Category Tricycle’s Daily Dharma

Karma teaches us that every action that we take has a very pow­erful impact. It also reminds us that the state of consciousness in which we live has a long-term impact on our own life as well as on the…

Right effort is effort with wisdom. Because where there is wisdom, there is interest. The desire to know something is wisdom at work. Being mindful is not difficult. But it’s difficult to be continuously aware. For that you need right…

Because we imagine anger is never a good thing, it is easy to think we should practice simply not being angry. But that approach is too general and abstract. It’s important for each of us to be precise, to be…

Generosity takes many forms—we may give our time, our energy, our material possessions, our love. All are expressions of caring, of compassion, of connection, and of renunciation—the ability to let go. The beauty of generosity is that it not only…

“To bear disgrace and insult” is the most important virtue a person can possibly cultivate, because the ability to forbear is enormously powerful, since a moment of anger can destroy an entire lifetime of merits. –Master Hsing Yun, from “Don’t…

If ‘mindfulness’ is to create genuine change in our society, it must involve being mindful of more than just our own need for comfort, good health, or serenity. It must entail being mindful of the social and economic forces that…

When we first sit down to meditate—and later when we return to the cushion—we can immediately recognize that we are not starting with a clean slate. Whatever the previous day, week, month, year, decade have brought—it is immediately clear that…

The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the air we breathe have all arisen interdependently. We cannot survive alone. We cannot eat, wear clothes, or breathe alone. The more keenly we are aware of this, the more we will…

You should train yourself: Even though I may be sick in body, my mind will be free of sickness. That’s how you should train yourself…. And how is one sick in body but not sick in mind? There is the…

One of the images used in some Tibetan texts is that of water and ice. Water is used as an image for the awareness that is the nature of mind (although as an image water is still too much of…