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The Latest in the Wisdom Collection

  • Tricycle Community 17 comments

    The Politics of Enlightenment: Interview with Robert Thurman Paid Member

    THE POINT OF DISCUSSING a Buddhist platform is not to generate something altogether new and exotic, but to reinforce enlightenment-oriented tendencies and to mobilize active Buddhist participation in American politics. It is a misunderstanding to think that enlightenment is some sort of final escape from life and that the doctrine of the unsatisfactory nature of samsara obviates any need for involvement with other beings or social responsibility. Because nirvana is selfless, there is no self that enjoys a state of being beyond the world. Selfish habits that dominate unenlightened living may be dissolved, but that leaves the aggregates of body and mind just as present in the world as they ever were. Buddha himself remained deeply engaged throughout his life after his enlightenment. Wisdom and compassion are ultimately inseparable, wisdom being the complete knowledge of ultimate selflessness and compassion being the selfless commitment to the happiness of others. More »
  • Tricycle Community 14 comments

    Continuous Mind Paid Member

    By Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
    "For those of you who want to attain enlightenment, do not study many teachings. Only study one. What is it? It is great compassion. Whoever has great compassion has all Buddha's qualities in his hand." —Lord Buddha IN THE UNDELUDED PURITY of self-appearance, there are no names for love and faith.... But since all sentient beings grasp at the uncatchable display of appearance, all our phenomena become heavy and substantial, and we create the duality of self and other, the conceptions of ordinary mind, and the karmic delusion of habit. Since all habit belongs to either the deluded panic of samsara or the noble path of enlightenment, it is best to develop the positive habit of the path of enlightenment that always creates the positive energy of love and faith, until we attain the selfless appearance of the buddhas. More »
  • Tricycle Community 7 comments

    Lighten Up! Paid Member

    By James Baraz
    Life, though full of woe, holds also sources of happiness and joy, unknown to most. Let us teach people to seek and to find real joy within themselves and to rejoice with the joy of others! Let us teach them to unfold their joy to ever sublimer heights! Noble and sublime joy is not foreign to the Teaching of the Enlightened One. Wrongly, the Buddha’s Teaching is sometimes considered to be a doctrine diffusing melancholy. Far from it: the Dhamma leads step by step to an ever purer and loftier happiness. —Nyanaponika Thera (1901–1994) More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    The Future of Religion Paid Member

    Few people can address the social dimensions of religion with the knowledge, insight, and eloquence of Robert Bellah. Through his teaching and, especially, his writing, Bellah’s ideas have traveled beyond the academy to influence the culture at large. In 2000, in recognition of his accomplishments in joining distinguished scholarship with committed citizenship, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton.Bellah is Elliott Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to coming to Berkeley in 1967, he was a professor at Harvard University, where he completed his undergraduate and graduate study. His 1957 book, Tokugawa Religion, based on his doctoral dissertation, first established his reputation as a formidable scholar of Japanese religion. From 1960 to 1961, as a Fulbright research grantee in Japan, he continued his study of the role of religion in what he speaks of as his “other culture.” More »
  • Tricycle Community 0 comments

    Letting Go of Spiritual Experience Paid Member

    By Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
    Spiritual Experiences and RealizationsThere will be all sorts of experiences on the spiritual path. Positive periods of development—those that are reassuring and comforting—are an important part of the process. It is important to realize, however, that even positive experiences will fluctuate. We will rarely, if ever, perceive a steady development of them, precisely because experiences are fickle by nature. Enjoying a series of good experiences does not ensure that they will continue indefinitely; they may stop suddenly. Even so, they remain an important part of spiritual practice, not least because they help to maintain our motivation to continue practicing. More »