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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.