Tricycle | Awake in the World

Tricycle Teachings | Tricycle wisdom in e-book format

Summary | View all

Summary | View all

Summary | View all

The Latest in the Wisdom Collection

• 1 comment

  • columns

  Return to Your Original State!

  By Sokei-an

  Teachers of Zen have a favorite saying, “Return to your original state!” To return to the original state means, in a word, “Go back home!” “Original state” signifies “original state of mind.” What is this original state of mind? Buddha spoke of the original state of mind, calling it avidya - original darkness. Of course Buddha did not say, “Return to your original darkness!” He said, “Emancipate yourself from original darkness! Come forth from original darkness to the enlightened state!” And he taught that this emancipation was to be attained by attaining Nirvana. The state of original darkness and the state of enlightened Nirvana are one and the same. It is like looking at a bronze gong. From the bottom it appears to be a bell; from the top it seems to be a gong. In reality, however, it is only one gong. More »
• 0 comments

  • on food

  The Bhikkhu Diet

  By Clark Strand

  “Theravada monks eat only one meal a day . . .” That was how it started. A friend I’d known for several years (albeit only by phone) was coming to stay for five days. Of course I knew he was a Theravada Buddhist monk. It wasn’t the basis for our friendship, but I knew it. And so I couldn’t quite grasp the insistence of the woman speaking to me on the phone. “You know it,” she said. “But you don’t understand it. That means that he will eat three meals at one sitting—no kidding! So really pile it on.” “For real?” I inquired. “What’s the use in that?” “He can explain that for himself,” she answered, a bit peremptorily, I thought. It was true. Although slim for his build, the bhikkhu could eat like nobody I’d ever seen. I come from the South, from the land of all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurants, and so I know what it looks like to watch someone tuck away half a cow at a single sitting. The bhikkhu left them in the dust. More »
• 0 comments

  • practical pilgrim

  Kapilavastu: A Tale of Two (Competing) Cities

  By Allan Hunt Badiner

  We know where the Buddha was born, where he became enlightened, and where he died. We can even say where he gave his first sermon. But no one can say for sure where he spent his childhood, or where he married and fathered a child, for the precise location of Kapilavastu—the city-state his father governed as leader of the Shakya clan—remains a mystery. More »
• 

  0 comments

  • special section

  Tantric Art: Then And Now

  By Robert Beer

  For over a thousand years, Tibetan society steadily absorbed the artistic and cultural influences of neighboring lands, developing a unique artistic tradition that flourished until the Chinese invasion in 1959. Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, Tibet became the direct inheritor of the various Vajrayana traditions of India, which represented the ultimate flowering of Indian Buddhist culture. From its southern neighbors, Tibet took on the ancient artistic traditions of the Pala dynasty of eastern India and the ingenious skills of the Newar craftsmen of Nepal’s Kathmandu valley. From the west and north Tibet was exposed to the styles of Kashmir, Khotan, and central Asia, while from the east came the stylistic influences of Chinese art. More »
• 0 comments

  • thus have i heard

  This Fathom-Long Carcass

  By Andrew Olendzki

  Thus have I heard:The end of the world can neverBe reached by walking. However,Without having reached the world’s endThere is no release from suffering.I declare that it is in this fathom—long carcass, with its perceptionsand thoughts, that there is the world, theorigin of the world, the cessation of theworld, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.(Anguttara Nikaya 4:45) This radical statement, attributed to the Buddha in the Pali canon, constitutes no less than a Copernican revolution in thought, with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the human condition. It redefines “the world” in a way that flies in the face of both the scientific and the religious traditions of the West, but is remarkably well suited to the postmodern views emerging along the cutting edges of the new cognitive and neurological sciences. More »
• 8 comments

  • on practice

  Attention Means Attention

  By Charlotte Joko Beck

  THERE'S AN OLD ZEN STORY: a student said to Master Ichu, "Please write for me something of great wisdom." Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: "Attention." The student said, "Is that all?" The master wrote, "Attention. Attention." The student became irritable. "That doesn't seem profound or subtle to me." In response, Master Ichu wrote simply, "Attention. Attention. Attention." In frustration, the student demanded, "What does this word 'attention' mean?" Master Ichu replied, "Attention means attention." For "attention" we could substitute the word "awareness." Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice. Like the student in the story, we find such a teaching disappointing; it seems dry and uninteresting. We want something exciting in our practice! Simple attention is boring: we ask, is that all there is to practice? More »