Tricycle Talks

Buddhism can often be mischaracterized as encouraging the elimination of emotion. Yet, as scholar Maria Heim points out, feeling is central to Buddhist teachings and practices—in fact, the Buddha presented the four noble truths as being “for one who feels.” Heim is the George Lyman Crosby 1896 & Stanley Warfield Crosby Professor in Religion at Amherst College, and her new book, How to Feel: An Ancient Guide to Minding Our Emotions, presents new translations of essential early Buddhist teachings on emotion. Drawing from the Pali canon, she argues that the Buddhist psychology of emotions can offer us a different way of observing and relating to our feelings—and, in the process, bring about a sense of freedom. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Heim to discuss the misconception that Buddhism encourages the complete elimination of feeling, the paradoxical relationship between pleasure and pain in early Buddhist texts, how language can describe and shape experience, and how noticing our feelings can fundamentally restructure our behavior.

Daisy Hernández is an associate professor at Northwestern University and a Tricycle contributing editor. Her new book, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, blends memoir and political analysis to examine the shifting narratives around citizenship and what it means to be an American. This episode is a little different from our usual focus, but we wanted to talk with Hernández about how she brings her Buddhist practice to bear on this timely topic. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Hernández to discuss her own family’s immigration stories, why she views citizenship as a story or a myth, how she works with feelings of political despair, and what she’s learned from revisiting Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings on the Vietnam War in our current moment.

Philip Ryan is Tricycle’s executive editor, and he has worked at Tricycle on and off for the past thirty years. In the Spring issue of Tricycle, he wrote an article, "Old Friend," about his father’s dementia diagnosis and the questions it has raised about memory, impermanence, and identity. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Ryan to discuss how Buddhist teachings on the mind have helped him to make sense of his father’s diagnosis, why we are ultimately unknowable to each other and ourselves, and how dementia is the perfect illustration of the truths of impermanence, suffering, and nonself—or maybe a mockery of those truths.

Tantric Buddhism is often mischaracterized or misunderstood, both in the academy and in the popular imagination. Scholar Richard Payne has dedicated much of the past twenty years to studying tantric teachings and practices—and to dispelling some of the common misconceptions associated with the tradition. Payne is the Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, as well as an ordained priest in the Shingon tradition of Japanese esoteric Buddhism. In his new book, Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis, he examines the evolution of tantric traditions from early medieval India to the present day. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Payne to discuss the difficulties in trying to define tantra, how tantra challenges popular and scholarly notions about the nature of religion, and how he came to ordain as a Shingon priest.

Sunita Puri is a writer, a palliative medicine physician, and an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour. She recently wrote an article for the Spring issue of Tricycle called “Seeking Refuge,” where she discusses how she has found refuge in nature in the face of burnout. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Puri to discuss what first led her to turn to nature as a way to hold her grief, how her relationship to the concept of refuge has evolved over time, why she views refuge as a practice rather than a place, and how Buddhist teachings on impermanence have shaped her life and her practice.

For poet Li-Young Lee, writing is a deeply spiritual practice. Taking inspiration from Daoist and Christian texts, his poems investigate the paradoxical relationships between silence and sound, stillness and motion, and form and formlessness. He recently published his sixth collection of poetry, The Invention of the Darling, as well as a translation of the Dao De Jing, which he completed with the poet and cosmologist Yun Wang. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Lee to discuss the spiritual influences on his poetry, why he views every poem as a descendant of God, how he writes from a state of don’t-know mind, and why he believes the task of the poet is to reconcile all opposites. Plus, Lee reads a few poems from The Invention of the Darling.

David Guterson is a writer based in Washington State. His new novel, Evelyn in Transit, follows the interlocking stories of Evelyn and Tsering, a young woman from Indiana and a Buddhist monk from the mountains of Tibet. Their lives come together when Evelyn’s son is revealed to be the seventh reincarnation of a high lama, and Evelyn must decide whether to send her young child to Nepal. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Guterson to discuss how a childhood fight with a member of the Sakya family first introduced him to Buddhism, the remarkable story of the Sakya family and the real-life inspiration for the novel, the relationship between faith and doubt, and what it means to find freedom from the self.

Francis Weller is a writer and soul activist who has worked as a psychotherapist for forty years, and he is currently on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program. In his most recent book, In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty, he lays out practices for embodying new ways of being so that we can meet the anxieties and unknowns of our time with presence and faith. Weller is also the author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief and the companion workbook, Entering the Healing Ground, which will be released on February 24. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Weller to talk about why he views listening as an art of reverence, the subversive power of restraint, how not knowing situates us at the edge of discovery, and the role of ritual in navigating what he calls the Long Dark. Plus, Weller leads a guided practice.

