Knowing and Seeing
Documentary on the Pa-Auk Method
Pa-Auk Sayadaw
The definitive video document of the Pa-Auk Sayadaw — the Burmese master who, alone among contemporary teachers, has reconstructed and openly transmitted the full classical jhāna sequence as laid out in the Visuddhimagga. The 'Knowing and Seeing' documentary follows yogis through the deep concentration practices: counterpart sign, access concentration, the four jhānas, the immaterial absorptions, and the analytical insights that arise on their basis. For the small but serious community of jhāna practitioners worldwide, this is the foundational reference.
The definitive contemporary teaching on classical jhāna practice — the only living transmission of the full Visuddhimagga method.
The sangha responds.
More foundational talks from Theravada.
The Mindful Way
BBC archive footage of Ajahn Chah at Wat Pah Pong
The only widely-circulated film footage of Ajahn Chah, captured by the BBC in 1979 at Wat Pah Pong as part of a documentary on Theravada renunciate life. He is filmed in conversation with Western disciples, walking the forest, instructing monks, and teaching with the wry, exacting plainness that became the signature of the Thai Forest tradition. For an entire lineage that grew explosively after his death — Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Pasanno, Ajahn Amaro, the entire Amaravati and Abhayagiri sanghas — this footage is the one moving image of the source.
Four Ways of Letting Go
Recorded at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia, Ajahn Brahm's 'Four Ways of Letting Go' has crossed 2.5 million views and become — by any measure — the most-viewed English-language dhamma talk ever uploaded. Brahm walks through four progressively deeper releases: the body, the senses, thought, and finally the knower itself. He does it the way only he can — with the disarming jokes, the British timing, the absolute precision underneath. It is the talk that has converted more people to sitting meditation in the streaming era than any other.
The Sound of Silence
Ajahn Sumedho — the senior Western disciple of Ajahn Chah and the founding abbot of Amaravati — opens up his signature method. The 'sound of silence' or 'nada' is not a sound the meditator makes but one the meditator notices: a continuous high-frequency inner hum that the mind, when quiet enough, can rest in. Sumedho turns it into a complete awareness practice, one that is portable, durable, and remarkably accessible. For three decades it has been the practice that holds the Forest sangha's English-speaking lay community.