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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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  Vajra Gun

  By Laurel Graham

  I have covered my badge with black tape so it will not reflect the light. The January midnight air is colder than the gun in my hand, a .357-caliber Magnum revolver, made of blued steel, so it won't reflect light. It has etched wooden handles so it won't slip. I am standing silently outside the basement window of a home on the San Francisco peninsula. I am focused completely on the three people inside, lying on the bed directly below the window. The window is partly open. The room is brightly lit. How can they sleep in that bright light? Are they asleep? The smallest one is only a month old. She lies between her father and mother, who are both fully clothed, both very young themselves. Far too young for the trouble they have brought upon themselves, and the threat they are now bringing to their child. More »
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  How Empty is Emptiness?

  By Upasika Kee Nanayon

  To open the door so that you can really see inside yourself isn’t easy, but it’s something you can train yourself to do. If you have the mindfulness enabling you to read yourself and understand yourself, that cuts through a lot of issues right there. Craving will have a hard time forming. In whatever guises it arises, you’ll get to read it, to know it, to extinguish it, to let it go. More »
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  Back to Basics: Why Do We Bow?

  By Norman Fischer

  Many people have this question the minute they walk into the zendo and are told to make full prostrations to the Buddha image on the altar. They come with an idea that Zen is beyond words and letters, beyond religion, beyond rules, beyond piety, and so the idea of such a thorough-going and outrageous display of what seems like religious fervor seems quite disturbing to them. So why do we bow? I had this same question myself in the beginning of my practice. My teacher at the time took me up to the altar and let me look closely at the tiny Buddha there. He pointed out to me that the little Buddha was also bowing. So I was bowing to the Buddha and the Buddha was bowing to me. “If he can do it you can do it,” he said. I thought that was fair enough. More »
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  Precepts: Ethics in Action: By the People, For the People

  By Shakyamuni Buddha

  MONKS, there comes a time, there comes an occasion, when this universe after a long stretch of time begins to dissolve.... There comes a time, monks, there comes an occasion, when this universe, after a long stretch of time, begins to re-evolve once more, and while it is reevolving certain beings, in order to achieve the extinction of existence and karma... are born in this world. These beings are self-luminous, move through space, are made of mind, feed on joy, abide in a state of bliss, and go wherever they wish. That, monks, is the appropriate condition of these beings who are self-luminous, move through space, are made of mind, feed on joy, abide in a state of bliss, and go wherever they wish. The moon and sun were not yet known in the world. Hence the forms of the stars were not known, nor the paths of the constellations, nor day and night, nor months and fortnights, nor seasons and years. More »
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  Driving Me Crazy

  By David Chadwick

  My FIRST TRIP to the Okayama Driver's License Test Building had been spent mainly helping the clerk do an analysis of my passport, enumerating the countries I'd visited, the dates I had gone in and out of the U.S., and so forth. The stopover in Hawaii for an hour on the way to Taiwan three years previously was properly noted. The space of time between the Taiwan trip and my arrival date in Japan was marked down. My month in Thailand and the side trip to Malaysia, as well as the times of visa extensions in Japan, were not neglected. It was a curious procedure. This was local government, not Immigration, and I really did not get the point. But mine was not to reason why. More »
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  Lama Hates The Sunset

  By Jeffery Paine

  So long as their high mountains kept the Tibetans isolated, their attitude toward Westerners—which was generally dismissive or indifferent—remained an academic matter. But with the Chinese invasion in 1959, an academic matter turned into one of life and death. During the 1960s, the Communists leveled monasteries and forbade the teaching of Buddhism, and the world’s power brokers forgot Tibet in favor of China’s potential billion-customer market. The “last ancient civilization,” as it was called, was under a death sentence. Under such circumstances, the fate of Tibet’s religion was not hard to predict. More »