Then and Now

The podcasts and the transcripts are the fuel that drives this clips & quotes blog. Therefore, and especially as it is the nucleus and main focus of the Unfettered Mind community project (of which this blog is an off-spring), I am very glad that the very first transcripts of Ken McLeod's Then and Now class series have been officially published!

So, enjoy sessions TAN01 and TAN02 of Ken's Then and Now classes.

And congrats to all the busy people who have been transcribing and making it happen!

We will soon follow up with our first TAN01 clip & quote (IMHO an important one). There have been already a few exceptions, and clips have been made from later TAN seesions with internal material Ann and myself had access to, but they have been kind of sneak previews--on important subjects that kind of couldn't wait. But now I am glad we can use the transcripts to make clips chronologically. And you can start reading the whole TAN class by yourself, which will hopefully make it much more accessible and faster for people who don't necessarily want to spent 50+ hours to listen to the whole podcast series (or who don't want to hassle with giving them a try - for some it's much easier to have a quick glance at a text than to listen to an audio speech file).

Oh, and what is it about?! Three things (as far as my limited understanding goes):

1. It is simply the longest series of all of Ken's freely available podcast classes and retreats - 37 sessions of around 1:25 hours each, in total around 50 hours of teachings and Q&A with students.


2. Unlike all other of Ken's classes and retreats, which primarily focus on meditation and practice from all kind of angles, this one focusses primarily on Buddhist philosophy, history, and teachings as such.


3. It does so by going chronologically through an old and important Tibetian book (I don't know if it is comparable in importance to the Christian bible and Islamic koran or not. Maybe not, as Buddhists seem to have a myriad of classical texts, but it sure is a "classic basic text for Tibetan Buddhist students") with two English translated versions. The book is "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation" and the two translations are by Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche and Herbert V. Guenther.

So if you are seriously interested in Ken McLeod's teachings, in Buddhism in general, or in the Tibetan book The Jewel Ornament of Liberation in particular, then the transcribed Then and Now classes might be something for you.