Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Top 15 Free Buddhist Audio Recordings

Here's a list of my favorites and recommentations, not by Sangharakshita, from the FWBO archives at Free Buddhist Audio. (I've listened to most of Sangharakshita's talks. I don't even want to do a top 15 of his talks, just go listen to them all in chronological order.) This might just be a testament to my spiritual immaturity, that I don't appreciate a talk, so if you're not on this list, don't worry. None the less, I often recommend talks here, so I thought I would just list my favorites as of today. This list may change.

1. The Dharma and Denial by Manjuka. I create a false spiritual self, and this talk helps me to see past that to be more true and authentic.

2. Vessantara is a leading teacher in the FWBO. He takes us with him on some of his journey in a talk called Learning From Tibetan Buddhism. There's a lot of talk about seeing teachers outside the FWBO and this is an exploration of that. Note he consults with Sangharakshita and he's always given him permission.

3. Kamalashila has a blog. He's got many good talks and some meditation lead throughs. I recommend this talk: Our Work as Teachers and Practitioners. Following on #2, this talk suggest you devote 10 years to your school of choice before you branch out into other schools.

4. Any of Parami's 4 talks are great, but to pick one, Energy at it's Most Abundant. She has visited NYC several times and given very inspiring Dharma talks. I think she could have many more than 4 talks, but alas I'll be grateful for what I can get.

5. After Sangharakshita and Subhuti, Padmavajra has the most talks on Free Buddhist Audio. And the most at Padmaloka site, for that matter. To pick a favorite, I'll say listen to this one: Talk 1 on the Diamond Sutra: Taking Mind to it's limit. There are 10 which can be found here. He's a very good speaker, I really recommend all his talks.

6. I haven't yet met Viveka outside of talks and reading her writing (unfortunately sparse at this point), but my friends say she's awesome. Listen to Mindfulness as Sadhana. She also has some great meditation lead throughs.

7. Dhammarati is an awesome dude. Here's Breaking the Mould. When he speaks, people listen. He's got another talk as well that is very good.

8. Subhuti has the second most talks. I like the mind training text, and found his deep discussion of it, with his incisive mind to be illuminating: Eight Verses for Mind Training. See all 4 talks here. I listened to these a few times before they started to really click. He's a deep man, listen to his talks.

9. What Self, What World by Chistopher Titmuss. This talk encourages and exemplifies engaged Buddhism. He's also quite funny.

10. Violence and Emptiness by Suvarnaphraba. This is fundamental to me psychologically like talk #1. A personal favorite. She's also very quirky and funny. She's come to NYC too, thank you Savarnaphraba. She has a blog.

11. Manjuvajra has two scary deep talks. Listen to his talk on Ethics, and get a feel for depth in the spiritual life. Ditto for his other talk here. He also has great talks on, in my opinion, the second greatest free talks site at Padmaloka. But to create a favorite 10 there is another blog entry for another time. Go check them out, they are of a high quality.

12. Ratnaguna has two awesome talks. His last one we listened to on practice day. He's a study leader in the FWBO and a had depth.

13.
Standing on emptiness is an awesome talk
. I have probably listened to this talk the most of all of them, in part because of the depth and in part because she talks softly. Well worth the effort.

14. Touching The Void is a cool talk. I haven't seen the movie or read the book, but after this talk you don't really need to. Awesome.

15. This talk on Padmasambhava is not for all, but I really like it.

I'm probably going to remember some cool talks after I post this, but I don't want to work on this any longer. I'll just add them in comments. Please feel free to add your own in the comments too.

Honorable Mention:
Finally if you want a walk through the Noble Eight Fold Path here's some talks by Smritiratna at the Edinburgh Buddhist Centre site.

1 comment:

S. Bell said...

I would add:

Becoming a citizen of the present:

http://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/talks/details?num=OM523