Born in Central Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War, Sister Dang Nghiem grew up singing made-up songs to comfort herself and express her suffering. After moving to the US, she began writing poetry at the encouragement of an English teacher, and eventually, she ordained as a nun in the Plum Village tradition following the sudden death of her partner. Her latest book, The River in Me: Verses of Transformation, brings together over three decades of her poetry, charting her own journey from tur...
Aug 14, 2024•57 min
In tumultuous times, it can be easy to turn to anger. But according to Venerable Thubten Chodron, from a Buddhist perspective, anger is never useful. Venerable Chodron has been a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition since 1977, and she is the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey in Washington State. In her book, Working with Anger: Buddhist Teachings on Patience, Acceptance, and Transforming Negativity, she draws from the teachings of the 8th-century Buddhist philosopher Shantideva to offer pra...
Jul 24, 2024•50 min
Enlightenment can often sound like an unattainable goal. But mindfulness teacher and author Susan Kaiser Greenland believes that we can find enlightenment in every moment. In her new book, Real-World Enlightenment: Discovering Ordinary Magic in Everyday Life, she draws from various wisdom traditions to lay out practical tools for easing anxiety and tapping into our innate goodness. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg...
Jul 17, 2024•50 min
Bruce Tift is a psychotherapist and longtime practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism. In his book, Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path to Liberation, he lays out why he believes that the approaches of Buddhism and Western psychotherapy are fundamentally irreconcilable—and what we can learn from holding these contradictory energies simultaneously. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Tift to discuss the differences between what...
Jul 10, 2024•52 min
At the age of 25, Cristina Moon sat her first ten-day meditation retreat to prepare for the possibility of arrest and torture inside military-ruled Burma. While Moon acknowledges the naïveté of her initial intent, on the retreat she nevertheless discovered not only a method to withstand pain but also a new way of seeing the world that set her on a decades-long spiritual path. Eventually, Moon found her way to Daihonzan Chozen-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Honolulu that emphasi...
Jun 26, 2024•58 min
In the midst of constant change, it can be easy to feel knocked around by forces outside our control. In Buddhist terminology, these forces are often referred to as the eight worldly winds: pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and insignificance, and success and failure. According to meditation teacher Ethan Nichtern, working with these pairs of opposites can help us develop genuine confidence in the face of life’s challenges. In his new book, Confidence: Holding Your Seat Through Life’s Ei...
Jun 19, 2024•54 min
Kazuaki Tanahashi is an artist, translator, calligrapher, and environmental activist and peaceworker. In his new book, Gardens of Awakening: A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto’s Zen Landscapes, he explores the contemplative art form of Zen gardening and discusses why he believes gardens are an essential instrument of awakening. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Tanahashi to discuss what first drew him to callig...
Jun 12, 2024•43 min
Michael O’Keefe is an actor, poet, and lyricist—and he’s also a former Zen priest. In his article in the Spring issue of Tricycle, “The Lost Robe,” he explores what led him to renounce his vows and leave the priesthood. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with O’Keefe to discuss his path to ordination in the Zen Peacemaker Order, his subsequent disillusionment with the order and its teacher, Bernie Glassman, how becoming a parent transformed hi...
May 22, 2024•48 min
When she was just 11 years old, Kaira Jewel Lingo already knew that she wanted to be a nun. Fourteen years later, she ordained in the Plum Village tradition, where she trained closely with her teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, for fifteen years. In her new book, Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation, which she co-wrote with Valerie Brown and Marisela B. Gomez, Lingo reflects on her own spiritual path and explores how embodied mindfulness practice can support us...
May 15, 2024•54 min
Helen Tworkov grew up in a family of artists where art was considered the religion. Yet from an early age, she sought another kind of religion—one that would address deeper questions of the nature of truth and the self. After traveling throughout Asia and experimenting with a variety of New Age practices, Tworkov eventually arrived at Buddhism—and went on to found The Tricycle Foundation in 1990. In her new book, Lotus Girl: My Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and America, she uses her own spi...
