Tricycle Talks

In this two-part Tricycle Talks episode, Tricycle’s web editor, Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, speaks with Acharya Fleet Maull at the Engaged Mindfulness Institute in Deerfield, Massachusetts, about his work, and why he’s moving beyond prisons to train the next generation of mindfulness teachers. Facing 30 years on a drug smuggling conviction, Maull viewed prison as his “monastery time,” devoting himself to practice and serving others.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, best-selling author Robert Wright speaks with Tricycle’s web editor, Wendy Joan Biddlecombe, about how evolutionary psychology supports what the Buddha taught us about suffering and not being satisfied in the present moment. In the talk, Wright explains why we haven’t evolved past difficult emotions such as anxiety and how mindfulness meditation can provide a way to work through—and maybe even free us from—them.

Shozan Jack Haubner, the pen name of a Zen monk, went to the monastery in search of wisdom—and left with a sex scandal. Haubner joins Tricycle’s executive editor Emma Varvaloucas in this podcast to discuss how writing helps him unravel the “big things” in life; the patterns of behavior commonly seen in communities where sexual abuse occurs between teacher and student; and his advice for any group that has a problem that’s been driven underground. “It’s alive,” he says, “and it’s calling for you to deal with it.”

We live in a world of fear. But need we be driven by it? In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Dr. Pilar Jennings, a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and psychotherapist, speaks with Michael Kinnamon, former Dean of the Lexington Theological Seminary and author of the The Witness of Religion in an Age of Fear, about the restlessness, anxiety, and even panic characteristic of contemporary society. Tune in to learn about the differences between healthy and unhealthy fear and the role that each of us can play in bringing peace to both ourselves and a fearful world.

Love isn’t just a feeling, says meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. It’s an ability. This ability to love is inherent in all beings, but it’s up to us whether we develop it or not. Listen in to our newest Tricycle Talks podcast for a conversation with Sharon, author of the just-released Real Love, about the keys for cultivating this innate, indestructible ability, which can help deepen and open up our relationships with everyone from our partner to a stranger on the street—not to mention ourselves.

“Anger is like electricity: it is just as powerful and just as useful, but only if you use it intelligently.” So told Mahatma Gandhi to his grandson Arun Gandhi, who lived with the political and spiritual giant on his ashram between the ages of 12 and 14. In our latest podcast, Tricycle's executive editor Emma Varvaloucas sits down with Arun to discuss the lessons that he’s learned from his grandfather about working with anger and cultivating peace.

A pioneer in end-of-life care, Frank Ostaseski brings his Buddhist practice—and a startlingly respectful compassion—to the bedsides of people who are face to face with dying. In his new book, The Five Invitations: What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, he has learned lessons that “are too important to be left to our final hours”: By turning away from death, he says, we also turn away from the preciousness of life and our ability to live fully. Ostaseski guides us through what is otherwise scary territory with kindness, warmth, wisdom and humor. As Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., writes in her exquisite introduction, “Death, like love, is intimate, and that intimacy is the condition of the deepest learning.” Contributing editor Amy Gross sits down for a conversation with Ostaseski about his work in our latest Tricycle Talk. Gross teaches mindfulness-based stress reduction at the Open Center in New York City. His lessons can help all of us—the sick and the well, the old and the young—live a life of bravery, intimacy, honesty, and ease, even alongside our fear of dying.

In the debut episode of Tricycle Talks, contributing editor Amy Gross speaks with practicing psychiatrist Mark Epstein on Buddhism and psychotherapy. Epstein emphasizes that there is dukkha (suffering) in every place at every time and that psychotherapeutic practices can help alleviate this suffering. Epstein's new book, The Trauma of Everyday Life, also explores this topic.

Tricycle contributing editor Amy Gross speaks with author Katy Butler about modern medicine's often misguided approach to end-of-life care. Butler's bestselling book, Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, chronicles the author's own experience of her father's slow decline following a devastating stroke. "There comes a point," Butler says, "when death becomes a blessing and living becomes a burden." In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Butler tells us what we need to know—and conversations we need to have—to make responsible medical decisions for ourselves and loved ones as we approach the end of life.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle's founding editor Helen Tworkov speaks with the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and writer Andrew Holecek about how to prepare for what he calls the “once in a lifetime opportunity” of death and dying. Holecek explains how the practices that ensure a peaceful death are vital to a well-lived life. His latest book is Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition.