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

• 3 comments

  • interview

  Practice First

  Sensei Enkyo O’Hara is abbot of the Village Zendo, in lower Manhattan. A Zen priest, she is a dharma heir in the Maezumi-Glassman line of the White Plum Asangha of Soto Zen Buddhism. She serves as an elder in the Zen Peacemaker Order, part of an interfaith network integrating spiritual practice with peacemaking and social action. Sensei O'Hara spoke with Tricycle in November 2002. More »
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  6 comments

  • on the cushion

  Q&A with Douglas Phillips

  I’m sitting every day and I feel like I’m not getting anywhere. What should I do? Ideally, teachers respond not just to the question but also to the person asking it. We would want to know more about how long you have been sitting every day and for how long you sit. What happens during your meditation, and how have you worked with it? What motivates you to practice, and is your practice really designed to get you where you want to go? Does this question of getting somewhere arise only in regard to sitting or in other aspects of your life as well? Does it arise from an intelligence that points to something that needs to be changed, or is it indicative of a more chronic tendency toward doubt and self-judgment? More »
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  • my view

  After the Flood

  By Erik Hansen

  As usual, a cigarette is dangling from our friend Smokey's lips as she pulls up in front of our house with a load of spare plywood. “Be Nice or Leave,” it says on the rear window of her weathered old pickup truck, and “New Orleans, proud to crawl home.” It's early Sunday morning, August 28, and clouds are moving quickly across the sky. Overnight, Hurricane Katrina powered up to a Category 5, and our neighborhood is alive with last-minute preparations. Smokey helps unload the plywood, gives me an evacuation map and a kiss, then hurries home to pick up her hip boots; she knows there's going to be water. Lots and lots of water. Then she drives to Tulane Hospital, where she will spend the next four days preparing meals around the clock for dozens of doctors, nurses, patients, policemen, and firemen. More »
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  • thus have i heard

  No Essence

  By Andrew Olendzki

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  • on location

  Organ Dana

  By Asoka Bandarage

  When my mother suddenly became ill, I rushed to her side at the hospital in Kandy, the pre-colonial capital of Sri Lanka, where she was being operated on. It was a close call, but thanks to the excellent skills and care of Dr. Harischandra, the country's leading kidney surgeon, my mother's life was saved. During that trip, when I spent most of my time in the public hospital, my eyes were opened to a spectrum of human pain, suffering, compassion, and generosity in a more compelling way than during all my previous visits home. More »
• 5 comments

  • special section

  Only the Practice of Dharma Can Help Us at the Time of Death

  By Larry Rosenberg

  Throughout our lives, our body has been our closest companion. At times it has seemed to be who we are. We have spent hours washing and cleaning and clipping and oiling and combing and brushing, taking care of our body in all kinds of ways. We have fed it and rested it. We might have had differing attitudes toward it, sometimes loving it and sometimes hating it. But now this closest companion, which has gone through everything with us, will no longer be here. It will no longer take oxygen. It will not circulate blood. This body that for so many years was so full of vitality will be lifeless. It will be a corpse. The first Panchen Lama says it well: “This body that we have cherished for so long cheats us at the time when we need it most.” More »