Tricycle Talks

Ronald Purser is a professor of management at San Francisco State University and a longtime Buddhist practitioner who popularized the term McMindfulness in a piece he wrote for the Huffington Post in 2013. In it, he argued that mindfulness practice has been commercialized, and reduced to a mere “self-help technique.” His new book, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituali...

At the age of 36, the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche sneaked out of his monastery in Bodhgaya, India, in the middle of the night to live as a beggar and traveling yogi. The story of how he left behind his privileged lifestyle for a four-year wandering retreat is told in the new book, In Love With the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying, which...

In recent years, school mindfulness programs have sprung up across the country, setting off a debate about whether the nominally secular programs derived from religious practices violate laws about the separation of church and state. In her new book, Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools, Indiana University Bloomington religious studies professor Candy Gunther Brown takes a look at the h...

Acclaimed travel and spirituality writer Pico Iyer has written two new books about his life in Japan, Autumn Light (Penguin, April 2019), and the forthcoming A Beginner’s Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations (Penguin, September 2019). Iyer views the books as complimentary: while Autumn Light describes his experience within the culture, A Beginner’s Guide offers his perspective as an outsi...

On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order designating military zones along the West Coast and laying the groundwork for US authorities to remove citizens of Japanese descent from their homes and imprison them in camps. While it is widely acknowledged that racism was central to this shameful chapter of American history, the role of religious discriminatio...

Acclaimed scholar of religion Elaine Pagels discusses the role of faith today, the practical consequences of religious ideas, and what led her to ask, "Why Religion?" with Tricycle's editor and publisher, James Shaheen. Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion at Princeton University, a MacArthur Fellow, and a best-selling author who won the National Book Award for her...

Feeling burnt out does not make you a failure. That’s the first thing Buddhist teacher and former tech executive Lawrence Levy would want you to know. Burnout, Levy says, is a healthy response when our human needs aren’t being met. As the former Chief Financial Officer of Pixar, Levy knows what it means to have a demanding job. But it was during his many years practicing in the Gelug lineage of Ti...

Women have a lot to be angry about. A history of inequality and violence in the Buddhist world and beyond persists to this day. The question remains: what can we do with that anger? Lama Tsultrim Allione says that we have the ability to transform it into a source of strength and clarity—and that goes for all of us, not just women. Known in good part for her work exploring feminine power in Tibetan...

In recent years, ethno-nationalist movements have had an apparent resurgence. What can we do to counter the hateful ideologies that have led to so much harm? Arno Michaelis, an ex-neo-Nazi, and Pardeep Singh Kaleka, whose father was murdered by a white supremacist, say that a combination of lovingkindness (Pali, metta) and relentless optimism (Punjabi, chardi kala) is the only path forward. The pa...

Altruism. Empathy. Integrity. Respect. Engagement. These five psychological states are keys to living a compassionate, courageous life, according to Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, and social activist Roshi Joan Halifax. However, each has the potential to become counter-productive: altruism can become pathological, empathy can prevent you from seeing another’s situation clearly, and engagement c...

The second of the four noble truths teaches that craving leads to suffering. But that would be obvious to anyone struggling with addiction. Psychiatrist Judson Brewer, who is the director of research at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, brings mindfulness practice to the treatment of addiction. Here, Brewer talks to T...

In the 13th century, Muslim soldiers attacked the Buddhist monastery Nalanda in India. This event is held up as an example of how Muslim invaders were responsible for the eventual destruction of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent. But it is far from the full story. Here, history professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University, Johan Elverskog, talks to Tricycle editor an...

The Buddha had a prescription to end suffering—the eightfold path. But can the Western tradition of psychotherapy build upon these essential steps? Here, Buddhist psychotherapist and bestselling author Epstein talks with Tricycle contributing editor Amy Gross about how the two realms of wisdom view the idea of self as both problematic and helpful. Drawing from his new book, Advice Not Given: A Gui...

