sona given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre in April 2012. He explores how we can make real, even radical, changes to our lives through waking up to life with awareness.

Direct download: podcast243.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:31am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast, “Padmasambhava’s Advice to the Three Fortunate Women,” comes to us from Glasgow Buddhist Centre, 2010. Padmolka looks at the first section of Padmasambhava’s Advice to The Three Fortunate Women from The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava. She begins by saying a bit about Padmasambhava subduing the demons of Tibet and the circumstances around the time when this teaching is given.

Padmasambhava is asked for a short, practical teaching which can be learned by heart to help Queen Nang Chung to practice the Dharma and ultimately lead her to Buddhahood.
She then goes through the verse, pulling out it’s themes and meaning.

Direct download: podcast242.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:18am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a quite unusual and unexpectedly intimate talk from Sangharakshita, “Dreams and Rebirth.” Given at the wonderful old converted church that is now the resplendent Sheffield Buddhist Centre in the UK. Some lovely, evocative accounts from his personal dreamlife – tales of mediaeval monks! – and a significant and highly personal exploration of the whole area of Buddhist views on rebirth and re-becoming. Much food for thought here from a wholly atmospheric and clearly enjoyable occasion.
Talk given at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre, 2008

Direct download: podcast241.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:42am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast“The Mandala of the Buddha,” is a talk given by Kamalashila on the 2012 Triratna International Retreat, in which he explores the ‘Mandala of the Buddha’ – some of the Buddha’s many qualities which, perhaps, gave rise to the later Mahayana ‘Mandala of the Five Buddhas’.

Direct download: podcast240.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:29am EST

Free Buddhist AudioVajratara delivers our FBA Podcast this week, “Energy, the Tantric Precepts and Enlightenment.” An exploration of what energy means in the spiritual life and how to work with it, especially referencing Sangharakshita’s ‘Tantric’ version of the Five Precepts. Given at the 2011 National Young Triratna Buddhists Weekend retreat exploring the theme of ‘Energy for Enlightenment’. See www.buddhismtoday.co.uk for more young Buddhists’ events.

Direct download: podcast239.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:12am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “Eight Step Recovery” Vimalasara speaks on the importance of loving oneself as a part of recovery from addiction as an introduction to her new book, co-authored with Paramabandhu, entitled ‘Eight Step Recovery – Using the Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction’. She goes on to discuss the life conditions that she and Paramabandhu have emerged from, and how those energies came together and inspired the writing of the book. Outlining the eight steps, Vimalasara demonstrates that, while the book was mainly written for those in recovery, it is in some way for everyone. The talk is followed by a question and answer session.

Direct download: podcast238.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWords are not adequate to describe things as they are, and yet Ratnaguna does a remarkable job! This week’s FBA Podcast, “The Buddhas Two Great Gifts to the World” Ratnaguna explores the gifts of discourse and practice. This talk was given to to promote a new buddhist centre in Stockholm.

Direct download: podcast237.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:27pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is entitled: “Make Yourself An Island.” Reflecting on her favourite lines from the Paranibbana Sutta, Jvalamalini explores how to become an island in the midst of the eight worldly winds, especially how to steer through praise and blame, and fame and infamy by developing true individuality, and spiritual receptivity.

Direct download: podcast236.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:33am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast was given at the London Buddhist Centre’s Dharma Day celebration, July 2014. “Dharma and Nature” by Dhivan, author of “This Being, That Becomes”. The word Dharma means many things, including “nature” – referring to how things work, the true nature of things. We also use the word to refer to the whole interconnected living world. The meanings of the world only partly overlap, which gives us the starting point for this precise, thoughtful, evocative Dharma talk.

Direct download: podcast235.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:21am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast comes to us from Amalaketu entitled “A Hopeful Buddhist Response to Environmental Crisis”. How, as Buddhists, can we respond appropriately to the current environmental crisis. Talk given on Sangha Night at Norwich Buddhist Centre on 1st July 2014.

Direct download: podcast234.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:08am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are pleased to share the three keynote talks from last month’s International Retreat. Our third FBA Podcast in the series is “Altruism, Actually – Getting Out and Doing It”. Mokshini introduces us to Buddhist Action Month and asks us to consider how our actions have consequences and how we practise the precepts as consumers.

Talk given at the Triratna International Retreat 2014 held at Adhisthana on 26th May 2014.

Direct download: podcast233.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:59am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are pleased to share the three keynote talks from last month’s International Retreat. Our second FBA Podcast in the series is “Going Beyond Capitalism – A Buddhist Perspective”. Vaddhaka inspires Triratna Buddhists to learn more about economics and challenge the Neo-liberal economists notion that individual greed will lead to everyone benefiting. He encourages us to embrace Sangharakshitas vision of a New Society as an alternative way of being for the world.

Talk given at the Triratna International Retreat 2014 held at Adhisthana on May 25th 2014.

Direct download: podcast232.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:40am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are pleased to share the three keynote talks from last month’s International Retreat. Our first FBA Podcast in the series is “The Bodhisattvas Reply”. Inspired by a poem from Sangharakshita entitled The Bodhisattvas Reply, Vajragupta outlines ways in which Western religious groups have historically approached engagement with social issues. Vajragupta suggests three ways in which we can work together to transform ourselves and so create a better world.

Talk given at the Triratna International Retreat 2014 held at Adhisthana on 24 May 2014.

Direct download: podcast231.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:05am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are pleased to share a talk by Parami for our FBA Podcast today, “Buddhanussati: What Would the Buddha Do Now?” given at Manchester Buddhist Centre on 12th January 2009.

Direct download: podcast230.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:37am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, “The Broken Mandala,”, Maitreyabandhu talks about how we need a central mythic thread in our lives, and how without this the mandala of our life is either broken, destructive or chaotic. This personal, inner mandala is mirrored by the public outer world around us. Humanly and spiritually we live in a broken mandala. How do we make sense of our lives? What is our deeper priority? What can we base our mandala around that will lead to true happiness?

The talk was given at Nottingham Buddhist centre on 9th April 2014.

Direct download: podcast229.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:18am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, “Forces That Shape the Mind,”, Manjuvajra continues with his thoughts on ‘Evolution and the meaning of life’. Individuals enter this path of a higher evolution by consciously cooperating with the evolutionary process to refine their self consciousness: to purifying the mind as a basis for the next evolutionary step. To purify the mind we must know the mind, so in this talk we explore an analysis of the mind that sheds light on the practical needs of the purification process which is itself achieved through the practice of ethics, mindfulness and meditation. This is the third talk in a series given at the Bristol Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast228.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:59am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, “Milarepa and the Yak Horn Story,”, Yashobodhi tells the story of Milarepa’s attempt to tackle his disciple Rechungpa’s pride by singing to him from inside a Yak horn.

Direct download: podcast227.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:31am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, “The Motive (Remixed),”, Padmavajra explores a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa’s ‘Jewel Ornament of Liberation’. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditation teachings of Milarepa himself.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter 2008
This talk is part of the series Themes from Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Direct download: podcast226.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:15am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast today, “Zen Master Hakuin”, Jyotipakshini delivers a wonderful overview of Hakuin’s early life and what led him to becoming a monk. She shares his strengthss and the characteristic aspects of his personality, his determination and intense dedication, as well as his highly critical nature, his struggles and setbacks. We also hear a little about the two schools of Zen and about koan practice, as well as Hakuin’s later life as a prolific teacher and reformer of the Rinzai school.

Talk given at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre in July 2011.

Direct download: podcast225.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:54am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn celebration of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, our FBA Podcast today is titled “Heart of Darkness” from the London Buddhist Centre’s Buddha Day Festival a few years back. Inspiring stuff, despite it’s title! An honest, heartfelt talk from the author, “Meaning in Life”.

Direct download: podcast224.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:35am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast we hear a talk given by Nagabodhi on Triratna Day 2014. Here, in “Dhardo Rinpoche, Stupa Building and Sangha” Nagabodhi recounts his favorite memories of his time with Dhardo Rinpoche in Kalimpong, expresses his feelings about the strengthening power of stupa building for centers, and ties it all together with a reminder of the central role of sangha in the Triratna Community.??Talk given on Triratna Day 2014 at Aryaloka Buddhist Center with an introduction by Aryaloka’s Chairperson, Dayalocana.

Direct download: podcast223.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:31am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast Dhammarati delivers “A System of Training.” Here Dhammarati explores the FWBO’s system of practice itself -its background in practice, its relationship to tradition, and its implications for the very nature of spiritual life. An encouraging, grounded, flexible take on the rigorous, meaningful, and rewarding challenges of a lifetime of working with the mind and the heart.
Talk given at the national Order weekend, February 2008

Direct download: podcast222.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:21am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast we hear from Parami in the LBC series: “Women Elders of the Triratna Buddhist Community” Parami, ordained in 1980, and one of our International Order Conveners, gives a talk about her spiritual life.

Direct download: podcast221.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:06am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “How the Buddha Taught Mindfulness,” Ratnpaprabha explains this practice and understanding of the Sutta of ‘Being mindful of the in- and out-breaths’ (Anapanasati). He talks about how mindfulness connects with body-awareness, how t takes you into rapture and happiness, and thus into ‘sensitivity to the whole mind. He also explores how one calms and focuses the mind in mindfulness meditation, and how this can lead to ‘gladdening’, ‘concentrating’ and ‘liberating’, and finally to full Insight.

Direct download: podcast220.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:22am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “Metta Blazing Like the Sun,” is Vajratara’s talk from the young people’s retreat at Adhisthana – ‘the big one’. Starting with a world on fire, Vajratara strips down what metta actually means in our experience: an awareness that discerns what is positive and stops it slipping from our minds. This is the seed of liberation, the cry of sunyata ‘unconditioned and unconfined’. Metta as a special quality of awareness radiating into four directions: our environment, our selves, others and Reality.

Direct download: podcast219.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:12am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “Remembering the Bodhichitta In Everyday Life
,”
is a talk from the recent Tonglen Retreat for Triratna Order Members by Yashobodhi. In this dynamic talk, Yashobodhi shares her personal connection to the ton glen practice, the seven point mind training and about practising tonglen in each moment.

Direct download: podcast218.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:26am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “Bhante – Poetry, Myth And Imagination,” is a talk by Dhammadinna given on the Rainy Season Retreat at Manchester Buddhist Centre on Wednesday 19th February 2014. Dhammadinna speaks about Sangharakshita and his emphasis on Imagination as a key to the spiritual life.

Direct download: podcast217.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:17am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week, “Make It So – Imagining The Buddha,” Suriyavamsa looks at the role of imagination in the way we shape our everyday world and how we can use this to bring the Buddha to life in our spiritual practice.

Direct download: podcast216.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:52am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week, “Entering The Realm Of Perfect Wisdom,” Santavajri shares her connection with the Heart Sutra at Sangha Night, Sheffield Buddhist Centre. Talk given on 5th May 2008. Part of a series on Great Buddhist Texts.

