News and reviews from across the worldwide Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) and Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG) in India)
Free Buddhist Audio is the online source for Dharma talks and meditation resources from the Triratna Buddhist Community. We are visited by people all over the world, with 150,000 users every year accessing more than 1000 talks from 11 different countries. And since we launched at the end of 2006, we have served over 1 million Dharma downloads!
The FBA team has just revamped the home page with an important message from our Director, Candradasa:
Click to Listen!
In order to provide our services at Free Buddhist Audio, we depend on the support of our community of users. Websites like ours are complex and cost a lot to maintain, and while many have given generously over the years it still surprises us that less than 1% of people who download ever make a contribution to the site.
So, if you appreciate the work of Free Buddhist Audio please consider making a supporting contribution now. You make it possible for us to spread the Dharma throughout the world... Thank you!
On a cold, sunny day in February, Triratna's Aryaloka Buddhist Center in Newmarket, New Hampshire, USA was visited by a crew from local television station WMUR Channel 9. Aryaloka was selected as a feature in the popular New Hampshire Chronicle, a half-hour weekday show that highlights interesting people and places around the state.
Meditations, classes and a lively tea break were set up for sangha members to participate in while interviews and filming of activities took place. Many thanks to producer Jen Crompton and videographer Jason Modeski who spent four hours at Aryaloka that day. The six-minute, finished segment includes conversations with Bodhipaksa, Amala, and mitras Marcus and Jen, as well as glimpses of sangha members meditating, chanting, participating in a Dharma class, and gathering together in spiritual friendship.
Aryaloka's NH Chronicle segment is now available through Video Sangha, and can also be viewed on the local WMUR television station's website. Many thanks to all the sangha members who participated and to WMUR for introducing Aryaloka to a wider New England audience.
Spreading the Dharma Sharing our Practice Connecting our Community Worldwide
Rose F. Kennedy wisely said, "Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments." In reflecting on how far Free Buddhist Audio has come since its inception in late 2006, we can see the many years of setting up conditions to bring into being what many have come to experience as a dynamic, beautifully crafted, easy to use webspace full of amazing Dharma resources. We have enjoyed sharing some of our stories with you this week, and what these amount to are not just many milestones, but many moments marked by deep inspiration in the Dharma.
At FBA we aspire to provide free access to the Dharma for people all over the world. To provide the best service possible we need the help of many people in our international community - from those who have recorded Sangharakshita from 1964 to the present time, to those giving and recording talks all over the Triratna world today. We thank the ones who were willing to work with us in developing our Community Upload system that allows each local Triratna center and project to contribute directly to our growing archive. We thank our team and our volunteers who do indexing, transcribing, translating, promoting, and fundraising to help keep the whole system functioning and growing. And, of course, we thank all those who are able to contribute financially to support the team which holds the project together at its core, providing vision, structure and resources to preserve our treasure house of teachings and make them readily available to all who desire access to the Dharma.
FBA Moments and Milestones
How many people visit our site? How many downloads are completed each year?
Earlier this year, we anticipated reaching an important milestone. Based on a number of factors, we estimated that at some point this month, the one millionth Dharma talk will have been downloaded through our podcast and the site itself. To put this in perspective, we used to sell a few thousand tapes and cds a year! So this is an amazing accomplishment - and an amazing improvement!
What was our most downloaded talk?
'Just Sitting' by Subhuti, given last summer at the European Chairs Assembly with over 45,000 downloads. Our next popular download is Dhammadinna's 'What is Mind' talk given on the 2001 Triratna Order Convention with around 34,000 downloads.
Who are our visitors? Where are they from?
Our analysis shows that we had nearly 100,000 unique visitors over the past year, coming from 178 different countries, viewing over a million FBA pages on nearly 200,000 visits. The google map like the ones we showed during our Buddhist Center tours this year, can be viewed here: FBA's Top Ten Countries (and their top ten cities) and FBA's First 100 out of 178 Countries
Our top country this year was the UK with 65,175 unique visitors coming from nearly 800 different cities and towns. It's no surprise to the FBA team that the top city was London, followed by all the cities with major Triratna activites: Manchester, Cambridge, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Glasgow, Ipswich, Norwich, and Edinburgh.
FBA tracked 54,022 visitors from the United States last year, every state being represented in our user profiles! The top 10 states were California, New York, New Hampshire, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, Illinois and Pennsylvania. We have Triratna Centers in 4 of those ten states which indicates that FBA plays an important role in introducing new people to the Triratna Buddhist Community through the internet as a distinct medium in itself.
Mobile devices are seeing an increase in usage, with over 5000 visits from mobile devices, including the newly released iPad. Our new site is built on new standards that will make mobile use much easier in the years to come.
Emphasis on our growing International Community
Earlier this year we completely redesigned the site (FBA 2.0!) based on feedback from our community of users. Building on the original structures and functionality, we put in place a new menu system and redesigned the visual layout, at the same time expanding our capacity for organizing the growing archives. As you may have read earlier this week, we also improved and expanded our search engine to provide better access to our range of audio and text archives - over 1000 recorded talks and 17 million words! To further our vision of an international Buddhist Community connected online, the site now places more emphasis on local archives of talks and on community use of our resources. Our brand new Community sectionlets you join Free Buddhist Audio and get access to unreleased recordings, keep up to date with our Facebook and Twitter pages, and help us build the future with support for fundraising in your local community. In January, we anticipate our 1000th member... We are very happy indeed about that!
