Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

As show, rather than tell, is the essence of good storytelling, Zen tradition presents the Buddha as the consummate storyteller. Rather than talking and philosophizing about truth, in Zen tradition t...

Some people consider Buddhism to be a philosophy; some view it as a religion; some think of it as a way of life. Whichever way they view it, it doesn’t matter. If we want to learn and benefit from the Buddha’s teaching, we have to study it, we have to apply it, we have to investigate it thoroughly. The Buddha’s teaching expresses universal truth. This truth is absolute. Buddh...

A week after the birth, baby’s umbilical cord fell off. It was brown-purple-black, the color of dried blood, and brittle. The end that had been cut fanned out and curled at the edges, like an ear or a flower. Where the stump had been, baby’s skin puckered and oozed a thick pus that smelled like rot. The sight of his tender, newly made belly button made me cry. I insisted we k...

When Pratapaditya Pal arrived in Los Angeles in 1970 to head the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new department of Indian and Islamic Art, he began broadening the museum’s collection both culturally and spiritually. Over the next twenty-five years, drawing on his vast scholarly knowledge, boundless energy, and relationships with collectors, Pal significantly increased its ...

In the summer of 2025, I had the privilege of leading a group of Tricycle readers on a Buddhist pilgrimage to Mongolia. As a scholar and practitioner of Mongolian Buddhism, this journey offered a unique opportunity to share the Buddhist heritage of Mongolia with Buddhists of different traditions and cultures. As we traveled across the vast steppe, stretched out like en...