May 08, 2024•46 min
Dr. Kamilah Majied is a mental health therapist, clinical educator, and consultant on advancing equity and inclusion through contemplative practice. In her new book, Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living, she draws from Black cultural traditions and the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism to lay out a path to liberation that is grounded in courage, curiosity, and deep joy. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Maj...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr
In the face of global crises and catastrophes, how can we work with our anger effectively? And how can we channel our grief and rage without becoming consumed by it? These questions are at the core of Jungwon Kim’s practice. Kim is a multidisciplinary communications strategist and advocate who has chronicled frontline environmental and human rights movements for the past two decades. She previously worked at the Rainforest Alliance and Amnesty International, and she also co-founded two BIPOC Bud...
Apr 17, 2024•56 min
Unlike many contemporary American poets, Arthur Sze did not attend a traditional MFA program to learn to write poetry. Instead, he turned to translation to hone his craft. His latest collection, The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry, compiles fifty years of his translations, illustrating the vitality and versatility of the Chinese poetic tradition across nearly two millennia. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Sze to discuss ...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Gaylon Ferguson is an acharya, or senior teacher, in the Shambhala International Buddhist community and a faculty member in Religious Studies at Naropa University. In his new book, Welcoming Beginner's Mind: Zen and Tibetan Buddhist Wisdom on Experiencing Our True Nature, he uses the classic Zen oxherding pictures as a way of illustrating the stages of the spiritual journey, exploring the paradox of how we can awaken to what we already are. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Karma Lekshe Tsomo came to Buddhism because of a typo: years ago, her family name had been mistakenly changed from Zinn to Zenn. When her classmates started teasing her about being a Zen Buddhist, she took to the library to learn more about Buddhism and was instantly sold. After deciding to dedicate her life to Buddhist practice, she ordained as a nun and went on to found the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and the Jamyang Foundation, which supports educational programs fo...
Mar 20, 2024•56 min
In March 2008, journalist Amy Yee was assigned to cover a press conference in Dharamsala following the Chinese government’s crackdown on protests throughout Tibet. After an unexpected personal encounter with the Dalai Lama at the conference, she set out to highlight the stories of Tibetans living in exile in Dharamsala and around the world. Her new book, Far from the Rooftop of the World: Travels among Tibetan Refugees on Four Continents, follows the stories of four Tibetans as they forge new li...
Mar 13, 2024•50 min
Haemin Sunim is a Korean Zen monk based in Seoul, where he founded the School of Broken Hearts and the Dharma Illumination Zen Center. In his new book, When Things Don't Go Your Way: Zen Wisdom for Difficult Times, he offers a guide to transforming life’s unexpected challenges into opportunities for awakening. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and co-host Sharon Salzberg sit down with Haemin to talk about the importance of learning to welcome unpleasant...
Feb 28, 2024•51 min
What does it mean to live an ethical life? And how can cultivating wisdom and virtue support us in navigating the crises of today’s world? These questions are at the center of Zen priest and psychologist Seth Segall’s new book, The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism. Drawing from Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist ethical traditions, Segall outlines a vision of liberal pluralism grounded in human flourishing. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Sh...
Feb 14, 2024•57 min
Laura Burges is a lay-entrusted teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, and she has been leading retreats on recovery at the San Francisco Zen Center for over twenty years. In her new book, The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction, she brings together Buddhist wisdom and the teachings of recovery programs to lay out a sustainable path to sobriety and freedom. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon...
Jan 24, 2024•57 min
It can be so easy to feel like we’re not enough or that we’re somehow insufficient. According to meditation teacher Tara Brach, this feeling of unworthiness is fundamentally a disease of separation, as it alienates us from ourselves and the people around us. For Brach, one way to free ourselves from this trance of unworthiness is the practice of radical acceptance. In the twentieth-anniversary edition of her classic book, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, she us...
