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  • Tricycle Community 25 comments

    DNA Sutra Paid Member

    By Richard Eskow
    It began with a rush of blood. Then came fear, and curiosity. Were there dangers hidden in my genes? Clues about my future, even my death? Was my “self,” my personality, programmed into my genome? Penetrate completely the matter of birth and death, says the traditional Zen instruction. Somehow I imagined it might be easier to let go of “body and mind,” as Zen master Dogen instructed, if I knew that both of those phenomena had been constructed genetically. Most of our ancestors are forgotten, faceless and nameless. But they left their genes, and some left their words. I searched through those words and genes, expecting to see in them the familiar face of a hero or victim from the old stories. I glimpsed that face. But I saw something else, too. I saw the face of a persecutor, a killer. I saw a stranger’s face. My face. More »
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    Reel Rinpoche Paid Member

    By Noa Jones
    It’s day 23 of a 41-day film shoot for Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s third feature film (working title: Vara). The cast and crew have taken over a small Muslim village near Dambulla, Sri Lanka, graced by fertile rice fields and wide bicycle paths, lotus ponds, and a view of the 5th-century Buddhist rock fortress of Sigiriya. The weather is fine, Bush Warblers and parakeets thrash about in the trees, filling the soundman’s headphones with birdsong, much to his irritation. Today the crew is filming interiors of the house of the lead characters, Vinata and her daughter Lila, temple dancers of the devadasi tradition. More »
  • Tricycle Community 6 comments

    Aren’t We Right to be Angry? Paid Member

    In May 2011, at the Newark Peace Education Summit in New Jersey, the Dalai Lama and Jody Williams—both Nobel Peace Prize winners—debated the role of anger in social action work. The Dalai Lama held that people must have inner peace in order to promote peace in the world. “Too much emotion, attachment, anger, or fear, that kind of mental state, you can’t investigate objectively,” he said. Williams respectfully disagreed. “It’s anger at injustice which fires many of us,” she argued. As Buddhists, we may tend to agree with the Dalai Lama. But after listening to Williams, a powerful activist for social change, a compelling question emerged: Is anger ever a good thing? More »
  • Tricycle Community 2 comments

    Social Awakening Paid Member

    By Fleet Maull
    Each week tricycle.com features a Tricycle Retreat video teaching delivered by a Buddhist teacher. This column introduces Fleet Maull's retreat, "Social Awakening" (May, 2012). Supporting and Sustaining Members of the Tricycle Community can join the retreat here. More »
  • Tricycle Community 5 comments

    Uprooting the Seeds of Anger Paid Member

    By Jules Shuzen Harris, Sensei
    We operate under a common illusion that the things that make us angry lie outside of ourselves, that they are external to us. Something out there is in opposition to our need for safety and security; it threatens our comfort or position. We feel a need to defend our vulnerable selves. Anger limits us. But if we have the courage to look at our anger and its causes and to learn from it, we can develop an open heart—a heart of genuine compassion. More »