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    What Love Is Paid Member

    By Ayya Khema
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  • Tricycle Community 4 comments

    What's So Great About Now? Paid Member

    By Cynthia Thatcher
    "BE MINDFUL." "Stay in the present." "Bare attention." We've all heard one of these phrases. And if you're more experienced in insight practice, these may be the watchwords that chime in the back of consciousness from morning till night, reminding you that everything genuine in the spiritual path is to be found in the now. But then one day you're sitting in meditation, trying to observe the rise and fall of the abdomen, or a thought, or pain, and it all seems terribly dreary. Suddenly a question floats like a bubble to the surface of your mind: "What's so great about the present moment, anyway?" More »
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    What’s So Great About Now? Paid Member

    “BE MINDFUL.” “Stay in the present.” “Bare attention.” We’ve all heard one of these phrases. And if you’re more experienced in insight practice, these may be the watchwords that chime in the back of consciousness from morning till night, reminding you that everything genuine in the spiritual path is to be found in the now. But then one day you’re sitting in meditation, trying to observe the rise and fall of the abdomen, or a thought,� More »
  • Tricycle Community 7 comments

    An Ear to the Ground Paid Member

    By Lin Jensen
    OPINIONS ATTRACT THEIR OWN KIND. Offer one and you get one in return. This can be true of even the most benign assertion. The fact that you like peaches obligates others to declare their preference for oranges. I do this myself frequently enough to wonder what attraction opinions hold for me. And I suspect that having an opinion is a way to stake out a secure and identifying mental territory for myself. Who would I be without an opinion? More »
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    On Origination Paid Member

    By Translated by Maurice Walshe
    Pakistani Buddha, Karachi Museum This discourse on how the mind creates, reflects, and conditions the sense of self is excerpted from the Pali Canon, a collection of the Buddha's teachings recorded by disciples after Shakyamuni Buddha died. Here, the Great Sage of India responds to the inquiries of Ananda, his cousin and most devoted follower. THUS HAVE I HEARD. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus. There is a market town there called Kammasadhamma. And the Venerable Ananda came to the Lord, saluted him, sat down to one side, and said: "It is wonderful, Lord, it is marvelous how profound this dependent origination is, and how profound it appears! And yet it appears to me as clear as clear!" More »
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    The Right to Ask Questions Paid Member

    By Larry Rosenberg
    The practice of the dharma is learning how to live, and this is both hard and joyful work. Practice makes extraordinary demands of us. It requires that we take nothing for granted, that we accept nothing on faith alone. If we practice with diligence and honesty, then we must question everything about ourselves; we must challenge our most basic beliefs and convictions, even those we may have about the dharma itself. Of all the teachings of the Buddha, the Kalama Sutta is one of my favorites precisely because it encourages such rigorous inquiry into our beliefs. Indeed, if Buddhism were not infused with the spirit of this sutta—a spirit of questioning, of critical examination—I’m quite sure I would not have a meditative practice today. More »