Direct download: podcast215.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:41am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “Dharmic Receptivity,” launch of the London Buddhist Center theme for the year by Jnanavaca. Talk given at the LBC’s Dharma Night Class, Monday January 20th 2014

Direct download: podcast214.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:35pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioVessantara has been on a three year long retreat and as he emerges he has many insights to share. Our FBA Podcast this week is filled with deep reflections marked by clarity and a brilliance we are excited to make available. In “Karma, Rebirth and the Deep Boundless Dharma,” Vessantara offers a concise explanation of karma as he explores the concepts of rebirth. Given at the Triratna Buddhist Order UK and Ireland Men’s Order Weekend at Adhisthana on 1 February 2014.

Direct download: podcast213.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “Freedom of Heart,” a talk by Dhivan as part of the International Urban Retreat, the theme of which is metta ‘blazing like the sun’.

Direct download: podcast212.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are delighted to bring you “The Power of Love” in this week’s FBA Podcast. Padmavajra begins this talk with the chanting of The Karaniya Metta Sutta, in order to invoke ‘the blessing power of loving kindness’, which according to the sutta needs to be wielded at all times. He explores all of the stages of the metta bhavana (development of loving-kindness practice), as well as showing how metta can lead to wisdom and liberation, at the same time saying: we practice the metta bhavana to love others, Enlightenment is incidental!

Direct download: podcast211.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:01pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn our FBA Podcast this week, Parami offers a delightful retrospect while looking forward in “Business As Usual – Adhisthana and the Bodhichitta.” Reflecting on the history of the Order, Bhante’s teachings, listening to the Dharma, developing our system of practice, and gathering together in large numbers. Inspiring as ever, Parami seeds the conversation about ‘commonality of practice’ as we move forward into a new era.

From the UK and Ireland Area Order weekend for women at Adhisthana on 7th December 2013.

Direct download: podcast210.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:19pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week for our FBA Podcast we offer a key in accessing the potentiality of consciousness in: “Consciousness Unfolds”. In this first talk from a series of three, Subhuti continues his well-known Rambles Around Reality at the LBC, this time enquiring into the nature of consciousness from the point of view of Urgyen Sangharakshita’s particular presentation of the Dharma.

Direct download: podcast209.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:41pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’sFBA Podcast“Spiritual Transmission and Lineage” is a detailed, intimate and heartfelt talk from Saddhanandi looking at the relationship between a Dharma follower and her/his teacher. The talk takes as its lead-off point, David Smith’s criticisms of the FWBO as lacking relationship with a ‘vertical dimension’ in its systems of practice. It’s a sympathetic and open response, but one that is also happy to have confidence in an inside experience of practice that arrives at different conclusions. Saddhanandi revisits Sangharakshita’s own take on the problems faced by practitioners in a contemporary spiritual community, and, with the help of a good sprinkling of quotes and stories from other traditions, she explores the nature of the Sangha as the possible ground for insight itself to arise.

Please note, this talk has variable sound quality throughout.

Talk given at the Tiratna [Western] Buddhist Order Women’s Convention, Wymondham 2007

Direct download: podcast208.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:32pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioWe are graced with Dhammadinna’s wisdom in this week’sFBA Podcast“The Richly Endowed Buddha of the Southern Realm” Third in a series of talks given on the 2012 Triratna International Retreat, Dhammadinna evokes the Buddha Ratnasambhava. For more talks, videos, photos etc from the retreat see www.thebuddhistcentre.com and navigate to page ‘internationalretreat.’

Direct download: podcast207.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:07pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioFor this week’s FBA Podcast we have Kamalashila speaking on the occasion of relaunching his book Buddhist Meditation. In “Tranquility, Imagination and Insight” he beautifully reveals his thoughts on how the Buddha was imbued with confidence without conviction. He seemed completely at peace with himself which lead to friendliness in all his communications.
His life, his example, the embarkment on the three trainings of behavior, meditation and wisdom combine in the practice of satisampajana – mindfulness and clear comprehension. Mindfulness was the Buddha’s core practice – Cultivating the Way of Awakening.

Direct download: podcast206.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:44pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast we picked one of Subhuti’s “Rambles Around Reality – The 5 Niyamas.” Here Subhuti talks about the fundamental basis of Buddhism’s conception of reality; Pratitya Samutpada. He introduces it in the form of the 5 niyamas, in the course of his ramble he emphasises that these are forces, or the way things are rather than ‘laws’. The talk culminates in the Karma and Dharma niyamas and particularly emphasising the importance of the Dhamma niyama, which is that in the universe that makes enlightenment possible. However to philosphise or abstract from it is to miss the point, in the end it must remain a mystery that we must experience for ourselves.

Direct download: podcast205.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:02pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast we hear another take on a famous Bodhisattva: “Vajrasattva: Not About Purity” by Jnanavaca given on Vajrasattva Festival Day at London Buddhist Centre on June 2009.

Direct download: podcast204.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:54pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast “Vajrapani The Dharma Protector,” Vadanya introduces us to this Bodhisattva of Energy given as part of a series of talks on Stories and Symbols at Sheffield Buddhist Centre on 3rd July 2007.

Direct download: podcast203.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:23pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio The fires that can consume our old selves also release a new potential, the image of the phoenix evokes this transformation. In this week’s FBA Podcast “Amitabha and the Phoenix,” Vessantara explores Amitabha’s emphasis on meditation and his wisdom of discrimination. Amitabha is also associated with spiritual death. How do all these associations come together? One point of connection is the Bodhicitta. The reorientation of self and a letting go which allows for something vaster and more beautiful to inform our lives. In the first place, this might be expressed through being more empathic and compassionate to others.

Direct download: podcast202.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:04pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast “Gazing at the Setting Sun – Amitabha and the Ordination Myth” is a previously unreleased talk by Dhammadinna looking at the process of joining the Triratna (Western) Buddhist Order in the sunset light of Amitabha, the red Buddha of the West.
Talk given in 2000 at the National Order Weekend.

Direct download: podcast201.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:07pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast “Mindfulness As the Great Love (White Tara)” is a talk given by Vajratara at Sangha Night, Sheffield Buddhist Centre (28th August 2007), about the symbolism of White Tara, as part of a series on Stories and Symbols.

Direct download: podcast200.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:06pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast “Dwelling In the Presence of the Buddha” Subhuti considers the significance of Sangha day falling on the cusp of winter, and the importance of the seasons in human life. He recalls the genesis of Sangha day from the time of the Buddha, and considers it’s relevance for us here in the 21st century. Ultimately Subhuti focus on the Sangha jewels itself; its vital importance for the individual practitioner and as a real sign of hope for this world.

Direct download: podcast199.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:43pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast by Ratnaprabha explores“How Genuine Sangha Can Be Created”.

Direct download: podcast198.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:08pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, is by Vidyamala titled “Can Buddhism Survive and Thrive In a Secular World?”. Based on her experience of teaching both ‘hard core’ Buddhism on the one hand and secular mindfulness on the other in various countries and cultural contexts, Vidyamala explores two opposite positions that can be taken in response to this question.

One can be ‘liberal’ and try to change Buddhism to align with popular values in society, or ‘conservative’ and try to change society to align with traditional Buddhist values.

Is there a middle way between these two extremes, where Buddhism is dynamic, accessible and attractive and yet remains true to the uncompromising and radical teachings of the Buddha?

Talk given at Manchester Buddhism Centre on 28th May 2011, as part of a series of free public talks entitled ‘Buddhism and the Big Question’.

Direct download: podcast197.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:58pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, we bring you“The Messengers of the Dharma” by Vajragupta. He offers us a very accurate look at our Order from the perspective of the first three fetters.

Direct download: podcast196.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:34am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “Padmasambhava: The Lost Talk”, previously unreleased and, rather famously, given off-the-cuff at the London Buddhist Centre, Sangharakshita gives us this enjoyable and stirring evocation of the great Tantric Guru of Tibet.
Talk given in 1979.

Direct download: podcast195.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:20am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, “Change Is Overdue”, Maitrisara shares her thoughts on the theme of ‘A Force for Good in the World’, given in the Dharma Parlour at the 2010 Buddhafield Festival in Somerset, UK. Maitrisara lives in Oxford, UK, where she’s active in a wide range of community projects – as well as Triratna’s EcoDharma centre in the Pyrenees.

Direct download: podcast194.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:07am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, “Dealing with Change”, Saddharaja starts off with another story from his childhood in the 1960s about a forest fire and the effects of this upon his father, who was a forester. An example of sudden, dramatic change at work. He moves on to talk about smaller less dramatic changes in the work place which can create anxiety for Right Livelihood workers. Talk given at Windhorse Evolution.

Direct download: podcast193.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:55am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast by Vadanya is called “Fighting the Fivefold Fear”. In this talk Vadanya explores how we can turn the tables on pointless anxiety and limiting fears, and use these as fuel for our practice. Talk given on Men’s Event at Padmaloka, June 2013.

Direct download: podcast192.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:26am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast by Jnangarbha is called “The Hub of the Wheel”. This is Part 2 of a series of four talks on the Wheel of Life. This talk on The Hub was originally recorded in December 2003. It is available on Free Buddhist Audio thanks to the volunteer efforts of the Croydon Buddhist Centre Digital Archive Project.

Direct download: podcast191.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:51am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast “Buddhism, Modern Physics and the Nature of Reality” given by Jnanavaca at the London Buddhist Centre’s Open Day in May 2010.

Direct download: podcast190.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:29am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast, “Buddhism and Science”, Manjuvajra condenses the Evolution talks into one that puts the spiritual life into the context of evolution – an update of Bhante’s Higher Evolution talks. Talk given at the Bristol Buddhist Centre, April 2013.

Direct download: podcast189.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:44am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast is a lovely talk by Vajrasakhi, current chair of Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre in Wales. In “Reality As A Way Of Life” Vajrasakhi shares her thoughts on Enlightenment as a way of living, a way of being conscious, a way of being aware, even creatively aware.

Direct download: podcast188.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:51am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast is the third talk in the LBC Buddhophany series by Subhuti titled:“Meeting the Buddha In Reality”. Subhuti concludes with a rousing call to take the Buddha’s invitation to meet him in reality. To do this we need to engage with the Buddha on the level of history and myth.

Direct download: podcast187.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:01am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, comes from Vidyamala, speaking at Manchester Buddhist Center in 2012.

Entitled “Awareness is Revolutionary”, she encourages us to change our minds to change the world, speaking about the life-changing power of awareness.

Direct download: podcast185.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, comes from Lokabandhu at Buddhafield’s Green Earth Awakening event in May of 2013.

Entitled “A Buddhist Approach to Changing the World”, Lokabandhu explores how Buddhists might take on the heroic task of affecting the world for the better. After reviewing the Buddhist concept of conditionality, he draws on examples such as Dr. Ambedkar and Triratna’s paradigm of the ‘New Society’ to illustrate how lasting social and personal change might successfully be brought about.

Direct download: podcast184.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, by Padmavajra, was given during the 2013 Young men’s retreat at Padmaloka.

