Tricycle | Awake in the World

The following multimedia essay is a guest blog post from writer M. Sophia Newman. One day, long after he became a teacher, the Buddha went to give his daily sermon to the monastic community. He climbed on the dais but didn’t speak. Instead, he held aloft a single flower. He waited in silence. The monks and nuns looked back at him as the minutes passed. Finally, a single monk, Kāśyapa, looked at the Buddha. Kāśyapa smiled. As ancient scripture records it, the Buddha said, “I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa.”[i] In other words, “Great Kasyapa is enlightened.” The Buddha got offstage and called it a day. This is the origin story of Zen. Amen, Brother. More »

Over at the Huffington Post, spiritual author Mark Matousek and dharma teacher and author Catherine Ingram have started Dharma Salon, a video chat series with the goal of becoming the “eyes and ears on the ground” for culturally-minded dharma bums around the world who are interested in the New York art scene. More »

The following poem was submitted by Steve Kohn, a participant in last year's "In the Footsteps of the Buddha" Tricycle pilgrimage to India. He was inspired to submit the poem upon reading Pico Iyer's piece in the pilgrimage special section in the Fall 2012 issue of Tricycle.   Pilgrimage Come be a pilgrim with me.There is a place of great poverty,        With here and there A cow patty of wealth. Come, take a journey and seeGreat hungers feeding ill healthWith invisible poisons in water and air. More »

I don't know what Dutch company Boels Rental was thinking when they green-lighted an advertising campaign that involved images of Shakyamuni Buddha printed on Porta Potties around the Netherlands, but it's safe to say they didn't expect a massive Facebook campaign, led by two Thai Buddhists, demanding that the images be taken down. The campaign gathered such support that only two days after it began, the company had apologized and promised to "withdraw the designs from the market." More »

In recent decades, the decline of religious belief and affiliation in the West has been accompanied by a steady increase of interest in “spirituality” and the deployment of the term. The word has come a long way from its Christian roots to encompass alternative and mystic traditions from a number of religious traditions, and, more recently, to denote a kind of lifestyle most often characterized as “spiritual, but not religious.” As the authors of Selling Spirituality, Jeremy Carrette and Richard King observe, “There are perhaps few words in the modern English language as vague and wooly as the notion of ‘spirituality.’” More »

The following guidelines were posted on the Facebook page of Buddhist author and filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche (via American Buddhist Perspective). Social Media Guidelines for So-called Vajrayana Students If you think or believe that you are a student of Vajrayana—whether or not that’s true is another matter—but as long as you think you are a Vajrayana practitioner, it becomes your responsibility to protect this profound tradition. More »

In this week's retreat teaching, "May I Be Safe," yoga teacher and longtime Buddhist practitioner Cyndi Lee discusses alignment not just in the sense of our physical body, but also in terms of our focus on feelings of union and self-integration. These feelings, through a codified set of practices, can create the causes and conditions for happiness. Introducing us to one of Patañjali's yoga sutras, Yogaś citta-vritti-nirodhaḥ, she emphasizes the "state of yoga" as a type of presence or nowness that can be achieved through the processes of mental cessation and "realigning." She introduces us to the practice of pranayama before ending with more beginner-level yoga. More »

Buddhist practice and Buddhist art have been inseparable in the Himalayas ever since Buddhism arrived to the region in the eighth century. But for the casual observer it can be difficult to make sense of the complex iconography. Not to worry—Himalayan art scholar Jeff Watt is here to help. In this "Himalayan Buddhist Art 101" series, Jeff is making sense of this rich artistic tradition by presenting weekly images from the Himalayan Art Resources archives and explaining their roles in the Buddhist tradition. Part 1: Stories of the BuddhaPart 2: Life Story Quick Guide More »

Dick Allen is the current poet laureate of Connecticut, a position he’ll hold until 2015. Allen has studied Buddhism for over 50 years, since meeting Alan Watts one quiet autumn afternoon at Syracuse University, where Allen took the country’s first undergraduate credit course in Zen Buddhism in 1960. Allen is most drawn to “crazy Zen,” and many of his Buddhist poems are written, he says, to “Americanize Buddhism and Zen Buddhism through the use of American landscapes, American icons like Coca-Cola, and Apple computers placed alongside cloudy mountains and brooms sweeping Buddhist temple floors.” More »