Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

My son was 1 year old when I was diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer.

From the Academy is a monthly email newsletter for Premium subscribers, developed in collaboration with Tricycle’s resident Ho Family Foundation Buddhism Public Scholar.

Once, decades ago, at the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) on Great Dragon Mountain, situated since 1967 on Normandie Avenue in Koreatown, my fellow Zen practitioners and I were gathered in the big empty room of the Dharma Hall for a teisho.

“This is not some exalted, abstract idea of emptiness, of the absolute.

Simply being there.

A tearful phone call from a friend this summer prompted a dharma reflection for me.

The Buddha said that he taught just suffering and the end of suffering.

In August of 805 CE, court eunuchs in the Tang dynasty capital at Chang’an ended the six-month rule of high-ranking official Wang Shuwen’s political reform group.

March 2020—I remember the way that time had stretched out ahead of me, seemingly elongated.

Once upon a time, up in Heaven, the Jade Emperor had a daughter named Liễu Hạnh.

There is a recurring problem with every population that must migrate from one land to another: The next generation will want to assimilate.

We can have experiences of non-grasping, of non-reactivity, and they can take many forms.

The following excerpts are from Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa), a collection of essays by the Japanese monk and calligrapher Kenko (c. 1283–1350).

The Chinese poet Ye Hui does not belong to any school, clique, or scene, nor does he teach writing or organize literary festivals.

On October 14, 1956, B.

Spiritual practice is very important.

It isn’t just that the Buddha had deep insight into the nature of life, but that he was also able to imagine a new form of life.

The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility.

Grief and love are deeply interconnected, and it was my experience of both that led me to write the article “Contemplations on the Five Mindfulness Trainings: A New Paradigm for Racial Justice and the Global Pandemic.”

Thich Nhat Hanh—the world-renowned Zen teacher, author, poet, and peace activist—was born on October 11, 1926, in central Vietnam.

We have society inside of us.

August 25, 1957 When a person makes up his mind to do one thing but then turns around to do something else entirely, the results of his first intention simply won’t come about.

In the dark after evening meditation, I lose my way several times walking through the woods to my tiny cabin.

Buddhist scriptures speak of the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future.

I moved into a Zen monastery when I was 24 years old.

The following chapter is from Reading the Heart Sutra by Hiromi Ito, originally published in Japanese in 2010 and translated into English below for the first time by Jeffrey Angles.

Steven Hall, aka Nirosta Steel, has been making ambitious experimental music for more than forty years, though most of it has gone unreleased.

A dharma friend recently texted me, “Will you tell me about what it’s like to be a mom and practice the dharma?”

From the Academy is a monthly email newsletter for Premium subscribers, developed in collaboration with Tricycle’s resident Ho Family Foundation Buddhism Public Scholar.

“Snails” are a favorite subject of classical haiku, where they are often anthropomorphized as comical figures.

Poet Tishani Doshi’s fifth collection of poems stems from an unlikely place: her fascination with birds.

Flowers are the prayers of the vegetal world.

The late multihyphenate musical artist Duncan Sheik always had a simple answer whenever he was asked what sparked his musical innovation and inventiveness.

Most English speakers are probably familiar with the Serenity Prayer, originally composed by Reinhold Niebuhr—a 20th-century Protestant theologian who was a major inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr.

In honor of National Recovery Month, we are offering this article freely.