Entitled “The Way of the Dharma Warrior”, Padmavajra describes the qualities of the Dharma Warrior and how Dharma Warriors are fighting in the great battle between the spiritual community and the group – fighting for the liberation of the truly human individual against the forces of mediocrity and uniformity – the battle with Mara who embodies those forces. Padmavajra concludes with David Jones’ magnificent evocation of a warrior in his poem ‘The Hunt’.

Direct download: podcast183.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, by Vajratara, is a tour-de-force of a talk entitled “Young People, the Bodhisattva Ideal, and Padmasambhava”.

Vajratara weaves together her first contact with meditation and the Dharma (being forced to go by her best-friend’s Mum!), early explorations with drugs, her love of teaching, how to build a spiritual community, Padmasambhava, and the Bodhisattva Ideal.

Direct download: podcast182.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, by Dhammagita, is entitled “Dads and Mums, Truth and Lies”.

Given at a Dharma Day festival talk at the West London Buddhist Centre in July 2011, here Dhammagita celebrates the Dharma – emphasising the importance of truth and authenticity – and ends with a heartfelt expression of gratitude to her own teachers.

Direct download: podcast181.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, by Sanghamani, and given during the Buddhafield East “Buddhism and the Natural World” retreat, is entitled “May All Your Weeds Be Wildflowers”.

Sanghamani draws inspiration from the use of images in nature linked to the Buddhas Enlightenment, Maras assault, and calling the earth goddess to witness and how we can use them to help us contact our own fearlessness and confidence. She encourages us to see our weeds as wildflowers and use metta to plant new seeds in order to create our own Buddhafields. She also speaks personally about the Buddhafields as places that offer the perfect conditions for spiritual growth.

Listen out for and be patient with the creaking mast of the Rainbow Tent ship!

Direct download: podcast180.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, by Sangharakshita explores the Sutra of Golden Light and is entitled “Nature, Man and Enlightenment.”.

We seek happiness, but often we find that our desires and aspirations are in conflict. This struggle and its resolution are symbolically portrayed in the sutra by the figures of the Monk and Drdha, the Earth-Goddess.

Talk given in 1976.

Direct download: podcast179.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 2:52am EST

Free Buddhist Audio In the face of global climate crisis what can we do? How can we change the ways we think and respond to the seemingly insurmountable problems the planet faces? This week’s FBA Podcast, by Akuppa, explores the relationships and connections between “Buddhism and Ecology.”

Akuppa’s thoughtful introduction to the worlds of scientific and deep ecology asks us the hard questions and offers some hope for possible answers. Drawing on the work of Joanna Macy and others, he traces positive lessons to be learned from simply observing and engaging with nature’s patterns and processes – and invites us all to prepare to be awestruck as a necessary first step.

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Convention, 2005

Direct download: podcast178.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 2:21am EST

Free Buddhist Audio Inspiration is present because of how we live – it is not something that comes from inside of us or outside of us. This week’s FBA Podcast, by Vidhuma, looks at: “Maintaining Inspiration.”

In his usual humble, poetic, and beautifully spoken way, Vidhuma weaves his way through The Three Refuges, bringing in his favorite American poets and writers, including Walt Whitman, as he explores the theme of the convention: The Heart of the Order.

Talk given at the North American Order Convention, 2010

Direct download: podcast177.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:49pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast, “Going for Refuge,” by Viveka, is a personable and wide-ranging look at one of the most important aspects of Buddhist practice, whose significance is upheld in every tradition.

What is it to look to the ‘Three Jewels’ as a response to our dissatisfaction? A thoughtful exploration, taking in traditional Dharma approaches and contemporary counter-cultural art forms and ways of living…

Talk given at San Francsisco Buddhist Center, 2006

Direct download: podcast176.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:45pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioTo appreciate the significance of the 25th Anniversary of the Triratna’s sole retreat center in America, Nagabodhi takes us back 2500 years to the time of the Buddha through the early years of the movement right up to the present day and onwards into the future.

This week’s FBA Podcast, “Reflections on Aryaloka” is an inspiring and well thought out talk including stories about Sangharakshita and Aryaloka’s early pioneers. Nagabodhi offers one man’s perspective on bringing Buddhism to the West: A story of heroism, gratitude and love for the Dharma.

Talk given at Aryaloka Buddhist Center, New Hampshire USA, August 2010

Direct download: podcast175.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:41pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast,“Love, Sangha and Amitabha”, Amitasuri introduces us to Amitabha: Buddha of love and compassion, looking at the love and sangha aspects of the red Buddha of the western realm. From this perspective Amitasuri reflects on our relationships and the preciousness of human life. She considers whether, with body speech and mind, there can be any more appropriate response to connecting with ourselves and each other than with love and compassion.

Direct download: podcast174.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:26pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In this week’s FBA Podcast “The Tale of Maha-Kassapa” Amoghavajra asks us, what is it that gladdens your heart?

Taking us back 2,500 years to the Kingdom of Magadha in Northern India to the birth of a boy called Kassapa, Amoghavajra tells the story of how he grows up happily and as he gets older he becomes less and less worldly. Kassapa marries Bhadda who has equally renunciant tendancies. They both go forth together.

Kassapa meets the Buddha, becomes his disciple and gains Enlightenment. He is known as a superb meditator and was foremost among the bhikkus for practising austerities. According to Amoghavajra’s story, one of the teachings that the Buddha gave to Kassapa was to attend to whatever gladdens the heart.

Direct download: podcast172.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:27am EST

Free Buddhist Audio Be prepared for the odd surprise in our FBA Podcast today where Dhivan asks: “What Do We Really Know About the Buddha?”

A lovely talk here from the excellent Dhivan. As he sifts the information that’s come down to us, we meet several different versions of a human being as he blurs with the archetypal presence he has also come to represent. Yet whichever manifestation we prefer, more than anything this talk brings us face to face with the rich and moving legacy of a brilliant and truly compassionate individual, changing the world he took part in, stepping out of history “with the walk of a lion, the walk of a swan.”

Talk given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2008

Direct download: podcast171.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:28pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today is a wonderfully entertaining talk on Perfect Vision titled: “Welsh Bats, A Vajrasattva Drugs Mule and Spanish Insight.” Here Vajrin tells a story of a wide ranging journey, including his early days at the Bristol Buddhist Centre in Long Ashton; his time as a junior doctor working in Africa; travels through India and Tibet; a visit to an Everest base camp and finally to ordination at a retreat centre high in the Spanish sierras. Along the way he manages to acquire a splendid Vajrasattva rupa and overcoming considerable obstacles, brings it home, thereby establishing a life-long association with this powerful bodhisattva of purification.

Direct download: podcast170.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:11pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Manjuvajraa offers us insight into “Spontaneous Universal Compassion.” The last of eight talks in the series ‘Evolution and the meaning of life’, here Manjuvajra shows us the next evolutionary step – purifying the mind.

Direct download: podcast169.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:38pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Ratnaprabha gives us: “How To Have Fun” – A Look at the Buddhist path in terms of happiness, engagement, interest and delight. A new take on the positive nidanas.

Talk given at the West London Buddhist Centre

Direct download: podcast168.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:08pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “The Power of Empathy,” Vajrasara explores metta (loving kindness), the subtle art of listening, and Kuan Yin, the mysterious white lady of Compassion.

One of a series of talks on the theme of ‘A Force for Good in the World’, given in the Dharma Parlour at the 2010 Buddhafield Festival in Somerset, UK

Direct download: podcast167.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:37am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “Empty Cave: Reflections on Life, Practice and Enlightenment,” Saraha takes us on a journey into the snowy mountains of the Pyrenees where he engaged in a solitary meditation retreat.

He found ‘nothing but the sound of a man breathing’ and hope and direction through emptiness, beauty and the Buddha’s assertion that mindfulness is the way to freedom.

Talk given at Birmingham Buddhist Centre, October 2012.

Direct download: podcast166.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:13am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Padmavajra takes us on an amazing journey into: “The Tiger’s Cave.” This is the first in an excellent 8-talk sequence by Padmavajra on Zen Buddhism. The series is full of colourful stories and challenging insights from the lives of the great Masters of China and Japan.

This talk introduces the basics and brings us face to face with the Great Emptiness at the heart of practice.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004

This talk is part of the series “Tangling Eyebrows with Zen Masters.”

Direct download: podcast165.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:57am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “Magic For the Modern World,” Candradasa takes a personal look at aspects of magic in the East and West, considering its place in Buddhist history and practice and also its meeting with Christianity at the time of the Renaissance. What emerges is a picture of how magic defined in various ways can be a powerful metaphor for the everyday work of Buddhist meditation and ethical practice – with the enchantment of love and wisdom fused the only one we need. The Buddha is the Master of Enchantments and his path – a magical training with him – is available to all. The truly marvelous awaits…

Talk given in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, October 2012.
This talk is part of the series “Religion Without God.”

Direct download: podcast164.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:55am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, “The Blissful Mind,” Vajradevi explores bliss, happiness, joy and their relationship to the Buddhist path. What stops us feeling happy more of the time? Is there a difference between freedom of desire and freedom from desire?

Last of a series of four talks entitled ‘The Powers of the Mind’ given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in April 2011.

Direct download: podcast163.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:49pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Vadanya delivers an engaging and rich talk titled: “The Great Hidden Treasures of Padmasambhava.”

Direct download: podcast162.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:44am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, we bring you a classic talk by Sangharakshita: “Art & The Spiritual Life.” “Art is the organisation of sensuous impressions that express the artist’s sensibility and communicate to his audience a sense of values that can transform their lives.” Using his own definition, Sangharakshita investigates the relevance of art and the artist to higher evolution.
Talk given in 1969 as part of the series “The Higher Evolution.”

Direct download: podcast161.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast,Ashvaghosha: India’s Great Buddhist Poet” Dhivan introduces Ashvaghosha, the Buddhist poet of 2nd c. AD India. Two of his works survive: a poetic re-telling of the Buddha’s life-story (‘The Buddhacarita’ or ‘Acts of the Buddha’), and ‘Handsome Nanda’, about the conversion of the Buddha’s sensuous and wife-loving cousin to the Dharma.

Here Dhivan shares some of his own translations of Ashvaghosha from Sanskrit and Pali sources, in this accessible and humorous introduction to some fine Buddhist poetry.

This talk given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 20 August 2009, on the occasion of the launch of Urthona magazine, issue 26.

Direct download: podcast160.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:03pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast, Maitreyabandhu brings us “Poetry East: Sasha Dugdale Interview.” Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. She worked for the British Council in Russia in the 1990s where she set up the Russian New Writing Project with the Royal Court Theatre. Since her return in 2001 she has translated new plays for the Court, the RSC and other theatre companies. Her recent translations of Elena Shvarts’ poems Birdsong on the Seabed were shortlisted for the Popescu Prize and the Academica Rossica Award. Her third book of poetry Red House appeared in August 2011 and is published by Carcanet Oxford poets.

“One of the most original poets of her generation”
Paul Batchelor, The Guardian.

