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