Search Instructions

The simple way to search

Simply type in words separated by spaces and click the Search Titles and Descriptions button -- if all of those search words are found in the title or the description of a talk, the talk will be listed.

The advanced way to search

Like a simple search, you provide search words that you wish to find in titles or descriptions, but you then refine your search by adding modifiers that restrict it in various ways. This allows you to find only talks that were recorded at a particular place, or that were given within a certain date range, for example.

Search modifiers have a colon (:) after them and come after all the search words. Here are some examples of searches (leave off the quotes when you type them in):

"metta before: 1990"
Finds all talks with metta in their title or description before 1990
"by:trudy goodman at:ims in: may 2008"
Finds all talks by Trudy Goodman given at IMS in May 2008.
"Satipatthana Sutta not: by: Goldstein"
Finds all talks that have Satipatthana Sutta in their title or description by teachers other than Goldstein

For a talk to be found by a search, all the search words must be present in its title or description and all the search modifiers must be satisfied. If you do not provide any search words, then every talk in the catalog is checked to see if it satisfies the search modifiers.

The search modifiers and their meanings

before: date
Matches talks that were recorded before the given date. (See the comment about dates in the notes)
after: date
Matches talks that were recorded after the given date.
in: date
Matches talks that were recorded within the span of the given year, year and month, or year, month and day.
on: date
(same as in)
by: teacher name
Matches talks by the given teacher. Use more words to refine the search. E.g. "Armstrong" matches both Steve Armstrong and Guy Armstrong, but providing "Guy Armstrong" matches only the latter.
at: location
Matches talks recorded at the given location. The location may be specified by its abbreviation or some words from its name.
retreat: word(s)
Matches talks that have all the given word fragments in their retreat name.
title: words(s)
Matches talks that have all the given word fragments in their title.
description: words(s)
Matches talks that have all the given word fragments in their description.
talk: words(s)
Matches talks that have all the given word fragments in their title or their description. This modifier is implied for the search words that occur before the modifiers.
language: spoken language
Matches talks spoken in the given language. Currently only English, Spanish, and Thai. Multiple languages are ORed -- e.g. "Thai Spanish" means talks in Thai or Spanish.
under: minutes
Matches talks shorter than the given number of minutes in duration.
over: minutes
Matches talks longer than the given number of minutes in duration.
type: recording type
Matches talks of a particular recording type. Current valid recording types are: "talk", "meditation", "q&a", "jataka" and "other". You can search using just the first letter of the word.
not:
Takes no parameters but negates the modifier that follows it.
collections:
Takes no parameters but restricts the search to finding only 'collections' of talks.
tracks:
Takes no parameters but restricts the search to finding only talks that are not collections.
doc:
Takes no parameters but restricts the search to finding only talks that have attached documents.

Notes