PoetryEast.net

Direct download: podcast159.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:47am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA PodcastDeath And The Buddhist,” Danavira 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.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Men’s Event 2000

Direct download: podcast157.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:29pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA PodcastReflections on Vajrasattva: Purity, Confession and Death,” Dhammadinna shares her thoughts on Vajrasattva. His purity is not any sort of purity that can be attained – he is beyond space and beyond time. He is a very positive, profound, beautiful figure encouraging us to turn towards our innate purity, our Vajrasattva nature, so that we can wake up to the fact that in our deepest nature we’ve never been impure.

This talk was given as part of the Vajrasattva Festival Day at the London Buddhist Centre on Sunday 13th February 2010.

Direct download: podcast156.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:58pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA PodcastTriratna Buddhism,” Vadanya tells the story of Sangharakshita and the new Buddhist Order and movement he founded. He talks about the early days of the FWBO and demonstrates the radical nature of the movement that has now become the Triratna Buddhist Community.

Direct download: podcast155.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:35pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast , “The Individual and Community” Dhammarati talks about the Order as the basis for the New Society. Basing his talk in part on the lectures where Sangharakshita originally introduced the idea of the New Society, which also includes interesting material on the Order, specifically the distinctions between Public and Private Ordination and what they represent.

Dhammarati then goes onto to explore the central importance the Triratna Buddhist Order places on communication and connection as a means of personal transformation and the basis from which we influence the world. This gives us the significance of the Triranta Buddhist Order as a community of individuals trying to change themselves and have a positive impact on society making them a nucleus of a new society.

Talk given in a seminar at Dharmapala College, 2010.

Direct download: podcast154.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:07pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast , “Dreaming Angels” is a rousing and challenging talk by Vajratara given on the December 2012 National Order Weekend for women. The full title is “Dreaming Angels Each Imbued with the Mysteries of the Other – Why the Triratna Buddhist Order is Needed and What It Can Do.”

Vajratara begins her talk by evoking the social revolution of Dr Ambedkar. A revolution, she says, which is still needed to overthrow unhelpful attitudes in society, free the disadvantaged and give meaning to those who long for a higher life. She explains how the Triratna Buddhist Order can be in the first rank of the fighting forces in this revolution by referring to the Five Pillars of the Order.

Direct download: podcast153.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:02pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast , “Buddhism: A Force for Good in the World” Vajragupta explores the potential of the Buddha’s teachings to transform society, starting with seeing how the Dhamma has helped millions of people who’ve suffered under the Hindu caste system change their lives. He asks how we’ve done in bringing this part of Bhante’s vision into being in the last 40 years, and encourages us to take opportunities to change society, including helping activists in positive change, and bringing a Buddhist perspective to current social debates.

Direct download: podcast152.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:59pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast , “Buddhism and Peace” Parami thoughtfully asks: What is peace? And what does peace mean for Buddhists? Is it just the absence of war and conflict; guns and screaming?

Or is it also the deep silence that arises when the mind and heart are in harmony – a positive state of mind that can be cultivated both personally and collectively, where good and evil don’t exist as concepts?

This talk was given by Parami at Manchester Buddhist Centre on 30th July 2011 in the series Buddhism and the Big Questions.

Direct download: podcast151.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:10pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast , Kamalashila introduces the fifth perfection: “Dhyana Paramita, the Perfection of Meditation.” Kamalashila is the author of ‘Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination, Insight’, an excellent manual on the practice of Buddhist meditation. Talk given at the West London Buddhist Centre, 2012.

Direct download: podcast150.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:21pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast , “The Myth of Tristan and Iseult: Love, Transgression and Death,” Dhivan explores the origins and significance of the myth of Tristan and Iseult, relating it to the practise of Buddhism in the modern west.

The twelfth-century Cornish story of Tristan and Iseult has captivated imaginations and inspired poets, composers and artists ever since. What is it about this tale of a love potion and a doomed love, of adultery and lies, that is so fascinating?

The talk was given on 11 September 2008 at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, on the occasion of the launch of Urthona Magazine, issue 25.

Direct download: podcast149.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:56pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast , “Sangharakshita in Conversation with Kathleen Raine,” is a retro piece from the 1980s when ‘Independent Arts’ ran an ambitious and extremely impressive Arts program through the Croydon Buddhist Centre in London. Here’s a first offering from the archive of recordings – an open conversation between Sangharakshita, founder of the Western Buddhist Order, and the renowned poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, one of the founders of the Temenos Academy.

The occasion was the launch of Sangharakshita’s book ‘The Religion of Art’ – and the discussion ranges widely and, at times, controversially through the subject of the Arts considered as a vehicle for spiritual truths. It’s full of talking points and challenges to contemporary orthodoxies around art theory. But whatever one’s take on the views of the participants, this is a marvellous record of a unique meeting of minds.

Direct download: podcast148.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:35pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio The Jungian commentator James Hillman suggested that ‘soul’ needs nurturing as well as ‘spirit’ in human life. Our FBA Podcast , “Poetry, Soulmaking and Meditation,” Paramananda uses deeply meaningful poems to show soulmaking in action, and explains how the process can be brought into your meditation practice.

Direct download: podcast147.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:43pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week is a window into the ancient art of happiness. In “ Stop Buying Stuff and Learn How to Be Happy Instead,” Ratnaguna explores alternatives to buying more stuff and hooking up to more electronic gadgetry…

The Buddha repeatedly said that the only reason he taught was to alleviate suffering, and he in fact enumerated three level of happiness. This teaching is no longer simply an issue of personal growth – it has become vital to the future of our planet.

Talk given at Manchester Buddhist Center, 2011 in a series of free public talks, Buddhism and the Big Questions.

Direct download: podcast146.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:27pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week, “The Buddha and Friendship,” by Vajratara, begins by looking at how the symbols of the individual spiritual journey is really a story about a network of relationships. Every symbol is born out of relationship.  It’s living tradition that gives confidence, it’s not about your own individual practice – your own individual practice is just a part of the Buddhist tradition and the Buddhist community.

With references to Indra’s Net, from the Avatamsaka Sutra, Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra and descriptions of the Bodhicitta, Vajratara delivers an inspiring and engaging look at how our collective practice is essential for the arising of the Bodhicitta.

Direct download: podcast145.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:03am EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today, “People of Loving Kindness,” is a lovely talk from Padmavajra, given to celebrate Sangha Day in Birmingham. And who better to conjure the spirit of loving kindness as it permeates a community practising together and supporting each other in their great, shared endeavour.

Direct download: podcast144.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:43pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today, “Sangha in the Context of Contemporary Buddhism,” is from two of our speakers, Parami and Ratnaghosha. Together they deliver two excellent talks that reflect on the area of sangha from inner and outer perspectives respectively. How does the FWBO’s approach square up with that of other traditions? And how might we continue to work on our practice of sangha as an integral part of our personal practice of the Dharma. As usual from two of our most thoughtful speakers, there is much to consider here – in which any Buddhist will likely recognise the challenge and the joy.

This is the last in the series organised by ‘Dharmapala College’ to mark the 40th anniversary of the Western Buddhist Order. The series looked at the Order and the FWBO taken together – past and future: its own emphases, and its relationship to the whole Buddhist tradition…

Direct download: podcast143.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:39pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA PodcastBuilding Sangha, Creating Harmony” is a beautiful talk by Vajrasara. Here she explores the value of spiritual community, ways to encourage fuller harmony, and the many opportunities in friendship for waking up.

Direct download: podcast142.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:20pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOurFBA Podcast this week “Sangha As An Insight Practice,” is a thoughtful, inspirational and, in some places, challenging exploration of how Sangha can be a practice leading to Insight.

Please note: the last few minutes of this talk are missing, for a transcript see our description on freebuddhistaudio.com.

Direct download: podcast141.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:50pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast is titled “Creating Sangha and Changing the World” – an inspirational exploration of the Third Jewel by Saddhaloka. He looks at the distinguishing role of Sangha, spiritual community, in the development and life of the Triratna Buddhist Order, and, in fact, in any kind of Buddhist spiritual life. Saddhaloka here is steady and thoughtful as ever…

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2002

This is the first talk in the series of the same name. It touches on aspects of Sangharakshita’s ‘system of meditation’, and most specifically the area of positive emotion. Parami is an ideal guide for this sort of material, steeped as she is in study and practice engaged with in the light of the ‘Bodhichitta’, and the Bodhisattva Ideal itself.

Direct download: podcast140.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast, this week is from the delightfully inspirational Parami titled “The Awakening Heart.”

This is the first talk in the series of the same name. It touches on aspects of Sangharakshita’s ‘system of meditation’, and most specifically the area of positive emotion. Parami is an ideal guide for this sort of material, steeped as she is in study and practice engaged with in the light of the ‘Bodhichitta’, and the Bodhisattva Ideal itself.

Parami is the International Women’s Order Convener for the Triratna Buddhist Order.

Direct download: podcast139.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:26pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioFBA Podcast, “The Alchemy of Wisdom,” Yashobodhi introduces the perfection of wisdom in a series on the Six Paramitas at a West London Buddhist Centre Sangha night in May 2012. Followed by questions and answers.

Direct download: podcast138.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:08pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioFBA Podcast, this week, “Conditionality and Meditation” is a talk by Vessantara who has just completed a three year, three month, three day retreat.

Conditionality is a central theme of the teaching of the Buddha, and it is very helpful to bring our understanding of it into the arena of our meditation practice. During this talk, Vessantara looks at how to set up good conditions for our meditation to unfold in a natural, expansive way. He also explores how to meditate on conditionality, so that we take our understanding of it deeper, until we know its truth in our bones, and conditionality becomes our natural way of seeing the world.

Talk given at the Bristol Buddhist Centre, 2012.

Direct download: podcast137.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:46pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, The Therigatha and the Problem of Self“by Dassini, takes us into the lives of the early bhikkunis. Two verses by elderly nuns, Dhamma and Citta, give rise to reflection on letting go of fixed self view as a major component of breaking through to Enlightenment.

Direct download: podcast136.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:09am EST

Free Buddhist AudioFBA Podcast, “The Six Elements,” Ratnaprabha introduces us to earth, water, fire, air, space and consciousness as the mystery of human experience. He then describes how to use the elements in meditation and life.

Direct download: podcast135.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:40pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a delightful talk by Danapriya titled: “Let your Inner Riches Shine.” Exploring the themes of generosity and abundance, we are led into the heart of Buddhist practice.

Direct download: podcast133.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:38pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA PodcastDana – the Emotional Life of the Sangha,” Samacitta puts the practice of generosity under the microscope in this engaging talk on the first paramita.

When we perform an act of generosity, what exactly is happening? How does it relate to the development of Wisdom? Is there such a thing as purely mental generosity and how effective is it? This talk explains the ‘why’, ‘what’ and how’ of Dana-Paramita.

Direct download: podcast132.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:25pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast was first given on Lord Buddha TV in India. In “The Buddha’s Advice to a Banker” Subhuti talks about a conversation the Buddha had with his leading Lay disciple, who was one of the wealthiest men in North India. What makes him significant is that he was also recognised as a non-returner.

In this conversation the Buddha talks as prosperity, wealth and what makes for happiness. We see both his straight-forward common sense and his vision for the depth and meaning of human life. Although advice given two and a half thousand years ago it holds good today. It is not wealth that bring meaning to life but the qualities of your mind and the relationships around us.

