Make the Ageless Wisdom of Tibet Available to All

Over the winter, we’ve been hard at work here at Study Buddhism as we wrapped up 2020 and headed into 2021. Despite the extraordinary year 2020 was, our website and social media channels saw considerable success, thanks to the efforts of more than 80 people across the globe. We hope to continue this in 2021, which we start with some good news: the launch of a new language section, Hebrew. Adding Hebrew to Study Buddhism is an important step in bringing the Buddhist teachings to a wider audience and bridging the gaps of misunderstanding between different faiths. This brings Study Buddhism’s content to the world in a total of 32 languages.

As we continue to broaden the scope of our horizons, we’ve released our second interview from Dharma Drum Mountain, with Venerable Chang Zao. Venerable Chang Zao is the Head Nun of Dharma Drum Mountain Malaysia, and provided excellent insight into Chan meditation, the concept of karma, and how to find meaning in life. These videos have thus far proven to be very popular. Then, we released 13 videos from our interview with Geshe Dorji Damdul, a distinguished Buddhist scholar who is the Director at Tibet House, New Delhi, the Cultural Centre of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In his interview, he looks at the modern education system, as well as the connection between science and Buddhism, in particular quantum physics and the tenet systems. Next up, we will release an interview with Menri Trizin Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the Bön tradition and the abbot of Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India.

We are excited to announce the release of two new series of articles covering Tibetan medicine and astrology in our Advanced Studies/ History & Culture section. This valuable material has been made available from our archives, transcribed and edited from lectures given by Dr. Berzin at the Library of Medicine of the Ministry of Health of the U.S.S.R. in 1990.

Altogether, our translators and editors have prepared over 400 new articles and over 460 new subtitle files, working out to almost 10 new translations completed every single day, up 50% from the same period the year before. On our YouTube channel, we’ve published 24 short videos taken from 2 interviews, also preparing for them subtitles in our various languages. As part of the ongoing process to make the website user-friendly, our English editors have copyedited more than 80 articles, making them more concise and easier to read. You’ll find all the details in the bulleted list below.

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

• Preparation and creation of a Hebrew section on the website, bringing the total number of language sections to 32
• Preparation and publication of 401 translations into our various languages
• Translation and addition of 461 subtitle files
• Copyediting of 83 English transcripts and files
• Transcription of 35 English audio files
• Transcription of 14 Tibetan audio files
• Publication of 4 English articles on Tibetan medicine
• Publication of 10 English articles on Tibetan astrology
• Addition of text versions to our 12 guided meditation audios 
• Editing of 9 videos of our interview with Menri Trizin Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the Bön tradition and the abbot of Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India
• Editing of 13 videos of our interview with Geshe Dorji Damdul, a distinguished Buddhist scholar, who is currently serving as the director of Tibet House, the Cultural Centre of H.H. the Dalai Lama, based in New Delhi, India
• Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Geshe Dorji Damdul
• Editing of 11 videos of an interview held at Drum Drum Mountain Taiwan with Venerable Chang Zao, a Chan Buddhist nun and the Director of Dharma Drum Mountain Malaysia
• Subtitling and addition to the Study Buddhism YouTube channel of the above-mentioned interview clips with Venerable Chang Zao
• Automation of the weekly updating of the statistics on the About Us page and adjustment of its format for the different language sections 
• Expansion of the glossary search feature to include the ability to search for Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pali terms
• Addition of multimedia icons on hub pages for articles that have audio and/or video files embedded in them
• Improvement of the internal links and redirect functions
• Upgrading of software on our server.

 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
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx0ArCQSDAxH70zpWakIbPw

We have reached the end of a challenging year, one in which we all have had to endure many restrictions, much hardship and, for some of us, terrible loss. But it has also given us a valuable chance for spiritual growth. Restrictions give us the opportunity to reflect on impermanence and put into practice flexibility and patience. Loss of loved ones or economic security, indescribably tragic and difficult to bear, tests our resilience not to lose hope. As for hardships, Shantideva expressed it nicely:

“Furthermore, there are advantages to suffering: with agony, arrogance disappears; compassion grows for those in recurring samsara; negative conduct is shunned; and joy is taken in being constructive.” 

What could be a greater incentive for practicing compassion for all sentient beings than a global pandemic and economic crisis which, in fact, affect us all? When the scope of our concern is limited to just ourselves and our loved ones, and the strength of our fear builds emotional walls within which to hide from others, our hearts and minds remain closed and we suffer terribly. But when the scope of our concern becomes unlimited and extends to all beings, and the strength of our compassion builds a loving connection with everyone on this planet, our hearts and minds stay open and our peace of mind and happiness grow. With the strength and self-confidence that compassion brings, let’s look back on this epic year and rejoice in how much we have grown, and reaffirm our dedication to continue wishing for and working toward the benefit of all. 

Let me share with you what we’ve accomplished during this amazing year. In 2020, we have had more than 1,160,000 users of the website (up an incredible 40% from last year), who've read almost 2.7 million articles (up 31%) in our 31 languages. This impressive increase in readers is certainly aided by our efforts in bringing ten brand new Asian language sections to the website. Altogether, we produced more than 4325 translations of articles and subtitles, which is nearly 12 every single day! Almost 66% of our users visited the site on a mobile device, while 30% visited on a computer and 4% on a tablet. 

We now have a grand total of 10,640 articles on the website. Around 1/3 of our users read our English content, while two out of three people read articles in one of our 30 other languages. The most popular are Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese and Hindi, as well as Tibetan and Mongolian. One out of six readers come from the US, while the rest come from 226 other countries. The most popular of these are India, Germany, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, while Italy, Turkey, Mongolia, Mexico and Vietnam come close behind. We truly are reaching the entire world.

The community on our Facebook channel grows on a daily basis, with around 10,000 newcomers interested in learning about the wisdom of Tibet joining this year. We now have over 44,000 followers, an increase of 25% from last year. Our posts have been viewed 4.6 million times (up 86% compared to last year) and our videos have been watched for the equivalent of 630 days.

Our YouTube channel is also enjoying great success, with us reaching 22,000 subscribers, up 77% from last year. We now have a total of 392 videos, consisting of interviews with 28 of the world's leading experts on Buddhism and the mind today. 

Over on SoundCloud, an increasing number of people are finding and enjoying our wide range of audio material. We now have 2,033 followers, up 20%. We now have a total of 1,510 tracks. They’ve had 190,000 plays and 6,700 downloads. Our top listeners come from the USA, Australia, the UK, Germany, and Canada, and a newcomer in this category: Slovakia!

All of our work, from maintaining the website and creating new material, to producing video content and translating thousands of subtitles and articles, relies upon you, the public, and your donations. So, I wish to thank you all for your continuing support. Please share with your loved ones and friends our project, or anyone who might be interested in the wisdom of Tibet but does not know of our website and might like to help support our work. 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