Free Buddhist Audio

In 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.”

In 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.

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

In 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.”

In 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.

In 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

In this week’s FBA Podcast “Life – For A Limited Time Only,” Suriyavamsa begins 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 at Parinirvana Day 2010 at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre.

In this week’s FBA Podcast “Death 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

In this week’s FBA Podcast “Reflections 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.

In this week’s FBA Podcast “Triratna 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.