Aside from promoting ourCommunity Places project within the Triratna Sangha, we've also created our first translation team, and visited (or otherwise been in touch with) people at Buddhist Centers around the world, providing encouragement, resources and support to help them get what they need from our service. In October, our 500th talk was posted through the Community Upload System. This important milestone was accomplished when Vajratara delivered, recorded and uploaded, 'The Three Jewels of Buddhism' at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre. We now have talks in 11 different languages from 10 countries!
There are so many benefits to bringing our international community together in this way. Dhammarati, the chair of the College of Public Preceptors (those responsible for all ordinations into the Triratna Buddhist Order), appreciates the opportunity to have access to what other Triratna practitioners are doing in other parts of the world. Here's what he has to say about us...
Our Team
In response to our success of the past few years, we have increased the size of our team. We now have 5 members (3 full-time and 2 part-time) along with a great group of volunteers. We see this very much as an investment in people in order to take Free Buddhist Audio to the next level - so we can continue to provide high quality access to the Dharma, offer professional archival services to Triratna projects worldwide, and help build our international community online.
To support our team - and all these new developments! - we launched this spring a major fundraising campaign to secure the future of FBA, aiming to grow our regular income by finding 500 new Supporting friends able to give monthly contributions. We also conducted a promotional tour of Buddhist Centres in Britain and the United States, with plans for further visits in the coming year. Our aim is to get FBA fans and ambassadors working in teams around the world to help us with promotions and fundraising for this amazing resource. If you think you can help us in any way with that - please do get in touch!
Free Buddhist Audio's plans for 2011 include:
• Creating translated versions of the newly designed site, beginning with Spanish, German, and Hindi. • Working to make available more Dharma talks by women currently stored on cassette tapes in various locations around the world. • Developing an exciting partnership with the new Triratna webspace project thebuddhistcentre.com • Striving to provide support and guidance for more Triratna Centers, businesses and projects looking to create their own archival spaces on Free Buddhist Audio. • Creating customized FBA e-newsletters for Buddhist Centers around the world. • Continuing to build relationships with Triratna Centers including visits and FBA sponsored day retreats. • Emphasizing what is unique in our Triratna Community within the wider Buddhist world. • Introducing new services specifically for the Triratna Buddhist Order.
The new Free Buddhist Audio website is here and, aside from a sleek new look, it’s packed to the gills with new features! We’ve worked very hard to make FBA 2.0 more interactive and user-friendly, and to provide even more to our community.
This week, we're going to feature some of the terrific new content being added to the site by Triratna projects around the world. But to start us off, here’s a run-down of some of the exciting additions to our all-new service:
FBA Members Area
Our Community section connects FBA users with each other and provides access to unreleased content with:
* Exclusive sneak-peek previews of future audio releases.
* Members-only access to unreleased archive recordings.
* Create your own FBA profile – Change your personal settings and add a profile picture.
* You can set up your own FBA profile or log in to Free Buddhist Audio’s members section using your Facebook account. Join today at http://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/community/
Enhanced Search Options
Audio talks and text are now divided into intuitive sections for ease of browsing. In the main menu you’ll find links for “Audio,“(for general audio) “Series,” “Meditation” and “Text.” Under these main categories, talks are broken out by theme, speaker, year given, and so on.
Our new and enhanced search bar allows you to set your preferences for searches. Even better, it will remember your preferences the next time you search! And the search results page provides filters that will further refine your search and make it easier to discover what you’re looking for.
New Audio Interface
On most browsers, our new audio interface for talks allows you to play tracks before you download the full talk.
Similar to what you’d find in the iTunes store, you can now click a specific track to listen to it, or you can click on “Play all” to hear each track in sequence. If it’s what you’re looking for, you can then go and download the whole talk.
Social Connection
Connect to Free Buddhist Audio at your favorite social networking sites! FBA is on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, MySpace, Bebo, and even Second Life! We’re everywhere you are, so link to us for the latest updates and information.
Free Buddhist Audio depends on the generous donations of our community to keep providing the Dharma for free. Now it’s even easier to help us do so.
1)When you download or stream a talk, you can make a donation right there – quick and easy!
2)Become one of the 500– Our “500 Friends” campaign is going strong, but we could use your help! We’re looking for 500 people who are willing to become monthly donors at the £10 / $15 / €15 level. This will help to ensure the future security of our work, and it’s only about the cost of 1/4 cup of coffee per day! You’ll get the continual satisfaction of knowing that you’re part of something greater than all of us, free Dharma talks for everyone.
3)Become a regular donor – Regular monthly donations are the best way to give to FBA. They’re helpful to us in planning our budget and helpful to you in that you don’t even have to think about it. The donation is set up to be charged automatically every month through your credit card or bank. Voila! Did I just give to Free Buddhist Audio? Yes, you did, and thank you!
4)Make a one-time donation – No matter how large or small, every donation is very appreciated and put to good use.
5) Create a fundraising page – Through JustGiving or FirstGiving, you can now create your own page to raise funds for FBA. You can do it as an event and get friends to donate to your cause, or just send out your own appeal and testimonial to let others know about our service.
We hope you enjoy all of the new changes to Free Buddhist Audio, and thank you for your support over the years – without you, our community, this would not have been possible.
The Triratna Buddhist Community - formerly known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) - was founded in 1967 by Sangharakshita. It is now an international movement with activities in more than 20 countries, including India. The Triratna Buddhist Community is a non-sectarian Buddhist movement which seeks promote the practice of Buddhism in a form appropriate to the modern world.
Triratna means "Three Jewels", specifically the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which are the central foci of a Buddhist's life and practice. They've long been represented in our logo and we're delighted that our name will now reflect them as well.
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