Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

As autumn transitioned to winter here in the northern hemisphere, the Berzin Archives experienced another season of steady growth and accomplishment. Our website saw an average of 9,500 daily visits over the past three months, reflecting a 24% increase compared to the same period two years ago. On YouTube, viewers watched 6,200 hours of content, totaling 180,000 views—up 10% from the previous quarter. On YouTube, where we zoomed past 70,000 subscribers, our most popular new video was Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron’s insightful talk, “Who Is Tara?” Across Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), our videos and Buddhist quotes on the social media platforms continued to inspire people worldwide.

In addition to engaging content, we made significant strides in multiple areas. A total of 246 article translations into various languages were prepared and published, alongside the copyediting of 23 English articles. Our transcription efforts included four Tibetan audio files and 47 English files, many aided by AI tools. We also recorded 21 collaborative lectures by Serkong Rinpoche and Dr. Alexander Berzin and acquired 27 more recordings of Serkong Rinpoche’s teachings.

Major achievements included the completion of a draft chronicling Dr. Berzin’s work organizing projects for H.H. the Dalai Lama in Eastern Europe and Russia from 1985 to 1992 and the launch of our second online course on Udemy, “Cultivating Compassion: A Complete Buddhist Course.” This course was supported by a promotional trailer, updated website links, and new promotional materials, and is already performing exceedingly well on Udemy. Our Essentials section also welcomed four brand new articles on compassion and socially engaged Buddhism.

We invite you to explore all our accomplishments this quarter in more detail below:

• Preparation and publication of 246 translations of articles into our various languages
• Copyediting of 23 English articles
• Transcription of 4 Tibetan audio files
• AI transcription of 47 English audio files
• Recording of 21 lectures given jointly by Serkong Rinpoche and Dr. Berzin
• Acquiring of the audio recordings of 27 lectures by Serkong Rinpoche
• Translation and analysis of Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources begun for “The Four Indian Buddhist Tenet Systems Regarding Ignorance”
• Completion of a draft version of “Dr. Berzin’s Work Organizing Projects for H.H. the Dalai Lama in Eastern Europe and Russia, 1985 to 1992"
• 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 dispatch of 5 newsletters to our over 9,000 Mailchimp subscribers
• Addition of four new articles on compassion and Buddhism in the modern era in our Essentials section: The Benefits of Developing Compassion, Compassion in Action, The Importance of Self-Compassion, and What Is Socially Engaged Buddhism?
• Addition of a written interview with Dr. Andrey Terentyev, founder of Narthang Publications and one of Russia’s leading Buddhist scholars
• The filming of an AMA question-and-answer session with Dr. Alexander Berzin in Berlin, after we requested and received questions from our followers on social media
•  The editing of the above AMA session with Serkong Rinpoche into six social-media ready clips, and the addition of them onto our Facebook page and YouTube channel
• Completion of the editing of 11 videos of our interview with Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, author, teacher, and founder of Sravasti Abbey
• Addition of the above 11 videos from our interview with Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron 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 11 Instagram-ready videos and 11 X (formerly Twitter)-ready videos from Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron’s interview
• Preparation and publication on Udemy of a second, 5-module online course, “Cultivating Compassion: A Complete Buddhist Course,” along with a promotional video trailer for the course
• Addition of New Course promotion banner on the website, adjusting of links to the course and addition of badge “+1 New” to the Course icon
• Preparation of a Popup Image Gallery
• Redesigning of the Donation page, including setting up our own Paypal donation form, updating the Fundraising Box template, and increasing the default donation amounts
• Fixing of the sub-navigation on the About page
• Addition of 61 videos for rotation on the Homepage
• Upgrading to version 3.3.0 of the Ruby computer programming language
• Upgrading to version 8.0 of the Ruby on Rails web framework
• Updating of OS software and libraries
• Preparation of copies of our database
• Cleanup of log files
• Updating of Sitemap xml

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