The Tibetan Vajrayana tradition is a rich and enigmatic collection of texts, practices, and rituals. Featuring many secret teachings and advanced tantric techniques, vajrayana is often as elusive to seasoned practitioners as it is to beginners. 

What are the four boundless states and how do we practice with them?

Within the Buddhist tradition, the four boundless states—boundless love, boundless compassion, boundless joyfulness, and boundless equanimity—offer a meaningful framework for grappling with struggles many of us face regularly: emotional wounds, ingrained patterns of constriction, and trouble engaging with openness and curiosity.

In this free hour-long virtual event, Buddhist meditation teacher Scott Tusa will provide an introduction to these states as a preview to his series of dharma talks and meditations for January’s Meditation Month challenge. During the free event and Meditation Month, Scott will explore how each of these states, with its inherent quality of boundlessness, can open new and meaningful pathways for transformation. There will be time for Q&A at the end of the session.

We’re glad to offer this event free of charge. If you’d like to support it with a donation, click here.

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Immerse yourself in Tibetan Buddhism on the rooftop of the world during an all-inclusive, small-group journey to Ladakh, India. We’ll use the Indus River Valley as our home base on this Himalayan pilgrimage in ‘Little Tibet.’ We’ll be offering two trips, from May 15-27 and June 1-13, 2024.

With the expert guidance of teacher Megan Mook and RetreaTours owners BJ Graf & Lauren Rathvon, Tricycle pilgrims will explore the “Land of High Passes,” nestled on the Tibetan Plateau. Although part of India, Ladakh provides one of the last glimpses into traditional Tibetan culture available in the world. We’ll spend 4 nights along the Indus River in Uleytokpo and 7 nights at the base of iconic Thiksey Monastery, often referred to as “Mini Potala Palace.” We’ll visit monasteries from all major school of Tibetan Buddhism and engage with Ladakhi monks along the way.

In addition to visiting these sites, Mook will lead daily discussion, meditation, and weave an insightful narrative for synthesizing your experiences. There will be downtime for personal practice, relaxation, and connecting with your fellow pilgrims.

Sustainability is our priority. RetreaTours is officially a Carbonfree® Partner with Carbonfund.org. Their “carbon negative” commitment means that throughout every step of the pilgrimage, RetreaTours offsets more carbon than is produced, making this trip as sustainable as it will be memorable.

Space is limited! Learn more here.

To learn about other upcoming pilgrimages, visit retreatours.com/tricycle/

Are you looking to deepen your meditation practice through the breath? The Buddha taught instructions for utilizing the breath as a tool for transformation, offering an accessible and practical method that you can use day-to-day.

In this free hour-long online meditation workshop, Buddhist teacher and author Will Johnson will guide you through the Buddha’s opening instructions in the Satipatthana Sutta to “remain aware of breath as you breathe in and out” onto his culminating instruction to “breathe through the whole body.”

Learning how to breathe through your whole body, rather than simply remaining aware of its passage, transforms your meditation into a potent somatic practice of awakening the body and liberating the breath.

Will Johnson is a teacher of sitting meditation and the author of fifteen books about the role of the body in spiritual practices. His teachings on sitting with ease, vibrancy, and grace are available in the Tricycle Online Course, The Posture of Meditation. Learn more about his offerings at www.embodiment.net.

This is a donation-based event. Click here to make a donation.

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Browse Tricycle’s content here to learn more about somatic meditation.

We might often feel alone, cut off, trapped in our own constricted mind states, or defined by the circumstances of our lives. But depending on how we approach these difficulties, they can steer us onto a path toward a more authentic, flourishing life — living in a way that allows us to find the wholeness that lies within.

Our words, hearts, and actions can line up with a larger vision, rather than the smaller views our anxious, fearful thoughts arouse in us. With compassion, we see we can open to suffering — our own and others’ — without getting engulfed by it, and we also remember to take in the joy.  We can come to see that loving presence is the most healing force of all.

Sharon Salzberg’s newest book, Real Life: The Journey From Isolation to Openness and Freedom, offers us a road map to step forward on our own path to freedom. To find our way, Salzberg encourages us to find out what’s most important to us, to ask ourselves, “What do I most deeply yearn for?” “What would I benefit from letting go of?” “What do I believe is possible for me?”

Join us on October 2 for a free virtual conversation with Sharon and Buddhist scholar and teacher Megan Mook about how we can prepare for and embark on a journey to freedom and openness – what we’ll need, what we’ll leave behind, and how we can connect with a greater sense of community. In this hour-long conversation, they will explore with us the ways in which we can begin to open to our own greatest potential.

This is a donation-based event. Click here to make a donation.

Sign up for the event here.

