Free Buddhist Audio

In 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.’

Our 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

Our 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.