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    Inside and Outside the Scriptures Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    BODHIDHARMA, that hairy sixth-century Indian teacher with the fierce stare and grumpy scowl, traveled from India to China, where he sat in meditation for so many years in a row that he became known as the first Zen patriarch. Bodhidharma's teaching of just sitting defied the scriptural authority established in China by the prevailing Buddhist schools. The try-it-and-see-for-yourself method advocated by the historical Buddha had been replaced by memorization and rote repetition of sutras. Just sitting, an internal and individual form of self-realization, an insight directly into one's own nature, is what Bodhidharma called "a special transmission outside the scriptures." More »
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    Come and See Paid Member

    By James Shaheen
    A recent New York Times article, asserting that “Nonviolence is no longer in fashion,” concluded that Buddhism has become another casualty of the “war on terror,” losing its once popular appeal. Some days later, in a response apparently aimed at convincing the general public that Buddhists are not necessarily wimps, one journalist provided the Wall Street Journal with an opinion piece appearing under the headline, “I’m a Buddhist, But Not a Pacifist.” In a peculiarly un-Buddhist characterization that echoed George W. Bush’s Manichaean logic, the writer referred to Osama bin Laden as “quintessentially evil,” making no distinction between perpetrator and deed. He concluded by letting us know that given the chance, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot bin Laden “right between his eyes.” However “un-Buddhist” the sentiment, many of us, shaken by terror, have at some point felt the same way. More »
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    Whaddya Mean,"We"? Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    So far we have received some fifty responses to the anti-gay letters published in the previous issue. To provide a brief synopsis: in issue number 20 we published an interview with Tibetan scholar Jeffrey Hopkins and excerpts from his revision of a famous text,“The Tibetan Arts of Love,”into a manual for gay practitioners. More »
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    In Celebration of Beginnings Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    The name Tricycle continues to evoke curiosity and some befuddlement. Yet there is logic to this nomenclature: a vehicle for the path; a beginner’s vehicle with its allusion to the quintessential Zen concept of “beginner’s mind,” and for beginning dharma in the West; three (as in wheels) for the Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and for the three main vehicles of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana; and wheels, for turning the wheel of dharma. His�The name Tricycle continues to evoke curiosity and some befuddlement. Yet there is logic to this nomenclature: a vehicle for the path; a beginner’s vehicle with its allusion to the quintessential Zen concept of “beginner’s mind,” and for beginning dharma in the West; three (as in wheels) for the Three Treasures: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and for the three main vehicles of Buddhism: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana; and wheels, for turning the wheel of dharma. More »
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    Editor's View Paid Member

    With the presidential election approaching, Tricycle presents a special section, “Politics 2000” (p. 58), to explore some of the religious and racial aspects specific to this election (see the discussion of Hsi Lai Temple by both Gustav Niebuhr and Russell Leong) and to present some Buddhists’ views on dharma, voting, and civic responsibility. Writers Charles Johnson and Neil Gordon as well as Thubten Chodron, an American nun in the Tibetan tradition, unequivocally urge Buddhists to� More »
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    Round and Around Paid Member

    From a great remove the history of religions might resemble cellular activity: entities come together, multiply, divide, regroup, split off, etc., all in a distant dance of transformation. In actuality, the individuation of any one tradition rarely proceeds so gently. Yet Shakyamuni Buddha’s example seems to offer an exception. He rejected the magical rituals and animal sacrifices of the Brahmanic priesthood, along with their asceticism and intellectual polemics. His followers included kings and merchants, sweepers… More »