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre

Direct download: podcast131.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:55pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, “All In This Together – Is It Time For a Buddhist Economics?” Kavyasiddhi delivers beautifully in this first of a series of public talks at Manchester Buddhist Centre entitled ‘Buddhism and the Big Question‘.

Direct download: podcast130.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast this week “The Alternative to God” is a very thought provoking talk by Maitreyabandhu. Does God exist or not? How do you know? A thoughtful and critical look at this age old question in light of the Buddha’s teachings.

Talk given at the London Buddhist Centre in November 2006.

Direct download: podcast129.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:04pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio“The true revolutionary is guided by love.” (Che Guevara). In this weeks FBA Podcast, “Finding Freedom,” Amalaketu explores freedom through images and stories and the Chappanakopama sutta, the discourse on the simile of the 6 animals, and shows how Buddhism is the way to ultimate liberation.

Direct download: podcast128.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:29pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis week’s FBA Podcast is a quietly passionate talk by Jinapriya titled: “What is Enlightenment” – impossible to pin down and utterly transformative. His main theme within the frame of such a big question is the struggle to live our lives in the present moment, especially in the face of pain. We are met with a thoughtful series of reflections, stories and images that all look to open up the gates of perception, and prepare the heart for the biggest change imaginable and possible for all. In that sense, this is a truly optimistic talk.

Talk given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2003

Direct download: podcast127.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:44pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast, “Songs of the Elder Sisters” is one of a series of talks on the Therigatha, the songs or poems of the nuns at the time of the Buddha. Here, Gunasiddhi gently explores the three themes of Going Forth, Friendship and Impermanence through these tender yet powerful stories.

Direct download: podcast126.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn celebration of the Buddha’s Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma, this week’s FBA PodcastThe Word of the Buddha” describes the various levels on which Enlightened Consciousness seeks to communicate itself to those who are unenlightened.

Talk given in 1972.

Direct download: podcast125.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:56pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “The Jewel in the Lotus,” by Sraddhagita, is a beautiful down-to-earth exploration of the great central images of Mahayana Buddhism, usually associated with the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshavara.

This talk was given in 2007.

Direct download: podcast124.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:22pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “A Personal Talk On the Bodhisattva Ideal” is just that – a moving and personal talk, by Vidyamala, given at the 25-year jubilee retreat (of FWBO activities in Stockholm) in a beautiful setting in the archipelago north of Stockholm, Sweden, September 2005.

Direct download: podcast123.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:59pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioHow do the Bodhisattvas enter the Dharma door of non-duality?Today’s FBA Podcast, “The Way of Non-Duality” explores this as one of the main themes in the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra. Sangharakshita explains some of the dualities listed in the Sutra, gives some examples of his own (with tips on how to transcend them), and concludes with Vimalakirti’s ‘thunder-like silence’.

Talk given in 1979 as part of the series “The Inconceivable Emancipation – Themes from the Vimalakirti Nirdesha.

Direct download: podcast122.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:12pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioRatnaguna brings a fresh, clear-minded look at the Vimalakirti Nirdesa sutra in today’s FBA Podcast, where he asks: “Who Is Vimalakirti?” Exploring current writings and the thinking of Sangharakshita he offers a number of possibilities: Vimalakirti is a community of practitioners; he is the bodhisattva principle; the spiritual imperative; and both an inspiration and a rebuke.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2009

Direct download: podcast121.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:43pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In today’s FBA Podcast, Sangharakshita goes to Buddhafield! ” A first for him, and a first for the fabulous Buddhafield Festival that takes place each year at the height of the English summer. This talk, “Entering the Sangha” was given in a tent in Devon – and the sounds of this great Dharma celebration are everywhere around as Sangharakshita marks his entry to the ‘Dharma Parlour’ with a rolling set of thoughts and reminiscences and encouragements to practice. We move from India at the time of the peaceful revolution of ‘untouchable’ caste Hindus, to the famed hot-tubs of the festival itself. And we are introduced to the first ‘three fetters’ from the Buddha’s teaching, the breaking of which will set us free. This is classic Sangharakshita – plenty to challenge and plenty to talk about around the fire afterwards.

With an excellent and thoughtful introduction by Kamalashila.

Talk given at the Buddhafield Festival, Devon 2007

Direct download: podcast120.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:09pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast is one of our Dharma Tape Detectives findings from the FBA Archives. “In Harmony with Friends and Brethren” by Srivati. What does it mean to be part of a Sangha? What does true harmony mean alongside the inevitability of conflict? Srivati addresses these questions with help from the monks at Kosambi, the six memorable qualities of a Bikkhu, and the seven knowledges of the stream entrant.

Direct download: podcast119.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:39pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In today’s FBA Podcast, “The Defects and Dangers of Samsara,” Dharmacharini Maitreyi looks at pleasure and suffering in the context of samsara – compassionate responses to self and other, and how to loosen the bonds…

Talk given at Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre, 2005 as part of the series “The Four Mind-Turning Reflections.”

Direct download: podcast118.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:26pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio This week’s FBA Podcast , “Tibetan Book the Dead: Talk 1 – The Six Bardos“, is an extraordinary talk by Padmavajra exploring the great text that reveals the realms between death and new life, where anything is possible in the Bardo – the ‘intermediate state’. From the first talk in the series “Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol).”

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, winter retreat, 2005

Direct download: podcast117.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:56pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday, on the full moon of May, we celebrate the Buddha’s Awakening, his full and perfect Enlightenment. Our FBA Podcast is a passionate look at our true nature and our deepest yearnings. “The Ideal of Human Enlightenment“, by Sangharakshita, was given in 1975 and is as relevant now as it was then.

Direct download: podcast116.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:00pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this week’s FBA Podcast,”Enlightenment as Heart, Life as Whole,” Saddhanandi takes us through a set of very thought-provoking reflections. She is forthright about the difficulties and joys of cultivating faith in the Dharma and makes very plain the consequences we can expect in our life as and when that faith arises. The talk is peppered with examples from her own practice. The audience clearly appreciates her sense of humour – which is often at her own expense.

The event was recorded in a very large marquee on a rainy day and despite that the sound quality is still OK!

Given at Taraloka, May 2005. The companion talk to this one is Vajradarshini’s “We Have a Huge Barrel of Wine, But No Cups”

Direct download: podcast115.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:29pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast, “The Significance of the Buddha’s Enlightenment” is a talk by Sona given at Manchester Buddhist Centre on Buddha Day, 9th May 2009.

Direct download: podcast114.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:54pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast, “On the Threshold of Enlightenment” is part of the pivotal by “Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal” series delivered by Sangharakshita in 1969. This lecture describes dhyana (meditation), and prajna (Wisdom), the fifth and sixth perfections.

Direct download: podcast113.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:23pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast, is a recording of a question and answer session with Sangharakshita at the Croydon Buddhist Centre in 2004. “An Evening with Sangharakshita” is a lovely introduction to the man who founded the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community (formally known as the Western Buddhist Order and FWBO).

Direct download: podcast112.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:24pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis 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.

Direct download: podcast111.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:49am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis 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.

Direct download: podcast110.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:34am EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast is a thoughtful, inspiring talk by Khemasuri titled “The Spiral Path – The Great Escape.” Faith, joy, and delight in the spiritual life. Sharing experiences from her own life, Khemasuri expounds on the importance of the Spiral Path, a fundamental teaching in the Triratna Buddhist Order.

Direct download: podcast109.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:28pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast is a talk was given on a Young Women’ Weekend at Taraloka titled “Faith is Innate, Doubt Acquired.” In this talk Singhamati explores Sangharakshita’s aphorism: Faith is Innate, Doubt Acquired. It looks at questions such as: What is faith? How do you cultivate the three grounds of faith? How is doubt a fetter? How can you dispel doubt?

Direct download: podcast108.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:22pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, is a classic talk given by Sangharakshita in 1967 titled “Mind: Reactive and Creative.” In this brilliant and accessible approach to the essence of Buddhism, Sangharakshita shows that Buddhism starts with the mind. Mind can be reactive, symbolised by the Tibetan Wheel of Life, or creative, as when one follows the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, described here in detail.

Direct download: podcast107.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:59pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today is a talk by the delightfully clear Vajrapriya titled “The Selfless Mind.” What if all of our emotional and spiritual problems were caused by an incorrect understanding of our true nature? Vajrapriya explores the Buddha’s insight that our commonsense assumptions about ourselves are the source of our suffering. Unpicking those assumptions is the first step to the arising of a wisdom that leads to an expansive and liberating way of relating to others and the world.

Talk 2 in a series of 4 talks entitled ‘Powers of the Mind’ given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, April 2011.

Direct download: podcast106.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:06pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today is “The Diamond Sutra” by Sangharakshita. If one does not want to ‘get caught in the grip of reality’, one should leave this great text alone! The Perfection of Wisdom Discourse that ‘Cuts Like a Diamond’…

N.B. Reference for this lecture: Buddhist Wisdom Books, translated by E. Conze. (Allen & Unwin, 1958)

Talk given in 1969.

Direct download: podcast104.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:23pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioOur FBA Podcast today brings us to the core of our practice: “The Heart Sutra, Sangha and Spiritual Death” by Kamalashila. Beginning with a shared understanding of spiritual practice that is Sangha, we are led through a revisioning of our practice that includes the deeper, darker more mysterious perspectives of insight and wisdom. This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre’s Tuesday evening drop-in meditation class on 6th Dec 2011.

Direct download: podcast103.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:45pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “The Buddha, Hakuin, Birth and Death”, is the second in an excellent 8-talk sequence by Padmavajra on Zen Buddhism. The series is full of colourful stories and challenging insights from the lives of the great Masters of China and Japan.

In this talk, Padmavajra takes us into the strong experience of Going Forth into homelessness. Through personal reminiscence and classic Zen poetry that evokes a truly rich awareness, we see the Buddha, Hakuin, Dogen and Ryokan as they struggle to make sense of this fleeting world of form.

This talk is part of the series “Tangling Eyebrows with Zen Masters.”

Direct download: podcast102.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:05pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis weeks FBA Podcast, “Spiritual Death and Rebirth, a New Perspective On the Dharma Niyama”, takes us deeply into the stages of spiritual death and rebirth that are key to the system of meditation, representing the culimination and fulfilment of the Buddhas vision. During this talk given at Padmaloka Subhuti explains some new elements of Sangharakshita’s thinking about how they relate to the Niyamas, particularly the Dharma niyama – exciting, and challenging stuff.

Direct download: podcast101.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:09pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “The Transitoriness of Life and the Certainty of Death”, is by Vajradharshini who brings us a beautiful piece on the hardest of subjects. The third talk in a five-part series from Tiratanaloka’s retreat on the ‘Four Mind Turnings’ of the Tibetan tradition.

Using zen poetry and a happily wide-ranging series of quotations (from Tibetan lamas to Ezra Pound), Vajradarshini explores her own father’s death as a way to approach attitudes to death and dying. She considers death in the light of the four mind-turning reflections of Atisha: the result is an inspiring, funny, truly challenging look at the heartbreak of our mortality, and how the Dharma helps us to meet and be present with the ultimate experience.