Jan 10, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Sunita Puri is a writer, a palliative medicine physician, and an associate professor at the UMass Chan Medical School. In her memoir, That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, she explores her journey of helping patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness. In her article in Tricycle’s Winter 2023 issue, “A Gift,” she explores how she has learned to navigate love and loss through the lens of impermanence. In this episode of Life ...
Dec 20, 2023•1 hr 9 min
After the Buddha’s enlightenment, his aunt and adoptive mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, asks him to ordain women and welcome them into his new monastic community. The Buddha declines to fulfill her request. But Mahapajapati Gotami doesn’t give up—accompanied by a large gathering of women, she sets out to ask him again. In her new novel, The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women, scholar Vanessa R. Sasson offers an imaginative retelling of the women’s request for ordination, following the w...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr
What is the role of contemplative practice in times of crisis? And how can meditation actually support us in meeting the greatest challenges of our time? Oren Jay Sofer takes up these questions in his new book, Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. As a meditation teacher and a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, Sofer has spent decades exploring the relationship between contemplative practice and nonviolent...
Nov 22, 2023•56 min
Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized lama in the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. In his new book, The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors, he draws from the bodhisattva tradition to rethink the relationship between social liberation and ultimate freedom, putting forth the notion of the New Saint. In the process, he pulls from the wisdom of the Old Saints of Tibetan Buddhism and the legacy of Black liberation movements. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, ...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 6 min
In her first book, How to Do Nothing, writer and artist Jenny Odell examined the power of quiet contemplation in a world where our attention is bought and sold. Now, she takes up the question of how to find space for silence when we feel like we don’t have enough time to spend. In her new book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, Odell traces the history behind our relationship to time, from the day-to-day pressures of productivity to the deeper existential dread underlying the cli...
Oct 25, 2023•52 min
Michael Imperioli has a knack for playing mobsters and villains. Best known for his roles as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos and Dominic Di Grasso on The White Lotus, the Emmy Award–winning actor has made a career out of exploring addiction and afflictive emotions on screen. Offscreen, though, Imperioli is a committed Buddhist practitioner. In 2008, he and his wife took refuge with Garchen Rinpoche, and during the pandemic, they began teaching online meditation classes together, exploring...
Oct 11, 2023•46 min
In 2016, poet Ross Gay set out to document a delight each day for a year. After he published The Book of Delights, his friend asked him if he planned to continue his practice. Five years later, he began The Book of (More) Delights, demonstrating that the sources of delight are indeed endless—and that they multiply when attended to and shared. For Gay, delight serves as evidence of our interconnectedness, and it is inextricable from the fact of our mortality. With characteristic humor and grace, ...
Sep 27, 2023•47 min
When poet Jane Hirshfield first arrived at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center nearly fifty years ago, a Zen teacher told her that it was a good idea to have a question to practice with. She’s been asking questions ever since. Both in her Zen practice and in her poetry, Hirshfield is guided by questions that resist easy answers, allowing herself to be transformed through the process of asking. With her latest poetry collection, The Asking: New and Selected Poems, she takes up the question, “How can I ...
Sep 13, 2023•57 min
As a young oncologist, Anthony Back turned to Buddhism as a practical way of processing the suffering he encountered each day. Over time, his practice has become an essential support to his work in accompanying patients as they navigate illness and death, and it has radically transformed his understanding of what it means to provide care. Back currently serves as co-director of the University of Washington Center for Excellence in Palliative Care, where he trains clinicians to communicate more o...
Aug 30, 2023•50 min
When Anne C. Klein (Rigzin Drolma) first read that everyone, including her, was already a buddha, she was so shocked that she put down the book she was reading. Now, as a professor of religious studies at Rice University and a teacher at Dawn Mountain Center for Tibetan Buddhism in Houston, she continues to grapple with the relationship between our buddhahood and our humanity. In her new book, "Being Human and a Buddha Too: Longchenpa’s Sevenfold Mind Training for a Sunlit Sky," she takes up the...
Aug 09, 2023•53 min
