Most of the teachings in the main archive are only viewable by members except for the Public Talks.

However, most of the short teachings in the Topics section are viewable without membership.

The teachings on the website are given freely.

However, storing and delivering such a huge amount of media like this requires a professional cloud based system. Each time a video or audio file is played, we have to pay for that delivery. Therefore the membership payments go towards that. A donation based system might also work, but we decided that it is too unpredictable given the costs we have to meet each month.

Therefore paid membership is crucial for the survival of the website.

If you feel that you are unable to pay for membership, please contact us and we will review the possibilities.

All three membership types are the same. The only difference is how much you are able to offer in support of the website.

Many teachings in this archive are broadly classified as belonging to the Vajrayana, the highest level of Buddhist practice and understanding.

Generally when people enter the Vajrayana, they do so through the guidance of a qualified teacher or guru, after listening, studying and practising the foundational teachings which are publicly accessible on this website and elsewhere. Without these prior teachings Vajrayana cannot be practiced.

Once the foundational teachings have been practised and integrated, the foundation is laid for entering the Vajrayana Path, which traverses more deeply into the heart of enlightenment.

The highest level teachings are often kept secret by Buddhist lamas, because there is a danger of misunderstanding. If you skip to the Vajrayana without a firm understanding of the basics, thinking that practices like the Six Paramitas (generosity, good conduct, patience, diligence, meditation and wisdom) are not necessary, then you can easily develop an incorrect understanding, a nihilistic view. This would be extremely dangerous – and be of more harm than help.

The Vajrayana section is available for students who have received Vajrayana (or Mahamudra, Dzogchen, or similar) teachings either from Ringu Tulku or another qualified teacher. If you are unsure whether this is the case with you, we ask that you check with your teacher before registering.

Members can freely activate the ‘Vajrayana Membership’ by checking the box at the bottom of the ‘Vajrayana Membership‘ section of their account.

In the main Archive section of the website you will see the Archive Navigation to the right of the page. This is the best way to find something by name, date, location etc. The more you can add here the more precise your results. You can also search by using one or many words by typing your text into the top where is says “Enter keywords here”.

If you find you have entered in too many options you can always just hit the Clear All text at the bottom of the Archive Navigation to reset it.

You can also change how your results appear by selecting different viewing options from the drop down selector called “Organise Results by:”. You will find this at the top of the results page.

By default, the teachings are shown in the order they are added to the website. Not by the date they were actually recorded. So if we suddenly get a batch of recordings from 1999, they will appear at the top above anything recorded last month.

To change it to the most recent recordings, go to the main Archive section. At the top of all the teachings you will see the text “Organise Results by:”. Click on the selector beside that and chose “Date Newset-Oldest”.

Besides using the main Archive Navigation in the sidebar, much of the teaching text is hyperlinked (highlighted in red).

For example, if you are looking at a particular teaching from France and want to see more teachings that were recorded in France, you can just click the red text that says “France” in the teaching description area. That will then display all recordings from France.

So far we have uploaded most audio and video recordings from 2005 to the present day, although around 70 teachings are awaiting additional material before publishing.

New recordings will be added shortly after they are made. But many of the older recordings need editing and transcoding before we can upload them. So its a long and slow process.

Currently we are working on the recordings made from 1989-2004. Thats around 4tb of data! or 5,750 CD’s!

We currently allow members to download audio files only. To do that you just need to click on the download icon to the right of each audio file.

However, in some cases, there are existing third party copyright terms which apply to a recording. In these cases the audio recordings will not be available for download and you will not see the download icon.

Sometimes Rinpoche specifically requests that we only make a particular teaching available to people that were actually in attendance at that teaching. You will know when you come across one of these and there will be instructions on the screen about how you can apply for access if you were there.

If when trying to view a teaching you see a red slide with the message “you need to be logged in to play this recording” it means one of two things:

1. You are not a member of the website and will therefore need to become one to view that particular teaching.
2. You are a member of the website but are currently not logged in to your account. To do that you just click the red LOGIN tab at the top right of this page.

If you have spotted some incorrect info on a teaching page you can leave a comment at the bottom of that page to help us with the correction. If you need more space, just use the contact form instead.

We are currently building an upload facility that will allow members to upload video, audio and image files for an existing teaching and also for any new teachings that we don’t currently have in the archive.

The facility will be located here in the Archivist’s Area.

But for now, sit tight and we will send out an announcement when this is ready.

We are currently building an upload facility that will allow members to upload video, audio and image files for an existing teaching and also for any new teachings that we don’t currently have in the archive.

The facility will be located here in the Archivist’s Area.

But for now, sit tight and we will send out an announcement when this is ready.

We are currently building an upload facility that will allow members to upload image files for existing teachings.

The facility will be located here in the Archivist’s Area.

But for now, you can send in your images to teachings@bodhicharya.org. Make sure to let us know which teaching you are referring to and also provide a link to it.

One thing that would really help the website is to have more short synopses on each teaching.

It not only helps the next viewer understand what the teaching is about, but it is the only way to improve the search capabilities of the website. The more data we have on a teaching the better.

So if you have watched or listened to a teaching and made some notes, please type them up and send them in to us.

The facility to do that will be part of our Archivist’s Area. But until that is up and running, please post a comment containing your text at the bottom of the teaching page. If you need more space, just use the contact form instead. Please let us know the title of the teaching you are referring to and also a link to it.

The website is run by only a few volunteers and we need ‘audience participation’! There are more recordings than any one person could possibly listen to and watch! Therefore we depend on members to help us quality control the recordings and highlight where there are missing parts, incorrect information, poor recording quality and other errors.

So please feel free to add these to the comment section at the bottom of every teaching post.

Rinpoche will make his own audio recordings of any teachings he gives and these will automatically upload us. This means he will require access to wifi after the teaching session. But we also encourage centres to make their own audio recordings should there be technical problems with Rinpoche’s recordings.

However, we also ask that organisers hosting these teaching events make video recordings of the teachings to share with the archive. If you are unable to video record the teachings, please contact us so that we may have the opportunity to make arrangements for one of Rinpoche’s students to make the video recordings. We ask you to please help facilitate these appointed students to make their recordings which are so critical for the integrity of the archive.

For more details about recordings and how to share them with the archive, please contact us.