Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

As we stepped into the winter months, our website saw excellent continued engagement, with over three-quarters of a million visitors exploring our resources. The top five countries accessing our content were Russia, the United States, Germany, India, and Italy. Among the most visited pages were The Nazi Connection with Shambhala and Tibet(English), Who Is the Buddha? (Russian), What Is Prayer in Buddhism? (English and Russian), and What Are the Four Noble Truths? (Bengali). These trends highlight our growing global impact and the continued relevance of our educational materials, including those that have been available on our website for a long time.

Our YouTube channel has also experienced significant growth, with over 180,000 video views totaling 6,300 hours watched in just three months. The most-watched videos included Unlocking the Secrets of Om Mani Padme Hum with Ringu Tulku, The Eightfold Path Explained by Ajahn Amaro, and The Sound of Silence by Luang Por Sumedho. We were especially thrilled to release a total of nine videos from our interview with Luang Por Sumedho, all of which have been received with great enthusiasm. Additionally, back in December, we had the honor of conducting an exclusive interview with Venerable Zhaoyin, the Abbess of Pu Yi Nunnery in Taiwan, whose remarkable efforts in spreading the Dharma and establishing a large nunnery will soon be featured in upcoming video releases.

As always, our team has been hard at work, making substantial progress across multiple projects. Here are some of our key accomplishments from this period:

Highlights from December 2024 – February 2025

Content & Translations

• Published the English transcripts of 59 classes from Dr. Berzin’s course Wheel of Sharp Weapons
• Released My Dharma Activities in Eastern Europe and the USSR (1985-1992) by Dr. Berzin
• Completed 283 translations of articles into various languages
• Copyedited 136 English articles
• Conducted AI transcription of 13 English audio files
• Finalized a draft version of My Education, Training, and Life’s Work in the Dharma by Dr. Berzin
• Continued translation and analysis of Sanskrit and Tibetan sources for The Four Indian Buddhist Tenet Systems Regarding Ignorance

Multimedia & Social Media

• Recorded two Zoom lectures and Q&A sessions on sutra and tantra with Dr. Berzin
• Edited nine videos from our interview with Luang Por Sumedho, one of the most senior Western representatives of the Thai forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism and retired abbot of Amaravati Monastery in the UK
• Added these nine videos from our interview with Luang Por Sumedho to our YouTube channel, along with a dedicated playlist, video descriptions, teasers, and English subtitles
• Created nine Instagram-ready and nine X (formerly Twitter)-ready video clips from Luang Por Sumedho’s interview
• Prepared 12 quotes from our video interviews and other sources, accompanied by graphics, and uploaded them to Facebook, Instagram, and X
• Produced and uploaded 12 video clips optimized for Facebook, X, and Instagram:
  • Facebook: 32 language subtitles
  • X: Embedded English subtitles
  • Instagram: 9:16 format with embedded English subtitles
• Created 12 article-based posts for social media, introducing key content to a wider audience
• Designed, prepared, and dispatched five newsletters to over 9,000 Mailchimp subscribers

Interviews & Special Projects

• Conducted a video interview with Venerable Zhaoyin, Abbess of Pu Yi Nunnery in Taiwan
• Published a written interview with Professor Robert Thurman, renowned scholar, author, and co-founder of Tibet House

Technical Improvements

• Migrated our database server to an upper PostgreSQL version and created backup versions
• Updated our web server configuration and underlying software
• Upgraded our platform to the newly released Rails 8.0
• Set up multiple versions of Ruby on the server to accommodate multiple applications
• Developed a subdomain and dedicated application for the website’s administrative panel
• Fixed publishing issues in our content management system, resolved glossary synonym issues, and addressed social media posting errors
• Improved video image quality on both YouTube and our website
• Researched and tested new analytical tools for website optimization
• Corrected website links in Wikipedia articles to ensure accurate references

Thank You for Your Support

All of this hard work is made possible by your continuing generous support. Each milestone brings us closer to our mission of preserving and sharing authentic Buddhist teachings with a worldwide audience. 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