Tricycle1

Suzuki Roshi said, “Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” He might have likely said it with a smile, because remembering that life and death are intertwined is a truth meant not to depress us but to enliven us, to remind us to value each moment, each relationship, each opportunity of our life. And yet, especially in our culture, we ten...

On May 7, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court sided with environmental advocates over a Buddhist head monk, ruling that he violated conservation laws and Buddhist principles by leasing temple lands for developments that damaged the local environment and disturbed herds of migratory elephants. The decision was a landmark one: The court held that harming nature in this way is illegal und...

It was in early 2022, as the world was still settling into its new rhythms in the wake of the Covid pandemic, that videos of the mendicant calling himself Thich Minh Tue first started appearing on my social feeds. At first, he was sighted only from afar, but his features were distinctive and recognizable. He was a thin, diminutive man; his scalp was shorn like a bhikshu’s; bu...

In 1992, His Holiness the Dalai Lama encouraged neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson to turn the tools of his lab—brain-scanning technologies he developed to study cognitive dys...

The gray-bearded holy man of Varanasi beckoned me over when we made eye contact. I’d been in this ancient, sacred city in northern India for a week and I’d walked past him several times, always sitting on a perch at the intersection of two narrow pedestrian lanes. Did he know I’d been having an existential crisis? Could he see it on my face? I took a seat next to Baba Mehdar ...