Immerse yourself in the cultural and spiritual heritage of the “Island of Gems” next January on this 12-day pilgrimage to Sri Lanka. A country of ancient archeological sites and breathtaking beauty, Sri Lanka has one of the world’s oldest and deepest Buddhist traditions.

This triple-carbon-offset pilgrimage is coming up January 4-15, 2024. Joined by Buddhist scholar and teacher Andrew Olendzki, we’ll explore historic Buddhist temples and ruins, soak up the beauty of the region’s rich forests and national parks, and integrate Buddhist study.

“Our visit to the beautiful island of Sri Lanka will be an integrated study and practice experience,” says Olendzki. “We will be learning about how the classical Buddhist teachings made their way to Sri Lanka from India during the time of King Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, and how the island welcomed and nurtured the early tradition as the winds of change and innovation swept across North India. Many of the sites we visit are important landmarks in the process of transmission, and we will refer to the ancient chronicles of these events as we tour the island.”

In addition to daily sessions with Olendzki, we’ll be accompanied by Phil Ryan, executive editor of Tricycle; Sri Lankan expert Chandima Wanasinghe; and RetreaTours owners BJ Graf and Lauren Rathvon.

Sustainability is our priority. RetreaTours is officially a Carbonfree® Partner with Carbonfund.org. Their “carbon negative” commitment means that throughout every step of the pilgrimage, RetreaTours offsets more carbon than is produced, making this trip as sustainable as it will be memorable.

Space is limited! Learn more here.

To learn about other upcoming pilgrimages, visit retreatours.com/tricycle/

The Chan practice of Silent Illumination is a “method of no-method,” offering a simple and subtle way of penetrating the mind through curious inquiry.

Join us on November 28 at 3:30 P.M. ET for a conversation with Dr. Rebecca Li, a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. In conversation with Tricycle’s Executive Editor Phil Ryan, Li will offer insight into this “method of no-method” described in her new book, Illumination. She will lead us in a guided meditation, then discuss her own journey to the dharma, beginning with her root teacher Master Sheng Yen, and how her own teaching has changed in the era of Zoom.

Li’s teaching will show that we all can remain fully in the present moment, free from the unhelpful habit of suffering, and realize that this moment is perfect as it is and there is nothing missing.

You can read Li’s latest Tricycle article, Translating Silence, here.

This event is free for Tricycle Premium subscribers and $10 for general admission. Subscribe to Premium or upgrade your existing subscription for free access.

Juneteenth is an important federal holiday in the United States, a date celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. But there is so much more that we can reflect on and unpack within that meaning. What is the significance of Juneteenth from a dharma perspective?

“Everyone can practice with and reflect on Juneteenth as a part of their liberation from the effects of enslavement, including waking up to the aspects of their lives that are impacted by the power, oppression, and privilege dynamics that are residuals of the enslavement of African heritage people,” writes Dr. Kamilah Majied in her forthcoming book Joyfully Just, Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living. “We can practice with Juneteenth as a portal to reclamation of connection and authentic living in the truths of our shared existence.”

In this hour-long conversation with Tricycle’s Associate Web Editor Amanda Lim Patton, Buddhist mental health therapist, professor of social work, and inclusivity and equity consultant Kamilah will join us to explore how the residuals of slavery in this country and globally compromise our experience of and insight into interdependence. During the conversation, Kamilah will discuss the significance of Juneteenth; what Buddhism says about emancipation, liberation, and freedom; the parallels between Buddhism and Black wisdom traditions; healing the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma and finding inner freedom; and more. 

The pre-recorded conversation will be made available to all registrants on June 19 at 10 a.m. ET.

Tricycle is glad to offer this event free of charge. Click here to make a donation.

The Tibetan lojong, or “mind training,” teachings were once kept secret and only practiced by few. Now, these powerful and sacred teachings are widely available—and they can be an immense support to our practice and our everyday lives.

A central aspect of the lojong teachings are the 59 mind training slogans of Atisha, the 10th century Buddhist master, which serve as the basis for a complete practice. These slogans are a set of pithy phrases intended to support the practitioner in overcoming egoic tendencies and cultivating awareness and compassion. They also support us in utilizing the difficulties and challenges we face in our day-to-day lives as an opportunity to awaken. 

Join us on July 28 at 4-5 pm ET for an exploration and demonstration of lojong slogan practice with Acharya Judy Lief, a teacher in the Shambhala tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Lief is the editor of Chögyam Trungpa’s Training the Mind, which contains Rinpoche’s commentaries on the lojong teachings. In this hour-long virtual event, Lief will offer an introduction to lojong practice, walk us through several of the 59 slogans, and take questions from the audience. 

This event is free for Tricycle Premium subscribers and $10 for general admission. Subscribe to Premium or upgrade your existing subscription for free access.