Talk given at Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre 2005.

This talk is part of the series The Four Mind-Turning Reflections.

Direct download: podcast100.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:52pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s we introduce Atula in our weekly FBA Podcast with “Mending the Broken Ladder” a very thoughtful talk long-time by this practising Buddhist and psychotherapist. The nature of the ‘psyche’ and our sense of self-view is explored with reference to the Fourfold Vision of William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Charles Bukowski, Edward Conze, and Humpty Dumpty! Expect some stimulating words around the role of myth, metaphor and all our ways of cognizing, thinking about and expressing experience in what we call ‘spiritual life’ – and a clear encouragement to see that process as one that is profoundly relational.

Talk given Monday 8th March 2010.

Direct download: podcast99.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioWelcome to this weeks FBA Podcast, “Fields of Creativity”, a sparkling talk by Sangharakshita on a theme close to his heart. Full of warmth, wit and stimulating ideas.

Talk given in 2001.

Direct download: podcast98.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:26pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “In the Bleak Midwinter”, Parami delivers a gem of a talk, with a wintery theme. With a song to open followed by metaphors on bleakness, with the earth as hard as iron and water like a stone, times when we struggle and it seems as if no growth is possible. She talks about her early experience of doing the metta bhavana and what a radical practice it is, leading to beauty, magic and angels.

This talk was given in December 2010 at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast97.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:50pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, we are taken deep into the mythical magical world of Milarepa, Tibet’s great yogi saint, in “The Life of Milarepa,” by Paramartha.

First talk in a series of 4 talks on ‘Milarepa’.

Talks given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, Winter Retreat 2010.

Direct download: podcast96.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:47pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, “Renunciation – Tasting Freedom,” Saddhanandi says at the beginning of this talk that she’s concerned she won’t fully convey the depth of inspiration she feels about her theme – she shouldn’t have worried, she does it full justice. Her various approaches to her subject include renunciation as giving up unreal expectations, as giving up compulsion, as continuity of purpose and commitment to values, as establishing freedom, as not being blown by the worldly winds. One of her telling quotes is ” … there is no spiritual development without renunciation, and no renunciation without spiritual development …”

This is the first of three talks given on the 2009 UK Women’s Order / Mitra Event. It’s based on the first section of Tsongkhapa’s short text “The Three Principle Aspects of the Path”.

The other talks in the series are “Generating Bodhi Mind” by Vajratara, and “The Path of the Buddha’s Delight” by Samantabhadri.

Given at Taraloka, May 2009.

Direct download: podcast95.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:28pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is titled: “Getting It,” by Vidyadevi. Her brief here is ‘study as a way to Wisdom’, and she comes to it with a delightfully playful straightforwardness. As a means of exploring the ‘Middle Way’, she speaks of the various dualities and juxtapositions she has encountered in her own engagement with Dharma study over the years: theory and practice, metaphor and literalism, authority and personal experience, utility and beauty, etc. But she also speaks (and sings! Paul Simon…) of the need for a lightness of heart and of mind at the root of it all…

Talk given at Taraloka Retreat Centre, Great Gathering 2000

Direct download: podcast94.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioPadmavajra delivers some crazy stuff as we hit koan country! Today’s FBA Podcast titled “Great Doubt” is the seventh in an excellent 8-talk sequence by Padmavajra on Zen Buddhism. The series is full of colourful stories and challenging insights from the lives of the great Masters of China and Japan.

A fascinating look at doubt in spiritual life in general, and in the lives of some of the most celebrated practitioners of Zen. Uncompromising stuff towards a more profound level of awareness – steer to the deep!

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004

This talk is part of the series Tangling Eyebrows with Zen Masters.

Direct download: podcast91.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:33pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast takes us into the mysterious world of “Tara – Virya Buddha”. Dharmacharini Vanaraji gave this talk to the Women’s Class at the London Buddhist Centre, June 2011.

Direct download: podcast93.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:49pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is titled “Chetul Sangye Dorje” by Vajratara. A forthright and passionate talk, taking as its starting point the great contemporary Tibetan teacher (sometimes also written ‘Chatral Sangye Dorje’) and his relationship to practice in the Triratna [FWBO] Community via his giving of the Green Tara practice to Sangharakshita. The main focus, however, is the need to practice the Dharma for others as part of a meaningful community, and Vajratara argues her case with a balance of down-to-earth humour and uncompromising vision.

Talk given at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre, 2007

Direct download: podcast92.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast titled “Visibility” Kuladharini explores what it’s like to be an example of the fourth sight in the world, to be a visible embodiment of Dharma practice. Using the metaphors of the begging bowl, robes and shaved head she shares three ways in which she has gone forth as a visible example of a dharma farer.

Talk given at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast90.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:48pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio Today’s FBA Podcast, “Beyond Hope and Hopelessness Dancing In the Ruins of Time,” takes us into the world seen through the eyes of EcoDharma, a Triratna retreat centre in the Catalan Pyrenees. Guhyapati offers a sober analysis of the environmental problems facing humanity and issues a clarion call for action – including from the Buddhist community.

Recorded at the 2009 Buddhafield Festival.

Visit the EcoDharma website – www.ecodharma.com

Direct download: podcast89.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:18pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In today’s FBA Podcast Suriyavamsa begins “Life for a Limited Time Only” with the inevitability of death and some of our habitual attitudes to death and suffering, reading from contemporary poets. He brings out the Buddhist perspective that life and death are not separate, but parts of the same process.

This talk was given on Parinirvana Day 2010 at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre.

Direct download: podcast88.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:15pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio Today’s FBA Podcast is the first talk in a brilliant series titled “Eight Verses for Training the Mind” by Dharmachari Subhuti. Based on the Tibetan text by Kadampa Geshe Langri Tangpa, Subhuti introduces the verses in the context of the development of Buddhism in Tibet and India. We then have a full treatment of the first verse itself:

“May I always cherish all beings,
Withe the resolve to accomplish for them
The highest good that is more precious
Than any wish-fulfilling jewel.”

Talk given at Madhyamaloka, Birmingham, 2004

For the full series: “Eight Verses for Training the Mind.”

Direct download: podcast87.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:54pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio In today’s, FBA Podcast, simply titled “Ethics,” Manjuvajra takes a look at the complex area of ethics from a Buddhist perspective. The nature of ‘self’, the place of feeling and emotion, the role of intention and action – these are fertile grounds for digging deeper into our own ethical practice and considering our lives in the light of the Buddha’s teaching of ‘non-harm’.

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2000

Direct download: podcast86.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:14am EST

Free Buddhist Audio “Just as the mighty ocean has but one taste, the taste of salt, even so the Dharma-vinaya (Buddhism) has but one taste, the taste of Freedom”- The Udana. Today’s FBA Podcast, “The Taste of Freedom: is a brilliant and rousing tour-de-force on transcendental freedom, one of Sangharakshita’s best-loved lectures.

Talk given in 1979.

Direct download: podcast85.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:36pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast “Talks of a Free Spirit – 45 Years of the Buddha’s Life” explores the life and teachings of the Buddha as they’ve come down through the stories of the tradition. Vajrasara has a veritable genius for making clear the relevances for contemporary society, and this talk is a most engaging example as she takes her own favourite tales and draws out the beautiful challenges of it all.

Direct download: podcast84.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:01pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast “Doubt as Path” is a good and useful talk on the dangers of certainty in the spiritual life – individually and within a community. Amaraketu draws on his own experience of zen and of painting in order to evoke a sense of what it might be like to live and practice not knowing. Everything is just beginning…

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2005.

Direct download: podcast83.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:20pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is titled “Life with Full Attention”. In this half-hour talk, Maitreyabandhu (a teacher at the London Buddhist Centre) gives you a witty, practical, real-life look at how mindfulness makes us more alive and free. His book ‘Life With Full Attention’ will be published by Windhorse Publications in July 2009.

Click here for more talks from the 2009 International Urban Retreat.
For more information on this years Urban Retreat see: www.theurbanretreat.org

Direct download: podcast82.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, Mahabodhi kicks off a series of talks on the theme of ‘Work As Spiritual Practice’ with “Work As Spiritual Practice: Introducing Reginald Ray’s Threefold Model”. Based on Ray’s book, ‘Buddhist Saints in India’, this is a framework for considering the spiritual benefits and challenges of three roles or life styles within Buddhism: The solitary retreatant, the sangha builder who works within Buddhist institutions, the lay practitioner or social activist whose commitments take them to work out in the world.
According to Ray, each plays a crucial role in the health of the Sangha. After exploring the different life styles, Mahabodhi talks about his experiences as the ‘retreatant’ writer.

A talk in a series addressing the relevance of Buddha’s teaching to contemporary issues at the Manchester Buddhist Centre 2011.

Direct download: podcast81.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:40am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, is a magical exploration by Vajragupta titled: “We Live In a Beautiful World: Buddhism and Nature”. Sharing his very personal experiences on solitary retreats, Vajragupta asks, “How can human beings live with more love and appreciation of the natural world? What does Buddhism have to offer?”

A talk in a series addressing the relevance of Buddha’s teaching to contemporary issues at the Manchester Buddhist Centre 2011.

Direct download: podcast80.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:25am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s Podcast “Compassionate Koans – The Heart of the Matter does in fact take us to the heart of the matter! An excellent, personal set of reflections by Vijayamala on the relationship between our longing and our pain. The Buddhist tradition posits compassion as the best response, but it isn’t always clear how that works. No answers here – but a few leads and some thoughtful tales from life and from a longstanding practice of meditation.

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Women’s Convention, 2005

Direct download: podcast79.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:44pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast takes us back to the 1969 wholly inspiring Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal series by Sangharakshita. “Masculinity and Femininity in the Spiritual Life”is the fifth talk in the series. Here, the third and fourth Perfections are kshanti (forbearance, tolerance or spiritual receptivity) and virya (energy in pursuit of the good). So the Bodhisattva integrates ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ qualities in a perfect union.

Talk given in 1969.

Direct download: podcast78.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:41pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, “Learning from Tibetan Buddhism – A Personal Account” Vessantara shares from his many years of engagement with Tibetan Buddhist approaches to meditation and general Buddhist practice. He carefully weighs up the different aspects of exploring a tradition outside of your own, and evokes Tibetan Buddhism itself through the story of his initiation into the Vajrayogini sadhana. A lovely, thoughtful talk that pays tribute to the effect of one ancient form of Dharma in a modern practitioner’s own life. There is also a thorough discussion of visualization meditation, and a moving celebration of the teachers who have helped him on the path.

Given at the Western Buddhist Order Convention 2005.

Direct download: podcast77.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 4:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, is a brilliant retrospective on our Triratna Community developments titled: “Being Radical – 40 Years of the New Society” by Vajragupta.

Do we still believe in the ability of the Dharma to transform self and society?

Do we still want to make a distinctive Dharmic contribution to building a better world?

Are we willing to accept that challenge? And are we willing to sometimes challenge the views and values of the society around us?

