By Dr. Alexander Berzin | Founder and Author of Berzin Archives
This summer has been a period of significant progress at the Study Buddhism HQ as we continue to enhance our website, making subtle yet impactful improvements to optimize the user experience. One thing you might start to notice is a selection of newly updated, beautifully designed icons appearing throughout the website. To catch a preview of these, simply visit our refreshed “About Us” page! This small yet elegant enhancement is perfect for those who appreciate visual aesthetics, adding a further touch of beauty to our website. Overall, from June 1 to August 3, we had 974,000 unique visitors to the website, making 10.6 K per day. That’s an impressive 21% increase compared to the three months prior, despite the usual summer slump in traffic.
Our YouTube channel continues to grow at a remarkable rate. Over the past three months alone, over 90,000 unique viewers have discovered our content, many drawn by our recent video interview series with Phra Anil Sakya, Rector of the World Buddhist University and assistant secretary to the previous Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, along with the release of our AMA (Ask Me Anything) series that we filmed with Serkong Rinpoche during his visit to Berlin. Meanwhile, our presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) continues to expand, with consistent growth and engagement across all platforms as we share a variety of articles, videos, and inspirational quotes.
In addition to these digital milestones, we've been hard at work producing new content that will be released later this year and into the next. This quarter, we conducted interviews with several esteemed teachers, starting with Luang Por Sumedho, the former abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery and one of the most important figures in the transmission of Theravada Buddhism to the West. We also had the privilege of interviewing Dr. T. H. Barrett, Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, London. As a leading expert on ancient and medieval Chinese Buddhism, his insights will enrich our Advanced section, filling in key gaps. These videos are sure to captivate history buffs and deepen their understanding of this fascinating period. Not only that, but we have a very exciting limited series coming later this year – in-depth discussions on a range of topics with Dr. Alexander Berzin and Serkong Rinpoche, with studybuddhism.com editor-in-chief Matt Linden as host. We are very much looking forward to sharing this new longer-form content with you soon!
For everything else we’ve been up to, you’ll find more details in the bulleted list below. Here are some of our accomplishments over these last three months:
• Preparation and publication of 230 translations of articles into our various languages
• Copyediting of 40 articles
• Transcription of 6 Tibetan and 6 English audio files
• Revision of the 6-part article “Buddhist and Scientific Understandings of Time”
• Revision and expansion into 40 parts continued of “Details of Karma: The Vaibhashika Presentation” based on translation and analysis of Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources
• Revision begun of the 7-part article “The Mechanism of Karma: Vasubandhu and Nagarjuna’s Presentation”
• Addition of the new article “Dr. Alexander Berzin’s Relationship with Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche I”
• Addition of a written interview with Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, Abbess of Songdhammakalyani Monastery and the first Thai woman to receive full ordination as a Theravada bhikkhuni, in the Interviews section
• 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 X, formerly 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 X 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 X) along with introductions to these articles.
• Design, preparation and despatch of 6 newsletters to our over 9,000 Mailchimp subscribers
• Completion of the editing of 12 videos of our interview with Phra Anil Sakya, Rector of the World Buddhist University and assistant secretary to the previous Supreme Patriarch of Thailand
• Addition of the above 12 videos from our interview with Phra Anil Sakya to our YouTube channel, along with the preparation of a dedicated playlist, video descriptions, and video teasers, along with the addition of English subtitle files
• The preparation of 12 Instagram-ready videos and 12 X (formerly Twitter)-ready videos from Phra Anil Sakya’s interview
• Livestreaming and publication of a “Question and Answer” session with Serkong Rinpoche during his visit to Berlin
• The filming of seven 45-minute long discussions on various Buddhist topics with Dr. Alexander Berzin and Serkong Rinpoche, along with Matt Linden as host. These will be edited to form part of the longer-form content that our audience has been requesting and will also make podcast material
• The filming of an AMA question-and-answer session with Serkong Rinpoche during his visit to Berlin, after we requested and received questions from our followers on social media
• The editing of the above AMA session with Serkong Rinpoche into five social-media ready clips, and the addition of them onto our Facebook page and YouTube channel
• Conducting of a video interview with Luang Por Sumedho, the former abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery
• Conducting of a video interview with Dr. T. H. Barrett, Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, London
• Audio recording of explanations of advanced points of cognition theory and logic with Serkong Rinpoche and Atisha Mathur
• Compilation and publication of a new Authors & Experts page containing descriptive text and photos of the 61 contributors of articles or interviews to our website or YouTube channel
• Configuration of the Content Management System for editing and expanding the Authors & Experts page
• Reorganization of the About Us section to include, in addition to the Authors & Experts page, our Newsletters, Progress Reports and Latest Content pages
• Revision of the text on the About Us and Donations pages and addition of icons to them and to the Authors & Experts page
• Updating of the Newsletters and Progress Reports sections
• Upgrading of the Ruby Language program to version 3.3
• Upgrading in progress of the Rails framework platform to version 7.2
• Creating a new backup of the data base for the website
• Reconfiguration of Git integration with additional security for the website
• Adjustment of the statistics counters
• Adjustment of the mobile view 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.”
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