If your mind wanders here and there, you must be more mindful. In Pali this is called yoniso manasikara, which can be translated into English as “attend to the root.” You must always learn to go to the root (yoni). The Buddha gave a meaningful simile regarding this starting place for all that is. If you threw a stick or rock, a dog would likely run after it. That dog would either bite it or bring it back to you. A lion would not run after the stick or the rock. He or she would run after you instead! The lion goes to the root, while the dog runs away from it. Unmindful people go after sensory objects and get bewildered. Those who are mindful, on the other hand, want to find the root of the entire process.

♦

From Impermanence in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana and Julia Harris (Wisdom, 2023). Reprinted with permission.

The post The Dog and the Lion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

I have found a simple image from one of my teachers hugely helpful: “The mind will get filled with qualities like mindfulness or lovingkindness moment by moment—just the way a bucket gets filled with water drop by drop.” As soon as that image appeared in my mind’s eye, I clearly saw two powerful tendencies. One was to stand by the bucket lost in fantasy about how utterly exciting and wonderful it would be when the bucket was filled, and while lost in the glories of my someday enlightenment, I am neglecting to add the next drop. The other tendency, equally strong, was to stand by the bucket in despair at how empty it was and how much more there was to go—once again not having the patience, humility, and good sense to add one drop exactly in that moment.

Because I’ve used this image in my teaching, I’ve heard variations on my own fantasies. Often people come to me and say “I tend to completely overlook my own bucket to peer into someone else’s to see how well they’re doing. Is theirs fuller than mine? Is it emptier? What’s going on over there?” 

Comparison is disempowering. It dissociates us from our own potential. 

Often people say “I think my bucket has a leak.” My response: “These buckets don’t leak.” 

Mindfulness and lovingkindness are not objects we can either have or not have. We can never lose them. We may lose touch with these qualities of heart, but right here and now we can recover them. It is each moment of recovery that adds a drop to the bucket. In every single moment, regardless of what is happening, we can be mindful, we can be compassionate. In an instant, the mind can touch these qualities again, come to know them again. In that sense, the bucket is completely full with every drop. 

Excerpted from Finding Your Way: Meditations, Thoughts, and Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life by Sharon Salzberg (Workman Publishing) © 2023.

The post Drop by Drop appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

We must learn to speak with love again. This is a thing that can be done in a practice community where brothers and sisters practice loving speech every day. There are pacifists who can write protest letters of great condemnation but who are incapable of writing a love letter. You have to write in such a way that the other person is receptive toward reading; you have to speak in such a way that the other person is receptive toward listening. If you do not, it is not worth the trouble to write or to speak. To write in such a way is to practice meditation.

♦

From True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh © 1997 by Éditions Terre du Ciel and Unified Buddhist Church, Inc. Translation © 2004 by Shambhala Publications. This edition published in 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

The post Speaking with Love appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

To access wonder, find ways to be naturally mindful and curious. Pay complete attention, like a child observing a butterfly for the first time. This requires humility. You must be willing to become fully absorbed in the present, setting aside ideas about what you know and what will come. Intellectual analysis, comparison, and craving corrode wonder. They block your capacity for connecting with the raw experience of the moment—be it marveling at the morning light glinting off tile, the aroma of a cup of hot coffee, the voice of an old friend, or the hummingbird sipping from a summer flower.

♦

From Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love by Oren Jay Sofer © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

The post No Wonder Without Humility appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When you have deeply contemplated the patterns of your own life and made a commitment to self-care, your vision will naturally expand to include the suffering of others. You can say with real conviction, “I am not the only one. My parents, my loved ones and friends, cannot go through a single day without experiencing pain and regret, fear and longing. The same is true of every being all over the world.” Look around you with caring eyes, and you will see the countless ways that people suffer, how they sacrifice their present joy in hope of future happiness. Instead of turning away, trace out these patterns in the lives of those you know. Take your time: let it be real. Then imagine the same patterns at work in every corner of the world, from the beginning of human history.

