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Buddha
  • Tricycle Community 5 comments

    Earth-touching articles from Tricycle Paid Member

    Posted by Sam Mowe on 21 Apr 2010
    Mara is tired and cranky. The demon tempter has tried everything in his power to prevent this sitting man from attaining his goal, and now he’s finally out of tricks. In a desperate last hurrah to stop Siddhartha he sputters: So you think you’re going to wake up, do you? Go on then, become a Buddha. Who cares? Who is here to vouch for your achievement? I demand to know, wise guy: who will be your witness? Siddhartha—under the Bodhi tree, who at this very moment is becoming the Buddha—says nothing. In what has got to be the best possible response to Mara’s harassment (it gives me gooseflesh!), the Buddha silently reaches down and touches the earth with his fingertips. Boom. Rivers roar, flowers bloom, and the mountains walk. More »
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    'The Buddha' on PBS Paid Member

    Posted by Philip Ryan on 07 Apr 2010
    PBS's Buddha biopic premieres tonight, a day before the Buddha's birthday in Japan (or one of them anyway.) You can watch the trailer here. David Grubin directs the documentary and Richard Gere narrates. The two-hour show will cover the Buddha's life and some fundamental points of his teachings. On the PBS site you can buy a DVD of the show, and play mahjong. More »
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    Want to go to China for free? Paid Member

    Posted by Monty McKeever on 06 Apr 2010
    ...Then follow Himalayan Art Resource's director Jeff Watt as he blogs his way through the Middle Kingdom! Read his daily reports from China's museums, universities and Buddhist temples. From his April 3rd blog post, Yesterday morning we left early to travel to the Dazu Grotto. The Sichuan University provided a car and driver for our use. The grottoes are about 300 kilometers north of Chengdu. Dazu is the name of the city/town closest to the different stone carving grotto sites. Dazu means big foot, or big feet. The plural is not made clear in Chinese for this place name. More »
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    Roderick Whitfield Discusses Buddhist Cave Art Paid Member

    Posted by Monty McKeever on 31 Mar 2010
    As reported by the American Museum of Natural History, As goods and people traveled along the Silk Road, many passed through the oasis city of Dunhuang, China, home to incredible caves that contain a treasure trove of Buddhist art. Roderick Whitfield, professor of Chinese and East Asian art and head of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art at the University of London, will discuss some of these fascinating cave murals on March 31 at the Museum. He recently answered a few questions on the subject. Why are the caves near Dunhuang so important today? What can we learn from them? The seven hundred cave-shrines at Mogao near Dunhuang constitute the most extensive array of Buddhist wall paintings and sculptures at a single site, not only in China but anywhere in the world. More »
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    “The Tree of Enlightenment” Paid Member

    Posted by Monty McKeever on 26 Mar 2010
    As a Buddhist in the West, whether by my close non-Buddhist friends, semi-familiar acquaintances, or complete strangers, I have been asked many times to give a quick “general overview of Buddhism”. People often ask this very casually, as if they expect me to snap my fingers and summarize such a massive body of teachings, traditions, and histories, and voila, now you now about the Dharma! Personally, I find this task to be impossible. More »
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    (Almost) Daily Words of Wisdom from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche Paid Member

    Posted by James Shaheen on 04 Feb 2010
    One of my favorite newsletters is Carolyn Gimian's "Ocean of Dharma." You can sign up for it here and join nearly 10,000 others who receive jewels of wisdom from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche two or three times a week. Here's today's, one I particularly liked: Keep the Moth Out of the Flame When you are trying to help someone, you have to have humor, self-existing humor, and you have to hold the moth in your hand, but not let it go into the flame. That's what helping others means. Ladies and gentlemen, we have so much responsibility. A long time ago, people helped one another in this way. Now people just talk, talk talk. They read books, they listen to music, but they never actually help anyone. They never use their bare hands to save a person from going crazy. We have that responsibility. Somebody has to do it. It turns out to be us. More »