Free Buddhist Audio

The Buddha as lover, as master of enchantments, as a vision of the sky. In this talk, Candradasa presents the story of the Buddha's life as a backdrop to three visions of practice, focussing on a progression through love and corresponding to the traditional path of ethics, meditation and wisdom. Myth, dream and archetypal images galore â€" from Jung and Star Wars to Giacometti and Jean Genet â€" as well as a healthy dose of sex, magic and death. But finally, we have the Buddha simply as a vision of how to know ourselves more fully and live our lives with a marvellous elegance of being…

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Core meditation teaching from Viveka. Here is her fresh and vibrant take on the traditional practice of anapanasati – mindfulness with breathing. Using the breath as a stabilizing presence, this series of reflections is designed to help us discover the nature of reality itself by encouraging us to notice what is actually happening each moment in a direct and open way. Anapanasati is a complete path to awakening or enlightenment.

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Lalitavira's splendid talk on mindfulness – especially mindfulness of the body – is here to ground you! Through vivid imagery, we encounter the root practice of Buddhism as it appears in earliest times. In doing so, we contemplate the assumptions behind our experience, as well as those behind traditional dharma practice and philosophy. This is good, strong medicine for flighty times – an unflinching but kindly look at death, sex and the nature of things!

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A new year's talk by Subhuti to help dust away all those mental cobwebs hanging over from the last one! Just the thing for sharpening your wits, deepening your understanding of the thorny area that is ethics, and generally pulling your socks up on the awareness front… A friendly but thoroughly enagaging first step into a profoundly interesting area of Buddhist philosophy and practice â€" just how does the mind work?

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A jewelled casket of a talk by Vajradarshini, with poetic accompaniment. Rumi meets Tsongkhapa in the Tavern of Ruin, and Dogen, Milarepa and Nagarjuna join them to talk about 'self' and 'world'. Joanna Macy turns up too â€" then many voices, mixed and mingled, explore the experience of being part of an Order and following the Buddha's way. Quite splendid stuff.

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Fabulous stuff from Padmavajra. This richly rewarding talk explores the place and function of sound in Buddhist practice and history, as well as within the speaker's own spiritual life. A wide-ranging cultural journey is made from John Coltrane to Sufi Qawwali, from mantra to Zen poetry, taking in Andre Gide, Renaissanace Neoplatonism and the ancient Pali Verses en route. Not to be missed!

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A good, pithy introduction from Nagapriya (not to say quirky – check out the soccer references!) to the traditionally thorny and rather misunderstood area of karma and rebirth, teasing out its relationship to Buddhist ethics in general. Instant karma is yours…

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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!

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A sparkling discussion from 2003 on the use of images for accessing the Buddhist tradition. And an indispensable exploration of everyday practice of the Dharma in the beautiful light of the Tathagathagarbha Sutra.

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In this moving talk Jnanavaca relates events in Joe Simpson's popular mountaineering book 'Touching the Void' to aspects of Buddhist practice.

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