Free Buddhist Audio

How do you navigate yourself on the Buddhist Path? How do you choose the right direction of travel if you don't know where you're going or what the Goal is? If the Goal is Enlightenment, do you understand what the Buddha means by Enlightenment? Or is your understanding of it a bit vague and muddled? The Buddha is specific. Saddhaloka will be looking at this whole area.

This talk was given at Buddhistische...

Back in the Buddha's time, it's thought that there were lots of people who were looking for meaning, going from teacher to teacher. Sometimes they were householders, sometimes royalty, but they were all shopping around - shopping for wisdom. The Buddha met many people like this. He also met people who'd achieved quite a bit by following other teachers, or those who had themselves become teachers. There were those who worshiped fire...

As part of the series on Personal Development (system of practice) Parami helps us understand how important spiritual death is in our lives. She explores the small moments of letting go which help us to break through ego clinging, allowing freedom and creativity to emerge. This talk was given at Glasgow Buddhist Centre, 2026.

***

Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone! Donate now

Subscribe to the F...

Padmavajra explores the symbolism of Padmasambhava's famous exile in the eight great cremation grounds. And explores the important teaching that The Eight Consciousnesses (aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ) of the Yogacara are regarded in Tantric Buddhism as the eight great cremation grounds. So, we are always in the realm of decay and death. Yet the cremation ground is also the place of initiation, and in this masterful and fascinating talk, reme...

In this imaginative talk, which begins with an evocation of how unbelievably fortunate we are to be able to practice together in community, Candradasa speaks to one of the four lineages of our sangha as drawn out by Urgyen Sangharakshita, Triratna's founder. He evokes the lineage of practice as a continuous chain of human inspiration and curiosity – from ancient peoples around the fire, to Siddhartha on the cusp ...

Padmavajra explores the profound lines from Sangharakshita's Dedication Ceremony:

"Here seated, here practising

My our mind become Buddha,

May our thought become Dharma

May our communication with one another be Sangha"

Recorded at the Autumn Going for Refuge weekend retreat at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2024.  

https://www.freebuddh...

Dhammamegha  speaks about Sangha as Dharma practice and how spiritual community and friendship with the admirable are part of our heritage in Triratna. A talk given on the Triratna Buddhist Community International Gathering at Adhisthana, 2017.

***

Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone! Donate now

Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast: Bite-sized clips - Buddhist inspiration three times a&nbs...

Is it possible to create a society in which all social, economic, and political arrangements will support the development of true individuality? In this lecture, Sangharakshita discusses a number of principles essential to the successful transformation of our current society.

This talk is part of the series Buddhism for Today – and Tomorrow, giv...

The Dharma meets androcentricity and culture wars. Maitrisiddhi explores how we can relate to views on gender without polarising. She asks, how do we bring the Dharma to bear on our and others' deeply-held views? And how do we hold some of Sangharakshita's conditioned views? Honest, nuanced, sensitive. This talk was given at Taraloka Retreat Centre, as part of the series entitled Daughters of the Buddha: Lineage of Freedom, 2026....

There's a story about the Buddha bowing to the tree under which he has just gained Enlightenment. Inspired by this this story, Vajragupta sees the whole path to Awakening in terms of gratitude. The grasping mind cannot feel grateful. But the Awakened know and feel just how deeply they are supported and enabled by other people, other life, and conditions in the world around them. Vajragupta uses poetry and anecdotes to give fou...

How do you get used to being Enlightened? What happened to the Buddha in the weeks after his breakthrough experience? Kamalashila explores these questions in two ways - using the framework of our System of Meditation to shed light on the process that unfolded in the Bodhisattva's mind and body as Enlightenment dawned; and connecting us imaginatively with the symbolism and image of Muchalinda, the great serpent, coiling his body pro...

When we Go for Refuge, we can only Go for Refuge to that which is lokuttara - 'beyond the world'. In the third talk in this series, Satyaraja speaks of the need for a total orientation of our being towards Enlightenment through setting up conditions (pratitya samutpada), and the development of the Five Spiritual Faculties. Excerpted from the talk entitled 'For the Attainment of Enlightenment' given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 202...

Here, Saddhanandi speaks about the nature of enlightenment, as experience and as non-experience, based on Bhante's lecture of the same name, given to the Buddhist Society in 1975. Given on retreat at Adhisthana, 2022.

***

Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone! Donate now: https://freebuddhistaudio.com/d...

Sanghadhara reflects on the Buddha's resolve to sit on the vajrasana beneath the Bodhi tree until he broke through conditioned existence and awoke. The talk explores vajrasana as the "diamond throne," drawing on an audio excerpt from Sangharakshita to unfold its meaning as the central point of the cosmos: the spiritual axis where the Buddha awakens, and where the symbolism of the vajra, the tree of life, and the Bodhi tree all meet...

Have we got what it takes to wake up? Sanghagita follows Siddhartha Gautama's extraordinary quest to its turning point. In him we meet a seeker who turns down power, prestige and leadership, turning his back on the received wisdom of harsh asceticism, choosing instead something far more radical: to meditate alone in the comfortable shade of a beautiful tree. Here he meets Māra: tempter, accuser, embodiment of fear, desire, and doub...

Vessantara explores Sangharakshita's idea that fundamentally there is one spiritual experience, which has different aspects that we can unfold. Here he guides on how to contact and influence deeper levels of mind, culminating in the turning about of the basis, the transformation of the deepest level of mind. This talk was given at Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 2016, as part of the series Aspects of Going For Refuge (Remastered).
<...

In this talk, Suryagupta discusses the language of the depths, which refers to communication beyond the surface level of experience. She begins by exploring the power of stories. Part of the series The Language of the Depths given at London Buddhist Centre, 2024.

***

Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone! Donate now: 

As part of Adhisthana's 2023 Triratna Day celebrations, Saddhanandi speaks to us about the 'existential communication' that can arise between a more, and a less, experienced practitioner. A communication that can take you to the limits of your own being and encourage you to stretch beyond them. Part of the series Triratna Day Weekend: Is a Guru Necessary? Given at Adhisthana, 2023.

***

Ratnaprabha presents traditional Buddhist advice on communicating well, in particular the images that the Buddha used to teaches own seven-year-old son about the importance of truthfulness, and the poetry of Vangisa, encouraged by the Buddha to turn his love of communication into verses. A talk to theWest London Buddhist Centre, 2017.

***

Help us keep FBA Podcasts ...