Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

We are thrilled to report on the achievements of the Berzin Archives’ Study Buddhism project over the last three months, made possible by your generous contributions. Thanks to your support, we have been able to continue our mission of translating and publishing Study Buddhism material into multiple languages, making our website accessible to an ever-wider audience. In the last three months, we have also worked on new video interviews and social media content, and at the end of January we launched an exciting new project. Read on to find out more!

Over the winter, we saw not only the continued growth of our social media channels, but a large increase in website visits. A new algorithm from Google means that our content is now reaching nearly twice the number of people as before. From the start of December until the end of February, which is usually one of the quietest periods of the year for the website, we had 557,000 visits compared to 315,000 for the three months prior to that. Over the last three months, our global team of translators, editors, and assistants has prepared well over 600 translations of articles and video content into other languages, working out at an incredible 7 a day.

Toward the end of January, we were finally able to launch our much-awaited machine generated audio versions of our articles in the Essentials section. These initial 30 audio articles mean that Study Buddhism’s content is becoming more user-friendly than ever. Removing this accessibility barrier and providing the ability to listen to articles anytime and anywhere is essential not only for our visually impaired readers but is also very useful for everyone in a wide range of situations. From daily commutes to work to long runs in the forest, our content can now be enjoyed online and, if downloaded, offline as well. Furthermore, the statistics are already very encouraging. Comparing the months prior to and after launching this project, we saw a 251% increase in listens to our audio content. We are excited to continue bringing audio articles to the rest of the website!

Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:

• Preparation and publication of 9 further parts of “Details of Karma” containing extensive translations of Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources
• Research for 2 additional parts of “Details of Karma,” including extensive translations of Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources
• Preparation, editing and publication of a 4-part article on “Non-ethnic Buddhism in the Russian Empire and the USSR” by guest author, Dr. Andrey Terentyev
• Preparation of 2 parts of a multipart article on “Buddhism in the Mongol and Turkic Regions of Russia 2023" by guest author, Dr. Andrey Terentyev
• Preparation of a 3-part article on “Mongolian Monasteries before the 1937 Purge” by guest author, Dr. Zsuzsa Majer
• Editing of a translation from Tibetan of a text by Shabkar on voidness submitted by guest translator, Jamie Gordon Creek
• Audio recording of an explanation of the differences between the Gelugpa and Nyingma presentations of voidness by Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II
• Preparation and publication of 305 translations of English articles into our various languages
• Copyediting of 35 transcripts, files, and articles
• Continuing Spanish translation of our English glossary entries
• Completion and uploading to SoundCloud of 30 new audio articles, and the subsequent embedding of said audio files in the Essentials section
• Addition of written interviews with Khandro Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, Venerable Guo Huei, and Lama Tsultrim Allione, in the Interviews section
• Preparation and dispatch of 9 newsletters to our 9,000+ Mailchimp subscribers
• Editing of 11 videos from our interview with Ajahn Amaro, the abbot at Amaravati Monastery in the UK. This includes the creation of YouTube versions, as well as versions for our Facebook page, Twitter account, and Instagram and TikTok channels
• The addition of the above-mentioned Ajahn Amaro videos to our YouTube channel and the creation of 11 subtitles files in English, plus 341 subtitle files in our other languages for this interview series
• Creation of a transcript of the interview with Ajahn Amaro for later use in our online interview section
• Video interview with Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, American Tibetan Buddhist nun, author, teacher, and the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey, the only Tibetan Buddhist training monastery for Western nuns and monks in the United States
• Preparation of 8 quotes taken from our video interviews and other sources from the website, accompanied with graphics, and the uploading of these to social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter)
• Preparation of 8 different video clips and uploading them to social media channels. Each video was prepared for posting on Facebook with 32 language subtitles, on Twitter with embedded English subtitles and a maximum length of 2 minutes and 20 seconds, and on Instagram and TikTok at 9:16 format with embedded English subtitles
• Preparation of 8 article posts for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) along with introductions to these articles
• Research of mini players for audio versions of website articles 
• Customization and restyling of the SoundCloud audio player and adaptation of it for embedding in website articles
• Further technical development for adding recommended reading lists to the website’s accounts feature
• Improvement of the website’s internal search engine
• Research and testing of donation platforms – PoketMarkt, Stripe, BetterPlace, DonorBox, Paypal, Ko-fi, snd BrainTree – for non-US donations to replace Fundraising Box and Micropayment 
• Update internal documentation of the website project
• Ongoing technical maintenance of the website 

All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Together, we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”

Links:

• Study Buddhism website of the Berzin Archives
• Study Buddhism on Facebook
• Study Buddhism on YouTube

We have come to the end of a very challenging year, one that has been filled with war and climate disasters, a refugee crisis, disrupted global supply chains, inflation and let’s not forget Covid. These challenges have presented us with a great opportunity to apply what we have learned from our study of Buddhism to our daily lives. More and more we come to realize that His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s repeated message of the oneness of humanity is the key to our survival. If we are to remain mindful of one teaching, this is the one.
 