♦

Excerpted from Gesture of Great Love: Light of Liberation by Tarthang Tulku (Dharma Publishing, 2022).

The post Caring Eyes appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The Buddha offered us this teaching on patience: If you put a handful of salt in a small bowl of water, it will be too salty to drink. But if you pour it into a river, the river can accept it without harm and flow on. If we are small-minded and shut off from others, a small word can enrage us, because we are trapped in a small prison of defended self-interest. But if we can widen our hearts and think bigger, if we have compassion and understanding for the suffering of others, we aren’t so easily harmed by them. We can widen our circle of patience and compassion, even for those with whom we might be in conflict.

♦

From The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction by Laura Burges © 2023 by Laura Burges. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

The post River of Patience appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The early meditators classified concentration into two phases, and this analysis is very helpful. The first phase is called vitaka, and the second, vicara. Vitaka is the faculty of mind that enables us to pay attention to something; that is to say, to advert our attention—to move it toward something. Indeed, that is where the word advertising comes from. Advertising makes you advert your attention, capturing it. So vitaka is the ability to focus on something deliberately. This is a bit like our normal understanding of concentration, except it is slightly more technical. The second phase is vicara. Vicara is the ability to savor the object you have adverted to. So it’s a bit like you take a piece of chocolate and you put it in your mouth, and the initial reaction is “Oh, it’s chocolate!” That’s vitaka. Vicara is to then taste the chocolate, to enjoy the experience.

♦

Excerpted from the book Three Minutes a Day: A Fourteen Week Course to Learn Meditation and Transform Your Life  © 2023 by Richard Dixey, PhD.  Printed with permission from New World Library — www.newworldlibrary.com.

The post The Two Phases of Concentration appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Although E. M. Forster could hardly have intended that the epigraph to his novel Howards End—“Only connect”—serve as a two-word distillation of the Buddha’s teachings, it certainly is a good, and timely, one. To connect across the differences that divide us; to connect by building bonds of affection, understanding, and support; to connect in the recognition that we and all things are inextricably, well, connected—in our age of accelerated travel and instant communication, doesn’t this simple phrase offer us a promising touchstone for Buddhist practice? Is not connection with others one of the surest ways to loosen the bonds of self-concern and to find one’s best way to act in the world? It is, as well, a wonderfully economical description of the basis, the means, and the fruit of spiritual life. Our differences do indeed matter, but they don’t matter as much as this: Only connect and, in Forster’s words, “Live in fragments no longer.”

The post Only Connect appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the beginning, practice seems to be a matter of personal will, but along the way, it clearly becomes the will of the Dharma. There are limits to your own personal will—from the outset you decide how much you can do, how far you can go, how much strength you have, and you restrict yourself. And in restricting yourself, you start out in your practice already defeated even while you are practicing something which is unrestricted and limitless. The real way to start in practice is by dropping off body and mind. Let go from the beginning. . . . Cast off body and mind; forget about them; throw yourself into the house of Buddha and everything is done by Buddha. 

♦

From Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha: The Life & Zen Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi by Tangen Harada, translated by Belenda Attaway Yamakawa and edited by Kogen Czarnik. Translation © 2012 by Belenda Attaway Yamakawa. Edited and revised translation © 2023 by Piotr Czarnik. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

The post The Will of the Dharma appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The first and fourth noble truths are the same coin. Suffering is not an obstacle to a meaningful life. On the contrary, suffering can help you understand the world, and attachment to happiness can be an obstacle. If we hold on tightly to what we have, our curiosity may not be ignited. Suffering shakes us up. It makes us look again and engenders reevaluation. To get through difficulties, we have to wake up, and we can learn a lot in the process. When we are forced to move beyond the confines of our circumscribed life, we touch reality more deeply and long only for meaning.

♦

From Happiness Is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment by Cuong Lu © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement by Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boulder, CO.

The post Meaningful Suffering appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.