This was the fourth talk given at Dharmapala college’s New society seminar in April 2010.

Direct download: podcast76.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:58am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “Transcending the Human Predicament”, Sangharakshita investigates various symbolic elements in the Parable of the Burning House and we are reminded of the importance of responding to ‘the call of the Divine’. The general significance of the parable is then discussed under the headings of escapism, universalism and sectarianism.

“The White Lotus Sutra is not only a religious classic, but a masterpiece of symbolic spiritual literature.” ~ Sangharakshita

From the classical ground-breaking series: Parables, Myths and Symbols of Mahayana Buddhism in the White Lotus Sutra given in 1971.

Direct download: podcast75.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:19am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s talk, “Anatta Made Simple”, Locana provides an excellent introduction to the most subtle and complex part of the Buddha’s teaching on impermanence: that all things in conditioned existence are empty of any innate self-nature. Insubstantiality might never be really ‘simple’ to understand – but this is a good place to start and Locana an ever-intelligent guide along the way…

Locana (Elizabeth English) is the author of ‘Vajrayogini: Her Visualization, Rituals, and Forms’

Direct download: podcast74.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:11am EST

Free Buddhist AudioWelcome to this week’s FBA Podcast,Abundant Treasures,” by the wonderful story teller, Suriyavamsa. The first of a series on the parables of The White Lotus Sutra, this talk looks at the Sutra as a whole. Suriyavamsa explores the key themes as well as how best to approach a Mahayana Sutra.

Please note that there is some noise disturbance at the end of the talk due to a small and restless child!

Direct download: podcast73.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:05am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn “Standing on Emptiness” Dhammadassin eloquently invites us into a lovely, thoughtful exploration of the traditional Buddhist path of ethics, meditation and wisdom, using poetry and the ideas of contemporary science to evoke the mystery that lies at the heart of practice. Dhammadassin’s beautifully weighted talk challenges us to look at how we think and how we act, and is rooted in a moving fidelity to experience as the ground of our inspiration. One to be treasured!

Talk given at the Triratna Buddhist Order women’s national weekend, August 2004

Direct download: podcast72.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:30am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, Kamalashila delivers: ‘Absorption – After the Enlightenment’.

How do you get used to being Enlightened? What happened to the Buddha in the weeks after his breakthrough experience? Kamalashila explores these questions in two ways – using the framework of the Western Buddhist Order’s system of meditation to shed light on the process that unfolded in the Bodhisattva’s mind and body as Enlightenment dawned; and connecting us imaginatively with the symbolism and image of Muchalinda, the great serpent, coiling his body protectively round the meditating Buddha.

Please note, there are a few words missing around the start of this talk.

Talk given on the FWBO International Retreat at Taraloka, May 2008

Direct download: podcast71.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:55am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, Parami delivers true to form: “Energy At Its Most Abundant” on the topic of ‘virya’ – ‘energy in pursuit of the good’. This talk was given as part of a three talk series at Windhorse:Evolution, a large and successful Buddhist team-based right livelihood business.

A good, strong (sometimes even idealistic!) evocation of the co-operative spirit of Buddhist work and of spiritual practice in general, with particular reference to Shantideva’s ‘Bodhicharyavatara’. With a thoughtful look at Padmasambhava, and an affectionate tribute to her own teacher, Urgyen Sangaharakshita, whose poem ‘The Song of the Windhorse’ forms the root text for this talk.

Talk given in Cambridge, 2002

Direct download: podcast70.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:56am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, we give you “The Buddha’s Vision”, the last talk in the “Gautama Buddha” series launching Vishvapani’s new book “Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One”. (Quercus, 2011)

When the Buddha finally sat down under the Bodhi tree and saw deeply into the nature of things, what had brought him to that point? And what happened next? In his final take on the Buddha’s journey of the heart and mind, Vishvapani focuses in on the Buddha’s experience before, during and after Enlightenment, bringing his nuanced, perceptive reading to the words the Buddha himself is said to have employed in order to best evoke his experiences as he struggled to give voice to them. A fitting conclusion to a wonderfully insightful series.

Includes an adroit discussion of the issues around imagination and historical evidence, and how we can usefully approach the Pali texts as literature.

Talk given in Bristol, February 2011.

This talk is part of the series Gautama Buddha.

Direct download: podcast69.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:40am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, we give you the fourth talk in the  “Gautama Buddha” series titled: “The Buddha and Society”, from the launch of Vishvapani’s new book “Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One”. (Quercus, 2011)

The Buddha as a radical, as a holy man, as pragmatist, as tamer of demons, as visionary – in this wide-ranging, riveting talk Vishvapani gives us all these and more, and all in relation to the society Gautama took part in. Some provocative words and questions from the Buddha and from our speaker as we try to get to grips with a world vastly different from our own. What was the Buddha’s social vision, and what can we learn from it? This is essential listening and holds some surprising insights into the life and times of a great sage in and out of his own culture and history.

Talk given in Birmingham, February 2011.

Direct download: podcast68.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:23am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, Vishvapani delivers “The Buddha’s Personality”, the third talk in his dynamic new series from the launch of the book “Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One”. (Quercus, 2011)

Great artists have tried and failed to grasp the essence of the Buddha’s character. Beyond the narrative and the drama, what was the Buddha actually like? And what can be gleaned from the diverse sources that tell us about him? In this reflective talk Vishavapani looks behind the veils of history, legend and the texts themselves to conjur a vivid, felt image of the Buddha’s personality. In a series of beautifully observed close-up drawings from the Pali Canon we are left with a portrait of spiritual genius that is both enigmatically distant and thoroughly human.

Vishvapani is a well known figure in the Triratna Buddhist Community and is a regular contributer on the BBC’s ‘Thought for the Day’.

Talk given at the London Buddhist Centre, February 2011.

Direct download: podcast66.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 5:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, is the second talk in a major new series of talks by Vishvapani to mark the launch of his new book: ‘Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One’ (Quercus, 2011).

In “Imagining Gautama”, originally subtitled, ‘Approaching The Buddha As An Historical And As A Mythic Figure’, Vishvapani traces his own relationship to the Buddha, from early family connections arising out of the turmoil of war to his experience of writing the book itself. In doing so he explores the tricky work of trying to engage with the imagination constrained and disciplined by the historical evidence. What emerges from his work with the Pali texts is a portrait of the Buddha and his world where it’s impossible to miss the vital sense of a man questing for a coherent vision of reality.

Features a question-and-answer session.

Talk given at the Cardiff Buddhist Centre, 2011.
Check out our blog for more on this fascinating series.

Direct download: podcast65.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, we present: “Searching for the Buddha”, the first in a major new series of talks by Vishvapani to mark the launch of his new book: ‘Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One’ (Quercus, 2011). Vishvapani is a well known figure in the Triratna Buddhist Community and is a regular contributor on the BBC’s ‘Thought for the Day’.

In this talk we meet the Buddha set firmly in his own historical context, with space too for the legendary and particular reference to the natural world. Vishvapani explores the presence of nature in the Pali suttas, exploring its significance in the texts, in our own contemporary mental landscapes and in the imaginative life of a country and its people. Ancient India comes alive as we wander with the Buddha, facing his fears amongst the ghosts of the jungle. There is much that is important for reflection here – the Dharma made fascinating by dint of the author’s depth of engagement with Buddhist practice and the sheer breadth of his cultural reference.

Features an extended question-and-answer session (NB, poor sound quality on the questions themselves).

Talk given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre, January 2011.

Direct download: podcast64.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Dharmabyte, Punyamala delivers a rich, comprehensive talk: From Enchantment to True Delight – Reflections On Stream Entry. Here, she sets out the path from effective to Real Going For Refuge using the framework of breaking the first three fetters and gaining Stream-entry. Punyamala confidently asserts that Stream-entry is attainable in this lifetime. Using Sangharakshita’s terms for these fetters – habit, superficiality and vagueness – she gives clear, practical guidance, in a gently encouraging way, about how to weaken the fetters and develop spiritually.

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Convention, 2009

Direct download: podcast67.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn today’s FBA Podcast, “This Way Up – Living the Spiral Path” Saraha delivers a beautiful and engaging talk seeped in the Pali Canon. Leading with the Vatthupama, Simile of the Cloth, Sutta, Saraha gives us a very detailed look into the stages of spiritual development as described in the Lokuttara Paticcasamuppada Sutta – The Spiral Path.

Direct download: podcast63.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast, “Why Read the Sutta Nipata?”, by Suriyavamsa, is a thorough and engaging exploration of the why and what of suttas, how they were traditionally passed on through the ages and Kukai’s description of how a sutta works on the rational, imaginative and cosmic-mythological levels. Includes beautiful readings on the themes of: skillful speech, grief and fearing death, humility, pleasure, avoiding arguments and worldly desire, finishing with the much loved ‘Pingiya’s Praises of the Way to the Beyond.’

Direct download: podcast62.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn the talk On the Hymn to Perfect Wisdom‘ Kulaprabha beautifully explores these verses of devotion from ‘The Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines’ and they apply to us, in our lives, in our world.

Direct download: podcast61.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn celebration of the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the Triratna Buddhist Community, (formally the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order) we bring you an moving and engaging talk by Subhuti: “Awake to the Cries of the World” the keynote talk from the FWBO celebrations a decade ago. How do we respond to the suffering in the world? Subhuti speaks from his experience of years trying to answer that question – the joys and pitfalls of trying to ‘help’ as part of a committment to the Bodhisattva Ideal. Complete with an introduction by Padmavajra on Avalokiteshvara. Talk given on FWBO Day, 2001.

Direct download: podcast60.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioToday’s FBA Podcast is titled “Karma and the Consequences of Action”. The fourth talk in a five-part series from Tiratanaloka’s retreat on the ‘Four Mind Turnings’ of the Tibetan tradition. Here Ratnadharini takes us a little closer into the often misunderstood area of karma in Buddhist thinking. She draws out the important details of the process that we call ‘actions and consequences’ – but her emphasis is always on putting what we learn into practice in real life, with other real people.
Talk given at Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre, 2005.

Direct download: podcast59.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn The Alchemy of Love Padmavajra explores the transformative magic that is Bodhichitta practice. A short introduction to the theme here – setting the context for the series and introducing us to Shantideva, whose treatise on Bodhichitta practice (the Bodhicharyavatara) forms the basis of the wonders to be explored

Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004

This talk is part of the series The Alchemy of Love.

Direct download: podcast58.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn Enlightenment as Experience and as Non-Experience, Sangharakshita exposes a modern disease of frustrated craving for experience. He suggests that spiritual life is better seen in more concrete ways; as growth, work, and duty.

Talk given in 1975.

Direct download: podcast57.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk “This Precious Human Life” Kulaprabha skillfully points out that it’s not every human life that is precious. Preciousness comes when our human life has arrived at the unique occasion of the ‘Eight Freedoms’ and at the right juncture of the ‘Ten Endowments’ – and when we have a faithful heart.

Given at Taraloka Retreat Center, February 2008 this talk is one of a series of talks on the Four Reminders or Four Mind-Turnings inspired by Gampopa’s ‘Jewel Ornament of Liberation’.

