Tricycle’s Top Articles of the Year

This year, like the years before it, gave rise to plenty of worry, anxiety, and adversity. A seemingly endless wave of COVID-19 surges and other viruses continues to overwhelm hospitals and families, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the US this year to date, and the war in Ukraine carries on with no end in sight. The Buddhist world also saw the passing of beloved teacher and civil rights activist Thich Nhat Hanh, among many other prominent figures. But there were also reasons to celebrate: many families came together for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The Biden-Harris administration announced a student loan relief plan. And the long-awaited James Webb Telescope launched successfully, which not only continues to awe the world with its early photographs but also puts life here on Earth in perspective. Here at Tricycle, we launched a Daily Dharma app, hosted a virtual summit on Buddhism and ecology as well as one on human flourishing, and published a number of articles that helped us consider another way to live. Below is a list of some of our favorites among those articles. Catch up on any you may have missed as we move forward together into the new year.

• Thich Nhat Hanh on Transforming Suffering
  In the wake of the spiritual leader’s passing, an excerpt on easing pain and generating joy through meditation, from his book No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, struck a particularly resonant chord. 
• Temple Wives 
  Scholar Jessica Starling explained to former Tricycle web editor Karen Jensen how Shin Buddhism’s bomori, or “temple guardians,” challenge assumptions about gender roles, domestic life, and religious authority.
• Partial Equanimity 
  Jay Caspian Kang, author of The Loneliest Americans, spoke with Be the Refuge author Chenxing Han about how Buddhism has influenced his writing and career. 
• Why You Should Buy Nothing 
  Buy Nothing cofounder Liesl Clark discussed with former Tricycle senior editor Matthew Abrahams the Buddhist influences behind her international network of gifting groups that encourage people to give and ask from others in their local communities.
• Unclutter Your Life By Erasing Your Future
  Writer and meditation teacher Tina Lear describes how an unsettling practice can usher in a world of relief.
• After Rikers 
  Five years after becoming the first Buddhist chaplain for the staff at New York City’s notorious corrections facility, meditation teacher Justin von Bujdoss spoke with Tricycle editor-at-large Wendy Biddlecombe Agsar and reflected on his work and the institution.
• How Meditation Failed Me 
  Buddhist psychotherapist and author Mark Epstein, whose most recent book, The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life, which came out in January 2022, revisited his childhood disfluency.
• Unanswered Questions in Buddhist Studies 
  Scholar Donald S. Lopez Jr. covered four essential topics, including the Buddha’s life, the rise of Mahayana, the origin of Buddhist tantra, and the disappearance of Buddhism from India. 
• In the Cabin of the Crazy One 
  In an excerpt from her May 2022 book, This Body I Wore, Vajrayana practitioner Diana Goetsch recounted her late-in-life gender transition while on a twelve-day solo meditation retreat. 
• Uncovering the Hidden World of Tibetan Female Lamas 
  Scholar Elisabeth Benard spoke with Tricycle audio editor Sarah Fleming about her new book, The Sakya Jetsunmas: The Hidden World of Tibetan Female Lamas, the first scholarly account of the Sakya Khon family’s jetsunmas, or venerable women.
• All of the Nature to Change 
  While on a walk with her husband in the woods, writer and practitioner Barbara Gates reflected on aging, impermanence, and the Buddha’s five remembrances. 
• A Fierce and Tender Clarity 
  Writer, Zen teacher, and Tricycle teachings editor Vanessa Zuisei wrote about working with anger, when the only way out is through.
• There’s No Need to Be Busy 
  In an excerpt from the July 2022 book The Path to Peace: A Buddhist Guide to Cultivating Loving-Kindness, by the late international Buddhist teacher and nun Ayya Khema, edited by Leigh Brasington, Khema wrote about making time to do nothing.
• The Jhana Underground 
  Tricycle editor-at-large Wendy Biddlecombe Agsar reported on Nai Boonman, born Boonman Poonyathiro in Thailand in 1932, who has long gone uncredited for his teachings that helped sustain jhana practice.
• The Kindness of Joe Pera 
  Head writer for The Onion and Soto Zen practitioner Mike Gillis wrote about the series Joe Pera Talks with You, an unconventional sitcom that challenges viewers to focus on one thing at a time.
• What Goes Through the Bardos? 
  In an excerpt from her latest book, How We Live Is How We Die, Pema Chödrön wrote about dualistic consciousness, nonself, and everything in between.
• Jarvis Jay Masters Continues His Fight for Freedom 
  As a written order pends for Jarvis Jay Masters’s long-running case, Tricycle contributing editor Joan Duncan Oliver wrote about the “most famous Buddhist on death row,” who is also the author of two books and numerous articles.