We are all one in the sense that we are all interdependent, with everyone equally wanting to be happy and equally not wanting to be unhappy. In addition, we are all dependent on each other to achieve these goals. But how to achieve them? Our welfare and our difficulties both arise dependently on millions of factors, never just from one source alone. Whatever happens in the world, in one way or another, affects us all. We are all in this together and so any strategy we adopt needs to encompass everyone in its scope.
 
The realization of the oneness of humanity leads naturally to the development of universal compassion. Developing universal compassion is the key to finding realistic strategies for dealing with these universal problems. The important point is that for us be free of all of these problems ourselves requires that everyone else be free of them too. That means we need to equally include in the scope of our compassion those who make war and the victims of war, those who fight voluntarily and those who are forced to fight against their will, those who have had to flee their homes and those who have provided them with a haven, those who pollute the planet and those who suffer illnesses from this pollution, and even those who spread disinformation and those who believe it. The list goes on and on until we fill the entire world with our compassion. 
 
Understanding and accepting the reality of the situation and extending our compassion universally provides us with the inner strength and courage to face these global challenges. I often think about our Study Buddhism web developer, who lives in Ukraine, sometimes with no electricity, water or heat. I recently wrote him how much I admire his courage to deal with the difficulties he’s facing. His reply was, “We have no choice!” 
 
Remember, none of us is facing the challenges of our times alone. We are each a small part of the entirety of humanity, and we all are equally living through our times. As the saying goes, “There is strength in numbers.” By helping each other, with understanding and compassion, we will surely bring about a better world.  

On this note, let me wish you a safe and healthy holiday season. I hope that the new year brings with it newfound hope and strength in your Dharma practice.

In terms of our year at Study Buddhism, we are sending out mail more frequently. As we are continually adding new material to the website, the twice-a-month emails will highlight new and interesting articles and videos. In early 2023, we will launch two new projects: machine generated audio versions of our articles and recommended reading lists. Since spring 2022, we've been perfecting audio articles using the latest in AI technology. Initially, you'll see audio clips in the What Is and How To sections, and then over the months, you'll find the possibility of listening to our articles popping up across the website. Next up, we've created recommended reading lists covering almost the entire range of Buddhist philosophy, religion, and science. The reading lists will be available to members only, but fear not - it's completely free and only takes a minute to create a Study Buddhism member account: sign up here.

Now, let me share with you some of our achievements and statistics from the past year. Over 2022, we have had more than 1,100,000 unique users of the website, which is up 10% compared to 2021. These visitors have read over 2.5 million articles in our 32 languages. 27.5% of users read our content in English, while 72.5% of readers absorbed our content in our 31 other languages. English is our top language, followed by Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Tibetan, Chinese, Italian, French, Mongolian, and Indonesian.

Over the course of the year, we have added more than 1,000 new articles in all of our languages, which means that we now have 13,500 articles on the website. Astoundingly, this year alone, our readers have spent the equivalent of 3055 days studying the Dharma on Studybuddhism.com. Altogether, we worked on and produced more than 3000 new translations of articles and subtitles, which comes to more than 8 every single day.

Our social media community has continued to grow, with our Facebook page and newly-launched Instagram account performing well. For both accounts combined, we now have 52,000 followers who have seen our content 3.5 million times and watched over 700,000 minutes of the over 50 videos we have posted. This year, our YouTube channel far exceeded expectations, and we reached three exciting milestones. We zoomed past 50,000 followers, reached 3,000,000 views in total, and got 1,000,000 views alone in 2022. Incredibly, our viewers spent the equivalent of 1180 days watching our video content on YouTube. Meanwhile, as pandemic-related rules were relaxed across much of the world, we took the opportunity to interview a range of teachers. We're excited to bring you these new video interviews in 2023.

Over on SoundCloud, we’ve had a 14% increase in followers, along with plenty of people downloading our content to listen to offline. Our top listeners are in León in Mexico, Bangkok in Thailand, Toronto in Canada, Heidelberg in Germany, and Des Moines in the USA.

All of our work, from maintaining the website and creating new material, to producing video content and translating thousands of subtitles and articles, relies upon you, the public, and your donations. So, I wish to thank you all for your continuing support. Please share with your loved ones and friends our project, or anyone who might be interested in the wisdom of Tibet but does not know of our website and might like to help support our work. Together we shall “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All.”

Links:

• Study Buddhism website of the Berzin Archives
• Study Buddhism on Facebook
• Study Buddhism on YouTube