Direct download: podcast56.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn “The Meaning of Parinirvana”, Sangharakshita gives a lecture celebrating the anniversary of the Parinirvana or ‘death’ of the Buddha. It outlines six basic meditation practices crucial to the attainment of the ‘Deathless’: Enlightenment.

N.B. Last few words missing. Talk given in 1972 by Urgyen Sangharakshita.

Direct download: podcast55.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this thoughtful, sympathetic talk, “Becoming a Citizen of the Present”, Srivati expounds on the most delicate of tasks in any life – how to live in the present moment. Exploring the subtle aspects of past and present, of memory and expectation, we encounter impermanence as the touchstone of our experience through storytelling (Bahiya of the Bark Garment) and the practice of writing – especially poetry. A lovely set of challenges to become ‘citizens of the present’ and inhabit properly our own potential for change.

Talk given to the Triratna (Western) Buddhist Order National Order Weekend, 2001

Direct download: podcast54.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk, “Dying to Live” Vidyamala gives a strong account of working with suffering and sorrow in life, and of transforming your experience into one characterized by contentment and a sense of meaning. From her own practice of living with chronic pain comes a sane and unsentimental perspective that affords us all a measure of genuine optimism as we meet the trials of the world: bereavements and losses of all kinds can be met with a kindness and awareness that gently ease the burden, allowing something of peace to enter our lives again.

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Women’s Convention 2003

Direct download: podcast53.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk, “Generating Bodhi Mind” Vajratara guides us through the second section of Tsongkhapa’s short text on “The Three Principle Aspects of the Path”. The verses contain some strong and striking images for what it feels like being caught in Samsara and they come to life in Vajratara’s talk. She relates how she nearly came to death herself swept away by a Indonesian river and that was just an ordinary river current, never mind the current of Samsara! At the end of the talk she suggests that of the Bodhicitta practises we might take up – the puja or the various reflections on the suffering of beings – the most useful and effective Bodhichitta practice is the practice of sangha, of spiritual community.

Talk given at Taraloka, May 2009.

Direct download: podcast52.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:00am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk, “The Ideal of Universal Awakening” Nagapriya explores the emergence of the Bodhisattva Ideal in the Mahayana tradition. Nagapriya discusses the historical context in which this basic concept developed, its ties to early Buddhist texts, and what the bodhisattva’s life entails, on both the mundane and cosmic levels.

This is the second talk in a five-part series called Visions of Mahayana Buddhism given at the Manchester Buddhist Centre, 2009.

Direct download: podcast51.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:00pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio“Great Compassion Penetrates into the Marrow of the Bones” – A stirring and penetrating talk by Dhammadinna around the image that a Bodhisattva’s compassion runs as deep as their very bones. Nagarjuna, Milarepa and others add their voices as Dhammadinna makes an emotionally resonant but clear-eyed attempt to lay out the ground of a practice that is moving towards the development of Bodhichitta. Why bother? she asks us, and shows how open-heartedness can respond realistically and well to suffering in our own lives and in the lives of others.

Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Convention, 2009

Direct download: podcast50.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 7:28pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk, “Out of Compassion for the World”, Parami explores the theme of the Buddha’s compassionate action and how ultimately it came from beyond self, beyond other – it emerged from his realisation of ‘Emptiness’. The Buddha realised full well how hard it was going to be to communicate what he had discovered to other people – to us. He knew that the grip of greed, hatred and delusion is very strong. He could imagine how vexatious it might be to teach. Fortunately for us, he could also see our potential. And so out of compassion he taught.

Talk given at FWBO International Retreat at Taraloka, May 08

Direct download: podcast49.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:51am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk “Loving What Is” Vajrapriya shares his own nitty gritty practice of dealing with hatred, clearing the way for a more mettaful response. “Metta is what arises when you realize that being human isn’t easy.” With an introduction by Jnanavaca. To read about some of our volunteers who helped make this talk available, please see our post on Triratna News.

Direct download: podcast48.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:32pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk, “Demon of Choice” Aryadhara works with a team from the Young People’s Group in Cambridge (England) to give a series of short talks under the theme “Taming the Demons of the Modern World” in celebrating Padmasambhava, the Great Guru of Tibet. Choice is something we all have – we have the choice to act the way we act, the choice in the way we live our lives, which is very positive. The Demon of Choice is more about consumerism which can alienate us from our deeper selves. This type of choice keeps us in a superficial state of alienation preventing us from asking deeper questions such as what gives our lives meaning? Transforming the Demon of Choice involves overcoming doubt, the practice of renunciation, and living simply.

Direct download: podcast47.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:21pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn “What Do We Really Know About the Buddha?” Dhivan delivers a lovely talk with the odd surprise as he considers the relationship between what we think we may know about the Buddha, and what the historical evidence suggests. As Dhivan sifts the information that’s come down to us, we meet several different versions of a human being as he blurs with the archetypal presence he has also come to represent. Yet whichever manifestation we prefer, more than anything this talk brings us face to face with the rich and moving legacy of a brilliant and truly compassionate individual changing the world he took part in, stepping out of history “with the walk of a lion, the walk of a swan.”

Direct download: podcast46.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 11:22pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk Subhuti gives a concise and inspiring account of the Honeyball Sutta. Starting with some background to his work in Hungary amongst the oppressed Gypsies there, he presents the Buddha’s understanding on the basis for civil, in fact all kinds of, strife.

The Buddha’s analysis takes the form of a nidana chain beginning with actual experience, that when we begin to proliferate or move away from facts to interpretations inevitably leads us into a secondary reality that easily leads to conflict with others, who have different versions of reality.

A brilliant talk, covering ground rapidly but concisely bring together the Buddha’s wisdom both in terms of transforming society and how we work within meditation, in fact we need to employ the same tools in both situations.

Direct download: podcast45.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:50am EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk Jinananda gives us some practical tips on good communication and healthy relationships. He brings in the Buddha’s words from the Sigalaka Sutta to illustrate some of the ways relationships were managed in the Buddha’s time. Pointing out that different kinds of relationships require different sets of duties and dynamic ways of relating, he notes that we should be mindful of how we are fulfilling those relationships from our own end.

Jinananda discusses the fact that even Buddhists, who are supposedly always kind and helpful, are not always so, even in stories from the Pali Canon. He reminds us, however, that this is normal, and that relating skilfully to each other is a truly immense challenge – difficult for even the most experienced Buddhists and not to be taken lightly.

Talk given at the West London Buddhist Center

Direct download: podcast44.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:15pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk Saddhanandi draws on over 25 years of experience living and practicing in spiritual communities as she explores the conditions that she trusts give rise to Wisdom Beings.

We live in a culture that encourages us to look out for the individual – just look after yourself and never mind about others.

Collective practice, the practice of community, has a dynamic alchemy all of its own – like a coral reef lots of creatures live in it, and it is very susceptible to pollution. The development of the Individual is the development of the Sangha, and the development of the Sangha is the development of the Individual.

Saddhanandi is the Chair of Taraloka Retreat Centre in England. This talk was given during the Triratna International Sangha Retreat hosted by Taraloka and Buddhafield in May 2010.

Direct download: podcast43.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:16pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn this talk ‘Ksanti (Patience)’, Satyaraja beautifully explores how friendship is probably the main way we exemplify the altruistic dimension of the spiritual life. Ksanti, often translated as Patience, is one of the Six Perfections practiced by the Bodhisattva, one in whom the Bodhicitta, the Awakened Heart, has arisen.

Patience is explored here in three aspects: with ourselves, with other people, and in spiritual receptivity. One needs to learn patience when working with other people to help build a spiritual community. Not in the sense of endurance, ksanti in its true form is an aspect of metta, of love. Loving people for who they actually are, not who we would like them to be. Friendship really starts when you meet bits in others you don’t like and you keep going, deepening your connection.

Talk given at the Stockholm Buddhist Centre in February 2010.

Direct download: podcast42.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:49am EST

Free Buddhist AudioNagabodhi’s account of his visits to see Dhardo Rimpoche, the great Tibetan teacher based in Kalimpong, is by turns moving, funny and revealing. The story of a remarkable man – someone who embodied the spirt of the Bodhisattva – who continues to inspire practitioners the world over years after his death. A rare opportunity to hear from someone who spent time with Rimpoche at his famous school, whose motto says it all: “Cherish the Doctrine, Live United, Radiate Love”…

Talk given at Windhorse:Evolution, Cambridge, UK

Direct download: podcast40.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 4:41pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn ‘Everything Matters – Turning Consumerism on its Head’, Vajradarshini points out that we live in a world of things and there’s a world of practice in things. As consumerism is defined as ‘to destroy’, we are challenged to find ways to turn consumerism on its head and find the Truth in our relationship to Things. Accompanied by Kavyasiddhi reading both poetry and prose, this beautiful Dharma gem is worth hearing again and again.

Talk given at the 2010 International Sangha Retreat.

Direct download: podcast41.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 2:17pm EST

Free Buddhist Audio

This podcast talk by Dharmavadana is a great exploration of how poetry can be an ally in the spiritual life, and analyzes the ways in which it occupies a similar atmosphere to meditation.

Talk given at West London Buddhist Center

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

Direct download: podcast39.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 10:08am EST

Free Buddhist Audio

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.

Direct download: podcast38.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:00pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioIn ‘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

Direct download: podcast37.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 8:23am EST

Free Buddhist AudioPain 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.

Direct download: podcast36.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 12:56pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThe ‘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!

Direct download: podcast35.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:58pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioThis 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

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

Direct download: podcast34.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 1:28pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioTime to bring the picture on the FWBO’s relations with other Buddhists bang up-to-date with this splendid excursion over the common ground Buddhists share in the 21st century, and also through the diverse practice landscapes they continue to explore in their own approaches to the Dharma.

As a basis Dhammarati looks at the FWBO’s own grounding in tradition, and encourages us all at root to look continually to our own practice as we make the great journey from suffering to an expansive sense of living free.

Talk given at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, January 2009

Direct download: podcast33.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 4:24pm EST

Free Buddhist AudioAnother excellent talk, from the Buddhafield project. Amaragita takes a look at Buddhist practice in the light of parenting, and has a lot of good things to say about the everyday business of staying with our experience, embracing the hard bits and releasing the joy.

As an added bonus, listen for some lovely singing throughout!

Talk given at the Buddhafield Festival in 2006.

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

Direct download: podcast29.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 9:32am EST

Free Buddhist AudioA lovely talk this month, from the excellent Dhivan. Be prepared for the odd surprise as he considers the relationship between what we think we may know about the Buddha, and what the historical evidence suggests.

As Dhivan sifts the information that’s come down to us, we meet several different versions of a human being as he blurs with the archetypal presence he has also come to represent. Yet whichever manifestation we prefer, more than anything this talk brings us face to face with the rich and moving legacy of a brilliant and truly compassionate individual, changing the world he took part in, stepping out of history “with the walk of a lion, the walk of a swan”.

Talk given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2008

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

Direct download: podcast28.mp3
Category:FBA Podcast -- posted at: 4:25pm EST