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Tricycle Teachings | Tricycle wisdom in e-book format

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The Latest in the Wisdom Collection

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  Practical Advice Regarding Spiritual Teachers

  By Alexander Berzin

  The Initial Interaction The phenomenon of Western Dharma centers—and the arrival of many Tibetan teachers—began in the mid-1970s. The Chinese Cultural Revolution was raging in Tibet, and destruction of the monasteries that had begun in 1959 was nearly complete. Many Tibetan refugees had witnessed India's border war with China in 1962 and its wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. Indian authorities, unable to support the millions of Bangladeshi refugees they had initially accepted, had sent them back and might easily do the same with Tibetans. Due to tensions in Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, Tibetan refugees felt insecure there and looked for safer havens in case of emergency. More »
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  • ancestors

  Nagarjuna's Verses from the Center

  By Stephen Batchelor

  Although Nagarjuna is arguably the most important figure in Buddhism after the Buddha himself, very little is known about him. All that can be said with any certainty is that he lived at some time around the second century C.E. in India and is the author of a Sanskrit work of 448 verses, divided into twenty-seven chapters entitled: Verses from the Center (Mulamadhyamakakarika). The first known account of Nagarjuna’s life was composed from Indian sources by Kumarajiva, the Central Asian scholar who translated Verses from the Center from Sanskrit into Chinese in 409 C.E. More »
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  Moving Zen

  By Philip Smith

  Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth in line of succession from Shakyamuni Buddha, traveled to the Shaolin Monastery in China to spread the word of Buddhism in 520 C.E. During his self-imposed nine-year period of meditation there, he developed a series of physical movements used both for exercise and for defending himself against wild animals. These techniques of moving meditation were passed on to the Shaolin monks who incorporated them into their spiritual training. This was the origin of martial arts, a powerful and complete way of being. More »
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  The Psychology of Awakening

  By John Welwood

  When I first encountered Zen in the 1960s, I found myself particularly drawn to the mysterious satori—that moment of seeing into one’s own true nature, when all the old blinders were said to fall away. In such a moment, I imagined, one became an entirely new person, never to be the same again. I found the prospect of this kind of ultimate realization compelling enough to turn my life in that direction. More »
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  The View From Above

  By Manjusura

  We sometimes speak of losing perspective: overstretched, overburdened, we find ourselves lashing out at a loved one, letting slip a snide remark that we immediately regret. Or else, caught up in our own challenges, we lose awareness of other people’s lives, and of the world. There is a passage in Plato’s Phaedrus that describes how the perfect soul “soars upward and brings order to the whole world.” It describes a way of restoring perspective: if we imaginatively rise above our experience and look down from above, we see ourselves within a much wider frame—and find order in the world. More »
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  • dharma talk

  Realizing Guiltlessness

  Pema Chödrön, an American nun in the Shambhala lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and the author of several books, including the best-selling When Things Fall Apart and The Places that Scare You, currently practices under the guidance of the Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, a teacher in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Dzigar Kongtrul established the mountain retreat center Longchen Jigme Samten Ling, in southern Colorado. He spends much of his time there guiding students, with particular emphasis on long-term retreat practice. At his retreat center last spring, Pema Chödrön spoke with Dzigar Kongtrul about a primary obstacle Westerners face in their practice: guilt. More »