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  • Tricycle Community 3 comments

    The Inevitable Buddhist Connection to the Virginia Tech Tragedy Paid Member

    Posted by tricycleblog on 19 Apr 2007
    Check out the English version of pravda.ru for a Buddhist tie-in to the Virginia Tech killer. (They have an interesting take on the Imus situation too. If you're at all interested in how this Pravda connects with the well-known Soviet publication, see here. I'm guessing the Soviet one was a little less lewd, though the comments about the U.S. and Europe in the contemporary version wouldn't be out of place in the Brezhnev era. . . Brezhnev had incredibly intimidating eyebrows.) What this article really shows is a preposterous amount of overthinking and overanalysis bordering on the whimsical in our collective need to make sense of events like these. More »
  • Tricycle Community 1 comment

    "Zen Buddhism, very hard to understand, thank you." Paid Member

    Posted by tricycleblog on 14 Apr 2007
    The title of this post is (allegedly) the complete text of a speech made by D.T. Suzuki at U.C.L.A. back in the day. The story of this and other Buddhist ha-ha's here. (I realize ol' D.T. Suzuki is way way way out of fashion in contemporary Buddhist thinking, and is so for a lot of reasons, but once upon a time he was one of my -- and a lot of other people's -- first glimpses into something new. And people are still being introduced to Zen Buddhism -- D.T.'s own special blend of it, that is -- through his work. Someone is learning about Buddhism in one of his books right now! . . . Probably. Like, did anyone else try and read those Bernard Faure books, in school or out? Speaking of very hard to understand. More »
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    All Aboard for Shigatse Paid Member

    Posted by tricycleblog on 04 Apr 2007
    China's at it again, extending its railroad network from Lhasa to Shigatse, seat of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, traditional seat of the Panchen Lama (a political prisoner of the Chinese government since 1995.) The railroad China built to Lhasa has a lot of superlatives attached to it, longest, tallest, coldest, whatever. Anyway, it's a great achievement. Why are totalitarian states so good at railroads? The more repressive the government, the more they like to play with trains. (So apparently Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time. But he still talked about trains.) I suppose that should make Americans feel better about Amtrak. More »
  • Tricycle Community 2 comments

    BuddhaTrain Paid Member

    Posted by tricycleblog on 12 Mar 2007
    Gee, I wish I could ride this train. But it doesn't seem to be in the cards right now. In the meantime I'm left wondering what's happened to Big Red Buddha. Does anyone know? Like a lot of Republican candidates, BRB doesn't seem to have survived the November elections. I haven't seen Miso on any soymilk cartons either. And I've been looking. I'm also considering starting a campaign against the annoying contextual ad, "Buddah Monk Ringtones". You've probably seen it if you've been poking around the Buddhist web. More »
  • Tricycle Community 1 comment

    Railway brings "huge surge" of visitors to Tibet Paid Member

    Posted by tricycleblog on 15 Feb 2007
    The People's Daily Online reports that the rail link to Lhasa allowed many more Buddhist pilgrims to attend the December 27th Sera Bengqin Festival at Sera Monastery than in previous years. As the People's Daily put it, "Tibet ended its history without a railway in July 2006," but the railroad has brought more concern than jubilation for Tibetans, who understandably would rather diminish than strengthen their ties with "mainland" China. When the railway first opened I read about the Tibetan plateau's fragile ecosystem, home to several unique species, and rather like an island in biological terms. More »
  • Tricycle Community 1 comment

    Stealing Time Paid Member

    Posted by amerz on 05 Feb 2007
    Here I am, on Monday morning, writing my Friday blog entry. Whenever I'm late I think back to what was probably the first talk I heard on the five precepts, the standard ethical guidelines for us lay Buddhists. One of the many points made that had me shaking my head in resignation to the irrefutable logic of the precepts - at that point I was still learning the basics, but I already had that feeling that there was no turning back (arg!) - was a very interesting interpretation of the second precept, undertaking to abstain from taking the not-given. My teacher pointed out that one thing some of us often take from others without their giving of it is time. More »