Want to Help?

If you would like to contribute to the Ajahn Pasanno Question and Story Archive, here are some possibilities.

Ways Anyone Can Contribute:

Suggest excerpts to feature

The October 2024 release introduces hand-picked featured excerpts which appear at the top of the corresponding tag pages. Featured excerpts can be clear answers to the most common or significant questions, pivotal or illustrative stories in the life of a teacher or community, or insightful reflections about important aspects of Dhamma. The eventual goal is that tags applied to 100 or more excerpts will feature three to five excerpts illustrating key aspects of the topic. Less common tags will feature fewer excerpts.

As of the November 2024 release, most important tags feature at least one excerpt. However, many tags could benefit from a few more. If you come across a particularly good excerpt that does not display a star, please suggest it as described below. Some pointers for suggesting featured excerpts:

• Single-topic questions (e.g. “Equanimity...your thoughts?”) often make good featured excerpts.
• Short answers are often preferable to long answers.
• Try not to duplicate material when possible.
• Illustrative stories and memorable quotes are a plus.
• Feel free to point out stories or quotes that the Archive hasn't transcribed if they contribute substantially to the topic.
• Featured excerpts may be arranged logically, chronologically, or simplest to most in-depth.
• You may suggest that closely-related tags in the same key topic (e.g. Continuity of mindfulness and Present moment awareness) be combined into a single tag cluster or that new tags should be added to key topics.
• If an excellent answer follows a nearly inaudible question, we can amplify the question. Or better yet, amplify the question yourself and send the edited audio file.
• One can select only part of an excerpt to feature as a fragment.

Please send your suggestions to questionsandstories@abhayagiri.org. Additional support for suggesting featured excerpts may be provided if there is sufficient interest.

Find stories in Dhamma talks

The APQS Archive indexes stories told in Q&A sessions and Dhamma discussions. Ajahn Pasanno tells many stories during Dhamma talks, but we’re not planning to hunt for them all. If you remember inspiring stories told by or about Ajahn Pasanno contained in recordings on abhayagiri.org, please send them to us. If the story isn’t duplicated elsewhere in the archive and seems worthy to be included, we’ll aim to add it to a future version of the Archive.

When you submit stories, please include:

1. The title and date of the Dhamma talk.
2. A link to the talk on abhayagiri.org or the Abhayagiri YouTube Channel.
3. The time the story begins in the recording.
4. A suggested title for the story.

For example: “Master Hsu Yun and the Bandits,” 13:49 in the talk “Developing in Virtue” given by Ajahn Pasanno on May 19, 2012.

Point out typos, tagging errors, or audio glitches

There is so much potential material for the Archive that little proofreading has been done after typing in transcriptions. Thus typos are inevitable, and some tags intended for one excerpt might end up on another. There’s no need for the Archive to be as polished as a printed book, and it often quotes imperfectly phrased questions verbatim. Nevertheless, please let me know if you find any glitches.

Contributions That Require Skill and Commitment:

Tag and transcribe Thanksgiving Retreat Questions

Requirements: English proficiency, Comfortable using computers (spreadsheet experience a plus), Attended at least one retreat with Ajahn Pasanno

Time commitment: Most likely 15 hours to learn the system and transcribe your first retreat.

The Archive currently contains questions from the 2013-2016 Thanksgiving Retreats transcribed and time-stamped by the monks who produced the CDs issued shortly after these retreats. The questions are taged based on the transcribe questions but not the audio content of Ajahn Pasanno's answers. I’m hoping that volunteers might listen to these questions, add tags based on the answers, and annotate noteworthy stories, references, and quotes.

If there is energy and enthusiasm after these retreats are finished, there are another half-dozen Thanksgiving Retreats that haven’t been transcribed at all.

Help with programming

Requirements: Proficiency with Javascript web programming, python, and/or Google Sheets gs script

Time commitment: Variable, but programming projects always take longer than you think.

There are many ways a skilled and generous programmer could help with the Archive (github). Here are some ideas, ranked roughly in order of usefulness with the really big project last.

Fix bugs: For the current list, see About: status and Github issues.

Cross-platform mp3 splitting: The project currently uses Windows-only mp3DirectCut to quickly and losslessly split mp3 files. mp3splt is a cross-platfrom command-line utility with similar functionality. Rewriting Mp3DirectCut.SinglePassSplit to use this utility would make the QSArchive software fully functional on many platforms.

Create a modern search-driven website: A modern website designed for mobile devices (and perhaps fully integrated into abhayagiri.org) would make the Archive material substantially more accessible.