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Jan 3, 2025 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Mindfulness means the ability to keep something in mind. On the Buddhist path, it functions in three ways: remembering to stay alert to what you’re doing in the present moment; remembering to recognize the skillful and unskillful qualities that arise in the mind; and remembering how to effectively abandon the qualities that get in the way of concentration, then developing the skillful ones that promote it.
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The following excerpt was taken from a tape-recorded talk given to one of Ajaan Fuang’s students who had reached an impasse in her meditation. Once the mind is firmly established in the breath, you then try to separate the mind from its object—from the breath itself. Focus on this: The breath is an element, part of the wind element. Awareness of the breath is something else. So you’ve got two things that have come together.
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Nov 28, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
We meditate to find happiness, but we have to bring some happiness to the meditation first if we want to get results. This is why the Buddha’s training doesn’t start with meditating. It starts with generosity. You learn how to be happy through giving.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Adapted from a talk given to a group of Buddhist students in Singapore as part of a series devoted to the topic of determination, held for the three months of vassa.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The following excerpt is from a conversation that took place at Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1989 between Ajaan Suwat Suvavo and one of the retreatants. I understand that Tibetan monks use visualization when they meditate. Have you ever used visualization in your meditation? Visualization of what? I’m not really sure. Maybe of the unattractiveness of the body? Visualization, if it’s done in the proper way, can be useful.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Years ago, after the 9/11 attacks, there was a Buddhist teacher who said that the attacks had burst his “complacent Buddhist bubble.” That’s a contradiction in terms: “complacent” and “Buddhist.” After all, the Buddha said that all skillful qualities come from heedfulness, and heedfulness means having a very strong sense of danger. There are dangers in the world. There are dangers in your own mind.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu |Walton Ford |Andy Karr |Tenzin Tsagong
Walton Ford is an American painter who uses watercolors to create large-scale paintings influenced by the style of John James Audubon and other artists from the Naturalist Illustration Movement.
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Aug 10, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
On “Making Friends with the Night” by Noelle Oxenhandler, Spring 2024:Thank you, Tricycle, for Noelle Oxenhandler’s lovely article on embracing one’s insomnia. For many years, I have explained my middle-of-the-night wakefulness as “bad sleep habits.” Over my career, lack of sleep affected my abilities, and I had noticeable physical symptoms apart from simple tiredness.
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Jul 30, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
“Knowing the dhamma” means knowing the truth. Where does the dhamma lie? Not far off at all. Where are rupa-dhammas (physical phenomena)? Are there any physical phenomena within us? Are any nama-dhammas (mental phenomena) within us? They’re both within us, but we don’t know how to read them, to decipher them, because we haven’t yet studied them. Or even when we have tried to study them, we still can’t decipher them in line with the standards set by the Buddha.
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May 11, 2024 | 
tricycle.org | Thanissaro Bhikkhu
You may know the story of Angulimala, the bandit who had killed many people and wore a garland (mala) made of their fingers (anguli). After a dramatic encounter with the Buddha, he had such an extreme change of heart that he abandoned his violent ways, awakened a sense of compassion, and eventually gained total release. The story is a popular one because most of us like to identify with Angulimala: if he could gain awakening, then there’s hope for us all.
