I started the Everyday Dhamma Network because I had a goal to practice dhamma every day, but also I have an aim to release dhamma teachings and related content every day of the week. I haven't achieved that yet, but with your support I may achieve that goal in future. I believe that podcasting is an excellent way to access dhamma teachings and content. That's because it was the original way that people who were followers of the Buddha accessed the teachings, and has been for over 26 centuries. It even says at the beginning of many of the suttas - the teachings of the Buddha - "So I have heard" - not "so I have seen" or "so I have smelled". And that what we get when we listen to a podcast.
Podcasting is also great because now that we all have mobile phones, all we need is a podcasting app and we can take our podcasts anywhere. Furthermore, you can listen to a podcast whilst doing something else, like driving to work, making dinner, going for a walk in the park or sitting on a meditation cushion. Podcasts are the most available of mediums.
Also, podcasting is great for immersive, long-form content. Most Youtube videos are under 20 minutes, and content on Instagram and TikTok is way shorter! But for longer content, podcasting is the best medium. So that's why I am so keen on podcasting.
So let's get on to those podcasts.
The first podcast I released was the Treasure Mountain Podcast. In this podcast I interview Buddhist teachers and community leaders about their personal spiritual journeys, or about a particular topic that is relevant to contemporary listeners, or about an inspiring project. Really I think there's so many great people out there who are practicing the dhamma, and there's a real Buddhist renaissance just getting under way right now, especially with the growth of interest in meditation in the West. So Treasure Mountain Podcast is a way for me to meet those people online, find out their inspiring stories and share them with the world.
The second podcast I released was the Buddha's Wisdom Podcast. After spending so much money paying for various services to get the Treasure Mountain Podcast up and running, I considered ways to optimise my use of these services. And I wanted to reread Sutta Pitaka - the teachings of the Buddha - and was thinking about how it can be difficult to persuade myself to read the text and how it would be better to have the teachings in a convenient podcast form that I could listen to wherever I went. And then it seemed obvious to me that I could produce this for both my own benefit - as I have to read the teachings as I intended - as well as creating a convenient way of accessing the teachings of the Buddha for others who would like to hear them.
The third podcast I started was the Ajahn Brahm Podcast. I started this as a passion project and tribute to my teacher who I believe is the best English speaking dhamma teacher in the world today. I've been posting his talks online for the better part of twenty years. But when we started out we made low quality mp3 audio because lots of people had slow dial-up connections. Remember those? Well, now with online AI systems we can easily improve the quality of these talks and get text transcriptions (which, by the way, are very useful to our translators, as well as the hearing impaired). I'd already paid for the AI editing and transcription service so it was a natural decision to set this up and get it started. It's already proving very popular.
Lastly, I set up the Forest Path Podcast. This is narrations of the teachings of awakened meditation masters of the forest tradition of Buddhism. I've personally been deeply moved and greatly aided in my practice by these translated teachings. And then, recently I was given a large trove of digital versions of these teachings. So I thought, why not make these available in a convenient podcast audio format too? And so I got started with this project also.
Overall the Everyday Dhamma Network is a labour of love, and I've sunk a silly amount of money in to equipment and services to get it up and running. And I can keep that financed for a while longer. But in the long run, I really need a bit of support from listeners to keep this going. In accordance with the spirit of dhamma, all of these teachings and resources are made available free of charge. However, if you do appreciate these podcast resources, I'd appreciate your support. You can offer a one off donation, or become a member of the Everyday Dhamma Network by making a monthly donation of just $4. This can be done on the everydaydhamma.net website (just click on the cup in the bottom left hand corner of the screen), or you can go to my Ko-fi page which is ko-fi.com/solhanna
Related Videos
Compassion and Stillness | Ajahn Brahm | Ajahn Brahm Podcast
Ajahn Brahm talks about how amongst the most positive and impactful things we can do in the world is to develop compassion and stillness within the mind. Here’s how to do it. — This dhamma talk was originally recorded using a low quality MP3 to save on file size (because internet connections were sl...
No Worries (part 2) - Ajahn Liem | The Forest Path Podcast
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