Brandon Shimoda is a poet and a professor at Colorado College. His new book, The Afterlife Is Letting Go, examines the ongoing legacies of the US government’s mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Drawing from years of archival research, visits to the ruins of incarceration sites, interviews with survivors and their descendants, and his own family history, the book explores the resonances between forms of oppression and state violence past and present. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Shimoda to talk about how he learned about his own family history of wartime incarceration, the question of how to memorialize an event that is still ongoing, how writing the book was a process of pilgrimage, and how he views the role of poetry in reckoning with this history. Plus, Shimoda reads an excerpt from the book.

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, poet, and professor based in New York. She recently published her first children’s book, as did meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. Sarah’s book, The Dreams I’ll Dream Tonight, is a whimsical bedtime story that illustrates the power of choosing where we place our attention, while Sharon’s book, Kind Karl: A Little Crocodile with Big Feelings, follows a young crocodile as he learns to control his temper. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Sarah and Sharon to discuss what inspired each of them to write children’s books, the importance of imagination in helping children work through fear, and how they’ve each adapted teachings on loving-kindness to a younger audience. Plus, they both read excerpts from their new books.

Sharon A. Suh is a professor of theology and religious studies at Seattle University, and she is currently the president of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. Her new book, Emergent Dharma, brings together the voices of eleven Asian American feminist Buddhists to present a dynamic vision of Buddhist practice and identity. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Suh to discuss why she describes herself as a bad Buddhist, the dangers of equating Buddhism primarily with meditation, what it means for the book to be a sangha in written form, and what she’s learned from bell hooks about love as an action to end domination.

Ralph Steele is the founder and guiding teacher of Life Transition Meditation Center in Santa Fe, where he teaches somatic meditation and other practices geared toward supporting people through major life changes. Steele grew up on Pawleys Island, where he was raised by his grandparents after his father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. As a teenager he moved with his mother to Japan, where his exposure to martial arts sparked a lifelong fascination with practices of embodiment. Eventually, after serving in the Vietnam War, Steele ended up practicing meditation as a way of coping with trauma and addiction. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Steele to talk about his remarkable life story, including the dharma lessons he learned from his grandmother, Sister Mary, how meditation helped him learn to sit in the fire of pain, and how he adapts Buddhist teachings in the retreats he has been leading for veterans. Read more about Ralph Steele in his 1999 Tricycle article, “In the Lineage of Sister Mary.”

Brother Pháp Hữu is a senior teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s international community and the abbot of Plum Village in southwest France. In his new book, Calm in the Storm: Zen Ways to Cultivate Stability in an Anxious World, which he co-wrote with Jo Confino, he lays out a compassionate guide for coming home to ourselves and meeting the challenges of our time with greater presence and resilience. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Brother Pháp Hữu to discuss what it means to come home to the present moment, the forces that take us away from a sense of home, how we can let go of stories that no longer serve us, and how we can tap into a deeper sense of community and belonging. Plus, Brother Pháp Hữu leads a guided meditation.

Gil Fronsdal is a dharma teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, and at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. He has practiced extensively in the Soto Zen and Theravada Buddhist traditions, and he draws from both traditions in his framing of what he calls naturalistic Buddhism. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Fronsdal to discuss what he means by naturalistic Buddhism, how we can train ourselves in what we want to become, and how the practice of naturalistic Buddhism can help us become free.

Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder and guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He recently wrote an article called “Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions” that will be published on Tricycle’s website later this month. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Goldstein to discuss why he sees non-clinging as so central across Buddhist traditions, how dual and nondual awareness can complement and support each other, the dangers of becoming attached to emptiness, and how selflessness can offer a radically unique way of understanding ourselves and the world.

Jess Serrante is a climate activist, organizer, and longtime facilitator of the Work That Reconnects, a global movement and community created by the late environmental activist Joanna Macy, who passed away in July. Last year, Jess and Joanna produced a podcast together called We Are the Great Turning that explored Joanna’s teachings on cultivating courage and connection as we face the many crises of our time. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Jess to discuss Joanna’s life and legacy, why Joanna believed that we should always begin with gratitude, how we can work productively with anger and despair, what it means to bow to our pain, and how the Work That Reconnects can break us open—and break us free. Plus, Jess leads a guided meditation on connecting with our gratitude for the Earth.