"While everything is ultimately 'empty' of its own unchanging, essential nature, we still need conventional tools to alleviate the many kinds of afflictions plaguing us all." –William S. Waldron #DailyDharma tricycle.org/magazine/con...

Summer 2026 is out! I had the privilege of working on several spectacular pieces. This one by Holly Gayley and Somstsobum Khyung on contemporary Tibetan literature draws on a previous study they did on narratives about 'fake lamas'. Read the attached short story by Tsering Dondrup! Free Link

Meher McArthur wrote a review of this huge show at LACMA—Realm of the Dharma—and provided some little-known history on their Buddhist collection. The whole time I lived in LA, I had no idea. I knew the collection was good, but not this good. They should do this more often. FREE LINK

One of my duties at Tricycle is a premium newsletter called From The Academy, which briefly looks at a topic through a scholarly lens, providing links and suggested readings. One of the highlights of my mostly non-academic job. After a year, we've started publishing them online. Free Link

If you haven't read Sara Ann Swenson's recent book on Buddhist charity in urban Vietnam, you should. Tricycle will publish a review in the Fall issue, and here we present an except. Her book highlights LIVED Buddhism vs Buddhism as a practice, where giving and compassion are everything. Free Link

"In a rapidly developing and hyper-connected global culture, recognizing that the 'self' is just another mental construct can be transformative, helping cultivate an unbiased, bodhisattva-like compassion." – @fmr-h.bsky.social and Zim Pickens #DailyDharma tricycle.org/article/from...

I have been a huge Tarthang Tulku fan and reader since the 80s. One of the true masters who can skillfully deliver the dharma without falling back on it. Robin Caton from Dharma College channels her teacher just as skillfully in this excerpt from her new book 'The Undreamed Self'. Free link

A new volume on Meditation Sickness is out from University of Hawaii Press. Features a chapter by me on demonic states from Suramgama sutra. uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/medita...

Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas was a world-renowned thinker on modernity and democracy who helped shape German post-war and post-reunification political discourse. n.pr/3Nptb1g

Bhikkhu Anālayo discusses the earliest layers of the Mahayana prajnaparamita and agama literature and sees more similarities than differences with the Mainstream traditions in a recent interview by Randy Rosenthal for Tricycle @tricyclemag.bsky.social Free Link

Jin Park strips karma down to agency — and the argument cuts. Moral bookkeeping makes Buddhism an alibi for injustice. Korean nuns Iryŏp and Daehaeng knew better: the empty self owes no debt to fatalism. What remains is unhedged engagement, against whatever holds you inert. Free Link

An interesting article on transgender Thai renunciant Ajarn Tritrinn and the community growing around her. Her selfless and compassionate devotion in the face of doubters is touching. Free Link

Tricycle @tricyclemag.bsky.social is now on Substack. You can read original articles and selections from our archive. I wrote a personal reflection on a Linda Heuman article about the futility of looking for an 'original' Buddhism, since, as even the Buddha tought—everything changes.

Tibetan writer Bhuchung Sonam reviews Tsering Döndrup's 'The Red Wind Howels'— banned in China—and recently translated by Christopher Peacock on @columbiaup.bsky.social Sonam provides a moving review for a book that defied limitations and made it ways through the Tibetan diaspora. Free Link

How does Buddhism grapple with Santa Claus? Writer Wendy Biddlecombe Agsar explores the delicate balance between truthfulness and holiday magic—asking whether it’s okay to tell a well-intentioned lie in the spirit of Santa.

Tricycle's editors are reading books on Japanese poetry, transforming our emotions, and koan practice in everyday life. Click the link below to see what books have caught their attention lately.

This recent article by Bikash Bhattacharya has become my last-minute favorite of 2025. Hajo is a sacred site once central to Bhutanese and Tibetan devotion that now survives mostly in memory as borders, routes, and generations change. Bhattacharya offers voices from this lived tradition. Free Link

In 1950s New York, Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki’s lectures brought artists like John Cage and Erich Fromm into conversation about Buddhist thought. Learn more about the talks that inspired a generation of Western thinkers in the link below.

Happy Thankgiving!

An excellent reminder during holiday times with family members you don't see eye-to-eye with, Emma Varvaloucas talks with John Wood and Monica Guzman about practicing meaningful dialogue. It's not easy when our fundamental moral positions are challenged by family. Free Link

Tommy Tran offers a brief biography of the 7th-century Korean Buddhist monk Wonhyo and his method of harmonizing doctrinal disputes. "No single doctrine was complete, but each revealed a facet of truth," Tran says, "Wonhyo emphasized the merits and limits of every perspective." Free Link

My latest interview with Australian Tendai priest Jikai Tyler Dehn. Jikai is dedicated to translating all the works of Tendai founder Saicho into English. Check him out on YouTube or his website. His dedication to the dharma is inspiring. Free Link tricycle.org/magazine/ten...

At Tricycle, we really appreciate Nikki Mirghafori's sobering clarity on AI and what the future holds. She recently talked to James Shaheen for a premium subscriber special event. Here, she talks with Steve Omohundro for Tricycle on AI, karma, and our robot future. Accessible Link

He’s one of the loudest voices of the AI haters—even as he does PR for AI companies. Either way, Ed Zitron has your attention.

A wonderful reflection by dharma teacher and pilgrimage leader Shantum Seth on his first time visiting India's historic Buddhist pilgrimage sites with Thich Nhat Hanh, adapted from the latest posthumous book by TNH called Touching Peace on Parallax Press.

