Taro Yaguchi
The Buddha featured on this issue’s cover was crafted for Tricycle by origami artist and teacher Taro Yaguchi, founder of Taro’s Origami Studio, with locations in Brooklyn, New York, and Asakusa, Tokyo. His studio is one of the largest in the world and has produced pieces for global corporations and cultural institutions. Yaguchi’s love for the art began at an early age, as he grew up in Japan with a grandfather in the paper business and a mother who was a wood sculptor. While working on this project, he recalled childhood memories of watching his mother carve Buddhist figures. “The atmosphere of her studio and the process of watching figures emerge from wood shaped my early understanding of the dignity and calm embodied in Buddhist imagery,” he told Tricycle. “These impressions naturally guide my approach when I fold sacred or contemplative forms.” Yaguchi is also an international patent attorney with a background in mechanical engineering.
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Nina Müller
In “The Same Heart,” Nina Müller draws on her experience of surviving the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires to teach us about the human capacity for love. “Qualities like compassion, wisdom, and kindness are not foreign substances we must manufacture through sheer force of will,” she writes. “They are already within us, like seeds waiting for the right conditions to grow.” As a mindfulness coach who holds a Master of Buddhist Studies from the University of Hong Kong, Müller focuses on helping women embrace their sensitivity as a strength. She also writes a monthly column, “Coastline Meditations,” for Buddhistdoor Global.
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Jane Naomi Iwamura
Jane Naomi Iwamura is the former director of the Institute for the Study of Humanistic Buddhism and a professor of religious studies at University of the West. As a third-generation Japanese American, she was raised in the Jodo Shinshu tradition, which she reflects upon in “The Chain of Being.” “Buddhism is my inheritance, a legacy for my children,” she told Tricycle. “I wanted to highlight how Buddhism resonates through the generations—not necessarily through the study of texts or formal rituals but through simple acts of caregiving that tap into hidden wellsprings where wisdom and compassion abound.”
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