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Back Issues
How is the business of pilgrimage transforming Bodh Gaya? Liesl Schwabe reports on modernization at the site of the Buddha’s awakening.
By Liesl Schwabe
Pioneering Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche [1939-1987], founder of the Shambhala Buddhist community, examines Zen from a Tantric perspective in this talk he gave in 1974 in Barnet, Vermont.
By Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Pagan Kennedy recounts the story of Michael Dillion, a transgender man and aspiring Buddhist monk
By Pagan Kennedy
On a monthlong retreat in a Himalayan meditation cave, Kate Wheeler learns more from companionship than solitude.
By Kate Lila Wheeler
Voluptuous tree spirits, maternal nurturers, potent protectors, and dancing female Buddhas—the Indo-Himalayan Buddhist world abounds with goddesses of amazing diversity. Miranda Shaw reveals some of the many powers, symbols, and stories of this often overlooked and misunderstood pantheon.
By Miranda ShawWith a faith in the power of storytelling and an eye for unexpected imagery, filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has challenged the boundaries of cinema in his native Thailand.
By David A. TaylorZen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of ZenJames Ishmael FordWisdom Publications, 2006280 pp.; $15.95 (paper) Ford, a Soto Zen priest and Unitarian Universalist minister, has put together a rich and eminently readable resource on Zen in the West. He begins with an overview of the history of Zen, then thoroughly covers […]
By TricycleBuddhism’s crowded bookshelf
By Dan ZigmondA few years back—not long before revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib—U.S. Army Specialist Benjamin Thompson wrote us from the soon-to-become notorious prison site with a simple request: Could we send him a few issues of Tricycle for support in his meditation practice? Thompson’s unit had arrived at Abu Ghraib to replace those who were […]
By James Shaheen
Keeping your head in a mindless world
By Joan Duncan OliverFor many Korean Zen practitioners, Chinese Zen master So Sahn’s compendium of teachings The Mirror of Zen is second in importance only to the Buddha’s teachings. Here, he comments on the importance and risk of self-confidence.
By so shanA handbook for practice and study
By marcus permanYongey Mingyur Rinpoche discusses the relevance of science as a tool for meditators.
By TricycleWhat happens when a Buddhist goes to war? Benjamin Thompson speaks about his year as a guard at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the overlooked humanitarian crisis there.
By Tricycle
The Dalai Lama reflects on praise and blame in his commentary on lines from Longchen Rabjam’s Finding Comfort and Ease in Meditation on the Great Perfection.
By Dalai LamaA new discovery reveals the deep roots of the gardener’s lineage
By Wendy JohnsonSex, violence, and the Awakened One
By Joan Duncan OliverCHALLENGING THE CHALLENGE As a longtime reader of your magazine and a daily meditator, I was distressed by the “Commit To Sit” practice section that appears in the Spring 2007 issue. I am certain that your intentions were good, but I believe that it is not helpful to present daily meditation as some sort of […]
By TricycleThe Films of Ellen Bruno
By Dean SluyterEliot Fintushel remembers his time with Zen teacher Toni Packer
By Eliot FintushelFor most of us born in the Western world, remote from Buddhism of any institutional kind, knowledge of the dhamma has come entirely from books and, occasionally, spoken words, some quite excellent and informative, certainly. But this kind of learning still retains a somewhat ethereal air in the absence of actions, traditions, and spiritual observances […]
By Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano
Only by tethering our senses to the stake of mindfulness can we achieve true freedom.
By Andrew OlendzkiPAGAN KENNEDY, whose article “Man-Made Monk” is in this issue, tells us : “Three years ago, I learned that a British aristocrat named Laura Dillon, who become Michael Dillon in 1943, was the first to undergo a female-to-male sex change. After he’d refashioned his body, Michael Dillon fled the West for India, where he became […]
By Tricycle
Have Westerners created a new and viable form of Buddhism, or has something been lost in translation? Berkeley professor Robert Sharf argues that with our emphasis on individual experience and meditation, we risk cutting ourselves off from the benefits of a greater tradition. Photographs by Christine Alicino
By The EditorsBeloved Cambodian Buddhist teacher Maha Ghosananda [1929–2007], Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia, passed away on March 12 in Northampton, Massachusetts. In the late 1970s he ministered to refugees fleeing the genocidal Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. He became a prominent peace activist on the world stage, and was a revered meditation teacher. […]
By Wayne Muller
Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche offers advice for facing up to our egos.
By Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
A teacher is impelled by a student’s troubles to confront the human suffering in the Middle East.
By Vanessa SassonSekkei Harada Roshi guides us to liberation through the breath.
By sekkeiharada roshi
Although many believe that the ego is just a source of trouble, Thanissaro Bhikkhu teaches that a healthy, functioning ego is a crucial tool on the path to Awakening.
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Bodhipaksa guides us through the Buddha’s powerful Six Element practice to equanimity, pure and bright.
By BodhipaksaRevisiting an interfaith classic
By Philip NovakCould a new generation of Indian Buddhist converts hold the key to ending Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war?
By Vishvapani