Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

After another busy and productive three months here at Study Buddhism, those of us in the northern hemisphere can really feel the nights starting to draw in and the cold weather approach. Now, as we head to the end of another year, we have started to look back to see what we’ve achieved so far, as well as how we can improve in the future. We are happy that, despite the extraordinary year the world has experienced yet again, we have continued to work hard at developing our website and bringing the Dharma to our readers, viewers, and listeners across the globe. 

This quarter, we’ve continued our work in broadening our horizons to include Buddhist wisdom from all the Buddhist traditions. We held a second interview with the widely respected and beloved Theravada teacher Ajahn Amaro at his monastery in the UK, after his well-received video series earlier this year. From this interview, we have already published a short article by Ajahn Amaro on the two truths in the Theravada tradition. Furthermore, we interviewed the head teacher of Jingang Monastery in Taiwan, Venerable Jian Qiao, on the history and practices of Pure Land Buddhism.

Our translators have also been unbelievably busy over the last three months. With dozens of articles translated into each of the languages, we were finally able to publish four brand new language sections: Ukrainian, Telugu, Kannada, and Gujarati, expanding our number of language sections to 36. This brings the website and its Buddhist wisdom to a further 200 million people in their native languages.

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

• Preparation and publication of 446 translations of English articles into our various languages
• Copyediting of 151 transcripts, files and articles
• Revision of 8 single-part English articles
• Revision of 11 parts of multi-part English articles
• Revision begun on “Details of Karma: Vaibhashika Presentation” based on further research with Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources
• Final technical preparation and publication of 4 new language sections – Ukrainian, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati
• Translation of the Interface and 34 articles in preparation for the new East Punjabi section
• Publication of Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche, “Appearances as the Play of the Mind: Gelug Presentation”
• Compilation and publication of Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II and Dr. Alexander Berzin, “Differences between Gelugpa and Nyingma Concerning Emptiness in Prasangika” (7 parts)
• Publication of Ajahn Amaro, “Introduction to the Two Truths in Theravada”
• Video recording of “The Life of Dr. Alexander Berzin” for The Oral History of Tibetan Studies Project of the Oriental Institute of The University of Oxford
• Interview with Dr. Alexander Berzin on discussions with academics in Turkey and the Central Asian Turkic Republics concerning the history of Buddhist-Muslim interaction in Central Asia for “Tricycle Magazine” 
• English transcription of Andrey Terentyev, “HH the Dalai Lama’s Visit to Russia and My Life as a Buddhist and Translator”
• Tibetan transcription of Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II, “Commentary on ‘Seven-Point Mind Training’” (8 parts)
• Tibetan transcription of Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II, “Developing Gratitude for the Dharma and Repaying the Kindness of Teaching It”
• Addition of a written interview with Venerable Robina Courtin in the Interviews section
• Editing of 18 video clips from our interview with Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, Abbess of Songdhammakalyani Monastery and the firstThai woman to receive full ordination as a Theravada bhikkhuni. 
• Creation of a transcript of our interview with Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, for later use on the website’s Interviews section
• Conducting of a second video interview with Ajahn Amaro, the abbot at Amaravati Monastery in the UK
• Conducting of a video interview with Venerable Jian Qiao, a Pure Land Buddhist master and the head teacher at Lion’s Head Mountain Jingang Temple in Taiwan
• Addition of 20 videos from our interview with Dr. Philippe Goldin to our YouTube channel, along with the preparation of a dedicated playlist and video descriptions, and the addition of 333 subtitles files for these videos
• Preparation of 12 quotes taken from our video interviews and other sources, accompanied with graphics, and the uploading of these to social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter)
• Preparation of 12 different video clips and the uploading of them to social media channels. Each video was prepared for posting on Facebook with 32 language subtitles, on Twitter with embedded English subtitles, and on Instagram at 9:16 format with embedded English subtitles
• Preparation of 12 article posts for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) along with introductions to these articles
• Design, preparation and despatch of 6 newsletters to our over 8,600 Mailchimp subscribers.
• Changing of our Youtube channel url link everywhere on the website including redirects
• Design, addition and display of section and multipart hub icons
• Addition of further illustrations on the website and optimization of present images
• Creation of a dynamic video and articles display on the Homepage in all our language sections that, with each visit to the website, displays a different selection of one video and 3 articles each, when available, from our Essentials, Tibetan Buddhism and Advanced sections  
• Activation of a daily refreshing of the cache for the website
• Creation of a Newsletter section with our 20 latest newsletters, linked to our Mail Chimp Archive
• Creation of a Progress Reports section with our Trimonthly Reports starting with March through May 2012 and our Year End Reports starting with 2007, linked to our GlobalGiving page “Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All”
• Design of thumbnail images for the hub page of our Progress Reports section
• Creation within our content management system of the mechanics to add, edit, delete and manage newsletters and progress reports manually
• Adaption of the Favorites function for right-to-left languages
• Creation of a feature in our content management system for editing and adding new tags to articles
• Improvement of the Breadcrumbs navigation markup
• Addition of Search Engine Optimization titles to links on the Homepage
• Continuing maintenance of all technical systems 

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