Japan, ostensibly one of the least religious countries in the world, had its political order upended by the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai. That is THE story about Friday's epochal shift in Japanese politics (thread follows):

The Berenike Buddha—a 2nd-c CE marble statue in Egypt—is the earliest Buddha image found west of Afghanistan. M. D. Usher suggests that early Buddhist communities may have been in Roman Egypt long before modern notions of “Western Buddhism.” Accessible Link

Legal scholar Benjamin Schonthal explains the recent ruling in Sri Lanka on Bhikkhuni ordination and its implications. I must admit, I underestimated the importance of the ruling, since it didn't require the Nikayas to accept anything. We will have to wait and see how this unfolds. Free Link

A new book on #Shinto and famous #Kokugaku scholar Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776-1843) has just been published open access and free for download by the preeminent historian Dr. Ann Walthall! You can check it out here: www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

America’s democratic system depends on the public’s understanding that law is bigger than politics, @davidfrum.bsky.social argues. But now, Trump is sending a clear message that he is willing to go after his enemies and undermine that system.

Randy Rosenthal reviews a new book of unpublished writings by Jack Kerouac, a powerful force in popularizing Buddhism in the West. Rosenthal says, "We see him as an earnest fellow seeker, trying to incorporate his newfound wisdom into his art." Accessible Link

Stanford PhD Candidate Nancy Chu reviews a new book by Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Chengpang Lee. The book tells the story of Tzu Chi and the Buddhist nun behind one of the world’s most significant humanitarian movements. Accessible Link

A timely article by SOAS PhD candidate Conan Cheong on the recent sale of the Piprahwa relics to an Indian conglomerate. The Sotheby's debacle, when they tried and failed to auction them to the highest bidder, raises important questions on custodianship of sacred objects. Accessible Link

Franz Metcalf @franzmetcalf.bsky.social reviews Natasha Heller's @nlheller.bsky.social new book on Buddhist picture books for children. "These books become the material form of modern family Buddhism, giving rise to new practices rooted not in the temple but in the home." Accessible Link

Scholar C Pierce Salguero provides a brief introduction to Mahayana medicine. One of my first experiences with medicine in Korea was being bloodlet by a nun to take out bad qi making me sick. That finger poke sure rid me of nausea. Still not sure about the qi. Accessible Link

Joanna Macy has died. For more than half a century, scholar, Buddhist, ecologist, and “awake activist” Joanna Macy, PhD, worked tirelessly for personal, social, and planetary transformation. Accessible Link

Tricycle appreciates Amy Langenberg's @amyparis.bsky.social report from the 2025 Sakyadhita Conference in Malaysia. This conference brings together monastics, academics, and laypeople to address issues facing Buddhist women. Without Buddhist women, there would be no Buddhism. Accessible link

Jas Elsner's book on Amaravati hints at the early dawn of Mahayana, pushing it back to the very foundations of Buddhism. Curator Tushara Bindu Gude reviews this dense read and gets to the heart of Elsner's important findings. Accessible Link

Anderson Cooper @andersoncooper4.bsky.social talks with Ann Tashi Slater @anntashislater.bsky.social about the precariousness of life and the questions he still wrestles with today. Accessible Link

Ever wanted to talk about #Buddhism and #Money (or personal #finance), but didn't know where to start? Here's your chance, the first of a series by @maiaduerr.bsky.social , author of "Work That Matters: Create a Livelihood that Reflects Your Core Intention." www.buddhistdoor.net/features/the...

Ben Van Overmeire @zenmirrors.bsky.social explores how reading and writing have long guided seekers toward the Chan threshold to awakening. "If we let go of our attachment to words and letters, and instead let them point, amazing things can happen when we read and write." Accessible Link

"Enlightenment is knowing that there is no absolute self that exists apart from the self that has defilements, delusions, and worries right now." Daehaeng was one of the most respected masters in modern Korean history. I love seeing her smile gracing Tricycle. Accessible Link

A 2016 interview by Mary Talbot with scholar Shayne Clarke on the messiness of monastic life as glimpsed through the Vinaya. You don't make a rule because something happens once. The Vinaya stories behind the rules never fail to be an eye-opening read. Accessible Link

An adaptation of an article by @hannahgould.bsky.social and @manigarm.bsky.social "Robots are gods of our own making, and when Buddhists, with all their human failings, fill the gaps of ritual failure with technology, they also reproduce the things they mean to transcend." Accessible link

If you're interested in Buddhist philosophy, check out this book on Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), the founder of the Tibetan Buddhist Gelukpa. Edited by David B. Gray, introduction by Donald S. Lopez Jr. Review by Justin Whitaker @justinwhitaker.bsky.social Accessible link

Writer An Tran @an-tran.bsky.social explores the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition of Dual Cultivation—the bringing together of the Pure Land tradition and the Chan-Thien meditation school. Another example of the importance of the Pure Land in East Asian Buddhism. Accessible link

Once we translate the whole Buddhist canon into English, what then? Do we read it—or just wear it on a flash drive amulet for its magically meritorious qualities? Scholar Donald Lopez asks if the AI future of sutra translation ends in awakening or apocrypha. Accessible Link

The eccentric Japanese poet Ryokan skipped temple promotions to drink with farmers, write poems in the dirt, and stretch out in the rain. Myozan Ian Kilroy channels that spirit: Zen contentment isn’t passive—it’s refusal. Don’t optimize. Just sit. #buddhism #contentment Accessible link