
Magazine History & Philosophy
The Authenticity Trap
Trying to define what is truly Buddhist is probably a waste of time.
Trying to define what is truly Buddhist is probably a waste of time.
A psychologist and former monk explains how to find the tradition most suited to your personality.
Of Buddhism’s six alternately wretched and blissful realms, only ours offers a shot at complete liberation.
Tricycle asks seventeen practitioners: What in Buddhism have you changed your mind about, and why?
Happiness is awakening to the question “Who is happy, who is unhappy, who lives, and who dies?” True happiness is uncaused, arising from the very nature of being itself. We seek happiness only when we are asleep to our true nature—dreaming that enlightenment is over there, somewhere else. But we are all, already, what we […]
Translation and introduction by Robert A. F. Thurman
I want to explore the possibility, within Buddhism, of enlightenment as a collective as well as an individual process, nurtured by a practice of public truth-telling in a community of spiritual equals. The seeds of this idea are well represented in ancient Buddhist thought and tradition, yet the notion of collaborative awakening connects with many […]
PRETENDER TO THE THRONE In our last issue we reported on the outrage of Chinese officials when the Dalai Lama announced that a six-year old Tibetan boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, had been determined to be the reincarnation of the tenth Panchen Lama, who died in January 1989. The Chinese government claimed that, under the terms ofa 1792 Qing […]
One becomes a Buddhist by going for refuge in the “three gems”—in other words by saying, “I go for refuge to the Buddha, I go for refuge to the dharma, I go for refuge to the sangha.” But what exactly are these three gems? This was a question that vexed the early Buddhist community. When […]
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