The foundational Buddhist concept of "no-self" can be a headbanger. What does it mean that our self is fundamentally empty? And if that’s true, who are we? In our latest Tricycle Talks podcast, Insight meditation teacher Guy Armstrong explains the concept to Tricycle contributing editor Amy Gross. Drawing from his book Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators, he breaks down what happens when w...

In this two-part Tricycle Talks episode, Tricycle’s web editor, Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, speaks with Acharya Fleet Maull at the Engaged Mindfulness Institute in Deerfield, Massachusetts, about his work, and why he’s moving beyond prisons to train the next generation of mindfulness teachers. Facing 30 years on a drug smuggling conviction, Maull viewed prison as his “monastery time,” devoting himself...

Tricycle’s web editor, Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, speaks with Acharya Fleet Maull at the Engaged Mindfulness Institute in Deerfield, Massachusetts, about his work, and why he’s moving beyond prisons to train the next generation of mindfulness teachers. In the second part of this Tricycle Talks episode, you'll go behind the scenes at a recent retreat with Fleet Maull and hear from four people going th...

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, best-selling author Robert Wright speaks with Tricycle’s web editor, Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, about how evolutionary psychology supports what the Buddha taught us about suffering and not being satisfied in the present moment. In the talk, Wright explains why we haven’t evolved past difficult emotions such as anxiety and how mindfulness meditation can provide a way...

Shozan Jack Haubner, the pen name of a Zen monk, went to the monastery in search of wisdom—and left with a sex scandal. Haubner joins Tricycle’s executive editor Emma Varvaloucas in this podcast to discuss how writing helps him unravel the “big things” in life; the patterns of behavior commonly seen in communities where sexual abuse occurs between teacher and student; and his advice for any group...

We live in a world of fear. But need we be driven by it? In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Dr. Pilar Jennings, a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and psychotherapist, speaks with Michael Kinnamon, former Dean of the Lexington Theological Seminary and author of the The Witness of Religion in an Age of Fear, about the restlessness, anxiety, and even panic characteristic of contemporary society. Tune i...

Love isn’t just a feeling, says meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. It’s an ability. This ability to love is inherent in all beings, but it’s up to us whether we develop it or not. Listen in to our newest Tricycle Talks podcast for a conversation with Sharon, author of the just-released Real Love, about the keys for cultivating this innate, indestructible ability, which can help deepen and open up...

“Anger is like electricity: it is just as powerful and just as useful, but only if you use it intelligently.” So told Mahatma Gandhi to his grandson Arun Gandhi, who lived with the political and spiritual giant on his ashram between the ages of 12 and 14. In our latest podcast, Tricycle's executive editor Emma Varvaloucas sits down with Arun to discuss the lessons that he’s learned from his grandf...

A pioneer in end-of-life care, Frank Ostaseski brings his Buddhist practice—and a startlingly respectful compassion—to the bedsides of people who are face to face with dying. In his new book, The Five Invitations: What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, he has learned lessons that “are too important to be left to our final hours”: By turning away from death, he says, we also turn away from the...

In the debut episode of Tricycle Talks, contributing editor Amy Gross speaks with practicing psychiatrist Mark Epstein on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Epstein emphasizes that there is dukkha (suffering) in every place at every time and that psychotherapeutic practices can help alleviate this suffering. Epstein's new book, The Trauma of Everyday Life, also explores this topic.

Tricycle contributing editor Amy Gross speaks with author Katy Butler about modern medicine's often misguided approach to end-of-life care. Butler's bestselling book, Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, chronicles the author's own experience of her father's slow decline following a devastating stroke. "There comes a point," Butler says, "when death becomes a blessing and...

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle's founding editor Helen Tworkov speaks with the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and writer Andrew Holecek about how to prepare for what he calls the “once in a lifetime opportunity” of death and dying. Holecek explains how the practices that ensure a peaceful death are vital to a well-lived life. His latest book is Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritu...