Tricycle Daily Dharma

The Reward of Practice

As you bring alignment, relaxation, and resilience into your daily life, your breath automatically becomes fuller and starts moving through your entire body, just as the Buddha suggested in his description of meditation. Without forcing a thing, let your breath breathe you: breathe into your entire body, and breathe out just as effortlessly. This condition, nothing more, nothing less, is really the reward and benefit of the practice. - Will Johnson, Full Body, Empty Mind

Transcending our own Views

If we take something to be the truth, we may cling to it so much that even if the truth comes and knocks at our door, we won't want to let it in. We have to be able to transcend our previous knowledge the way we climb up a ladder. If we are on the fifth rung and think that we are very high, there is no hope for us to step up to the sixth. We must learn to transcend our own views. - Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart Sutra

The Possibility of Transformation

Only because of emptiness can things change and flow. Emptiness is not a vacuum, a black hole, but the possibility of endless transformations. There is no more grasping, or self-created barriers and limitations. The Buddha-nature can shine through and express itself fully. - Martine Batchelor, The Ten Oxherding Pictures

Deeper into Practice

Many people are doing shamata meditation. This is a kind of resting meditation, also called 'calm abiding.' This is good, but in Buddhist training you must go deeper than this. It is important to go deeper into emptinessnot nothingness, but into understanding emptiness as the nature of mind. This is where wisdom and compassion come from. - Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, "Trust Through Reason"

Understanding and Respect

Learning about other faiths helps us to understand, and to live side by side with, differing views and belief systems. To remain in one tradition without absorbing the benefits of the others seems disrespectful to the gifts that the Buddha passed down to us. Only through mutual understanding and respect can we successfully implement what the Buddha taught. - Scott Hunt, Scott Hunts Seaworthy Dream In Two Parts

Unraveling Desire
The truth is that we like our preferences and prejudices, we like defining ourselves in terms of what we like and dont like. It is precisely desires entanglement with the sense of self that makes this all so difficult to unravel. Fortunately, there is a relatively easy and accessible way to counter the powerful forces of desire: the cultivation of equanimity. Every moment of mindfulness is also a moment of equanimity. - Andrew Olendzki, "The Buddha's Smile"

Mature Wisdom
The test of how far your wisdom has matured lies in the strategic skill with which you can keep yourself from doing things that you like to do but that would cause long-term harm, and the skill with which you can talk yourself into doing things that you dont like to do but that would lead to long-term well-being and happiness. In other words, mature wisdom requires a mature ego. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Hang On to Your Ego

The Simple Act of Attention

Empathy naturally leads to compassionate action. But simple inattention kills empathy, let alone compassion. So the first step in compassion is to notice the other's need. It all begins with the simple act of attention. - Daniel Goleman, I Feel Your Brain

Developing Determination
When you admit to yourself, 'I must make this change to be more happy'not because the Buddha said so, but because your heart recognized a deep truthyou must devote all your energy to making the change. You need strong determination to overcome harmful habits. But the payoff is happiness not just for today but for always. - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Getting Started

What Meditation Tells Us

Meditation practice helps us relinquish old, painful habits; it challenges our assumptions about whether or not we deserve happiness. (We do, it tells us emphatically.) It also ignites a very potent energy in us. With a strong foundation in how to practice meditation, we can begin to live in a way that enables us to respect ourselves, to be calm rather than anxious, and to offer caring attention to others instead of being held back by notions of separation. - Sharon Salzberg, Sticking with It

Investing in Practice
It is essential at the beginning of practice to acknowledge that the path is personal and intimate. It is no good to examine it from a distance as if it were someone elses. You must walk it for yourself. In this spirit, you invest yourself in your practice, confident of your heritage, and train earnestly side by side with your sisters and brothers. It is this engagement that brings peace and realization. - Robert Aitken Roshi, The Teacher in Everything

No Time to Waste
This precious human body, supreme instrument though it is for the attainment of enlightenment, is itself a transient phenomenon. No one knows when, or how, death will come. Bubbles form on the surface of the water, but the next instant they are gone, they do not stay. It is just the same with this precious human body we have managed to find. We take all the time in the world before engaging in the practice, but who knows when this life of ours will simply cease to be? - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, A City of Dreams

Outside the Story

Our lives are meaningless if we take meaning for a coherent narrative plot of some sort. When we strain to make our lives otherwise, we're merely telling ourselves a story. You and I don't manifest in the universe as meaning, we manifest as living human beings. We're not here to represent something else. We're here in our own right. - Lin Jensen, Wash Your Bowl

Our Shared Awakening

Nothing is separate and alone. This is how things are. This is compassion, not merely an extra something one of us feels for another, but existence itself. Being is by its nature sharing and loving. And we realize this not as a concept or a method we can work at and finally grasp, but as a truth that we perceive through our mutual recognition, our mutual shared awakening. - Norman Fischer, "Revealing a World of Bliss"

Spiraling Toward Freedom

Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. Theres less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing whats happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom. - Tara Brach, "Finding True Refuge"

Noticing What is There

It is inevitable that one will discern unwholesome qualities of mind when one looks openly on what is actually occurring in experience. As many people remark, meditation can be a most humbling experience. But there is never any blame for simply noticing what is there. When something unwholesome is seen in oneself, the determination to change it will arise in proportion to one's understanding. - Andrew Olendzki, Changing Your Mind

Set Free by Truth

In our nonlucid dreams, we are mired down in the illusion that we are awake, and we suffer by grasping onto everything in the dream as being absolutely "out there." In the same way, we are afflicted during the day by regarding ourselves and everything around us as being separate and disconnected. Imagine the bliss of becoming lucid at all times, perceiving all things as luminous displays of the deepest dimension of our own awareness. This is the truth that sets us free. - B. Alan Wallace, Awakening to the Dream

Valentine's Day Lovingkindness

The practice of lovingkindness is, at a certain level, the fruition of all we work toward in our meditation. It relies on our ability to open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, not cutting off the painful parts, and not trying to pretend things are other than they are. Just as spiritual growth grinds to a halt when we indulge our tendency to grasp and cling, metta cant thrive in an environment that is bound to desire or to getting our expectations met. - Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, "Commit to Sit: Metta"

Every Waking Moment

As the present moment can be found any moment, every waking moment can be made a concentrated moment. - Henepola Gunaratana, "Sitting Still"

Practice is Planting Seeds

When you plant seeds in the garden, you dont dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time. Similarly, just do your daily practice and cultivate a kind heart. Abandon impatience and instead be content creating the causes for goodness; the results will come when theyre ready. - Thubten Chodron, Meditators Toolbox

A Foundation of Presence
Through mindfulness, we develop greater composure and a heightened sensitivity to nonverbal communication. Then, to the extent that we ourselves are present, we can radiate that same quality outward to the people around us. It is hard to be generous, disciplined, or patient if we are not fully present. If we are present and attentive, and our mind is flexible, we are more receptive to the environment around us. - Judy Lief, On the Contagious Power of Presence

The Purpose of Mindfulness

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if were heading toward an unhealthy path, and if so, let go and change directions. - Sharon Salzberg, "Mindfulness and Difficult Emotions"

Learning to Let Go
Letting go of fixation is effectively a process of learning to be free, because every time we let go of something, we become free of it. Whatever we fixate upon limits us because fixation makes us dependent upon something other than ourselves. Each time we let go of something, we experience another level of freedom. - Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, "Letting Go of Spiritual Experience"

Helping All Beings

If hungry people come, give them food. If thirsty people come, give water. If suffering people come, help them. That is our joblife after life, just continue to help all beings. But to do that, you have to have mind which is clear like space. - Seung Sahn, "BOOM!"

Cultivating Relaxed Awareness

When the thinking mind takes a break for even a few seconds, a kind of relaxed awareness replaces the usual stream of thoughts. We need to encourage this and not fill this space with anything else; just let it be. - Tsultrim Allione, "Feeding Your Demons"

Only the Present Moment

Every moment in life is absolute in itself. That's all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don't pay attention to each little this, we miss the whole thing. - Charlotte Joko Beck, "Attention Means Attention"

Meeting Life with Grace

When we face the limitations of our power and control, all we can skillfully do is bow to that moment. The conceit of self is challenged and eroded not only by the circumstances of our lives but also by our willingness to meet those circumstances with grace rather than with fear. - Christina Feldman, "Long Journey to a Bow"

Our Innate Wisdom

All of the 'words of wisdom' are in your own heart, so why waste time listening to someone else speak them? The Buddhadharma is the same. The principles in the sutras come from our own hearts. The wisdom and happiness of all buddhas comes from our own minds. - Heng Ch'au, "Bowing"

Embracing Our Inadequacy

Peace and kindness have their best shot at establishing themselves when we accept our own inadequacy, when limitation and error become aspects of ourselves we can embrace rather than strive to mask. - Henry Shukman, "The Art of Being Wrong"

Unmasking the Self

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masksimages, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody. - Toni Packer, "Unmasking the Self"

Touching Liberation
Insight cant be found in sutras, commentaries, verbal expression, or isms. Liberation and awakened understanding cant be found by devoting ourselves to the study of the Buddhist scriptures. This is like trying to find fresh water in dry bones. Returning to the present moment, using our clear mind which exists right here and now, we can be in touch with liberation and enlightenment, as well as with the Buddha and the patriarchs as living realities right in this moment. - Thich Nhat Hanh, Simply Stop

Our Shelter Within

When we can be secure in our inner source for true happiness, we dont expose ourselves to the devastation that comes when outside hopes for happiness and security are dashed. We have our shelter, our place of security, inside. And we neednt be afraid that this is an escapist shelter. When the basis of our well-being is firm within, we can act with true courage and compassion for others, for were coming from a solid position of calmness and strength. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu, What Weve Been Practicing For

Basic Goodness
When we use this term 'basic goodness' it indicates some fundamental possibility. Life is possible. Situations are possible. And anybody can start to gain some kind of insight and appreciation of their lives. Thats what we call 'sacred.' It doesnt mean something dramatic, but something very simple. Theres a sacredness to everyones life. - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, "A New Place, A New Time"

Gaining New Wisdom

To decide that a certain teaching is worthwhile simply because it echoes our established opinion is very unwise. Along that easy course there is no new discovery of truth, only more stale habit. - Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, "Selective Wisdom"

Transformative Awareness
Once we acknowledge the importance of looking within ourselves, we have to elevate our awareness of how our emotions and patterns of behavior affect us. We begin to see the impact on our lives of our emotions, our inner patterns of behavior, and the inner stories that dictate how we see ourselves and the world around us. Becoming aware of these inner forces is key to changing them. - Lawrence Levy, "Balancing Emotions"

Wisdom's Questions
When its time to suffer, you should suffer; when its time to cry, you should cry. Cry completely. Cry until there are no more tears and then recognize in your exhaustion that youre alive. The sun still rises and sets. The seasons come and go. Absolutely nothing remains the same and that includes suffering. When the suffering ends wisdom begins to raise the right questions. - Seido Ray Ronci, "The Examined Life"

Warm Heart, Clear Mind

It's as if everyone who has ever been born has the same birthright, which is enormous potential of warm heart and clear mind. The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good. - Pema Chdrn, "Renunciation"

What Emotions Reveal

When we meditate with the idea of getting rid of our emotions, we are actually empowering the very forces that we seek to escape. On the other hand, when we can use the arising of emotion to examine our underlying sense of identification, we tap the transformative potential of sublimation. - Mark Epstein, "Shattering the Ridgepole"

No Easy Answers
People come to Buddhism looking for answers, but Buddhism is not about giving you some easy formula. Its all about you needing to question yourself. When you think youve got it, thats when you especially need to question itand if you dont question it right away, youll run into situations that will make you question it, if youre fortunate. Life is always throwing monkey wrenches into the machinery of your calculating mind. - Reverend Patti Nakai, "Get Real"

Keep Your Balance

Just as a person mired in quicksand cannot help another until he has himself reached firm ground, our ability to help others depends chiefly on keeping our own balance. - Andrew Olendzki, "Keep Your Balance"

Our Capacity for Joy

Joy is not something we have to manufacture. It is already in us when we come into the world. We need only release the layers of contraction and fear that keep us from it. - James Baraz, Lighten Up!

Breaking the Chain of Suffering

Our suffering was not caused by our parents or grandparents. It was merely passed down. We are social animals. We grow through modeling. We teach what we have learned. We act as we have been acted upon. A person who is not loving has not experienced love. It is not his fault. Realizing this gives rise to forgiveness. And in Chan we vow that suffering will stop with us. We will not pass it down. - Guo Jun, "A Special Transmission"

Taking Risks
In order to practice, we have to surrender, we have to take a risk. Otherwise what were doing is standing back in order to judge, in order to feel superior. Often the obstacle is fear: we dont think well ever succeed. And so wed rather stand apart and be cynical, to feel protected in that way, not having to try. - Sharon Salzberg, "Sitting on the Fence"

Deep Engagement
It is a misunderstanding to think that enlightenment is some sort of final escape from life and that the doctrine of the unsatisfactory nature of samsara obviates any need for involvement with other beings or social responsibility. Because nirvana is selfless, there is no self that enjoys a state of being beyond the world. Wisdom and compassion are ultimately inseparable, wisdom being the complete knowledge of ultimate selflessness and compassion being the selfless commitment to the happiness of others. - Robert Thurman, "The Politics of Enlightenment"

Trust the Breath

Mindfulness of breathing is a practice of learning to harmonize your attention with what is, in this moment. Short, long, deep, shallow are all fine breaths. Trust your body; it knows what is needed. - Christina Feldman, "Meditation Q&A"

Living Fully
The problem with our life does not lie in the individual circumstances or occurrences of our day-today existence. Its not that theyre inherently meaningless and boring. The problem is that we make them meaningless and boring; because we are so invested in maintaining our own sense of self, we actually dont relate to anything in a direct way. Unwilling to fully live the life that is arriving in our bodies moment by moment, we find ourselves left with no real life at all. - Reggie Ray, "Touching Enlightenment"

At Your Service
Among all the different forms of life and creatures great and small, we were born as human beings. As such, we are innately endowed with goodness and the consciousness to use it for others. Its in our very nature as human beings to want to use that goodness for the sake of others, to be of help and service. - Shinso Ito, Unconditional Service

Born Each Instant

When you maintain the straightforward frankness of your own mind as it comes to life each instant, even without effort, even without training, you are beautifully born each instant. You die with each instant, and go on to be born again, instant by instant. - Soko Morinaga Roshi, One Chance, One Encounter

Experiencing Impermanence
Every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensations nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it. - S. N. Goenka, Finding Sense in Sensation

The Sound of Silence

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesnt mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If youre truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence. - Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Matter

The Truth about Pleasure

The truth is, we dont really want to be free from desire or to admit that clinging to the pleasures of the sensesthe taste of delicious food; the sound of music, gossip, or a joke; the touch of a sexual embraceends unavoidably in disappointment and suffering. We dont have to deny that pleasant feelings are pleasurable. But we must remember that like every other feeling, pleasure is impermanent. - Bhante Gunaratana, "Desire and Craving"

A Kind Heart
In order to cultivate a truly loving and kind heart, we need to develop the practices that cultivate and strengthen forgiveness and the natural compassion within us. Our ability to forgive allows us to make space for our ability to meet sufferingour suffering as well as the suffering of otherswith a kind heart. - Gina Sharpe, The Power of Forgiveness

Spacious Mind
Most of our suffering comes from habitual thinking. If we try to stop it out of aversion to thinking, we cant; we just go on and on and on. So the important thing is not to get rid of thought, but to understand it. And we do this by concentrating on the space in the mind, rather than on the thought. - Ajahn Sumedho, Noticing Space

Nirvana Right Now

Maybe we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right now. - Maezumi Roshi, Appreciate Your Life

Seeing Possibility in Suffering

Being intolerant of suffering, in the Buddhist sense, does not mean that we reject it or fight against it. It means that we stop and look at it, not morbidly, but with faith in the possibility of living a joyful and peaceful life. - Gil Fronsdal, "Living Two Traditions"

An Ever-Present Refuge
Love and compassion make us feel safe because they express the safety of their sourcethe deep buddhanature within us, the unchanging inner space of primal awareness that cannot be harmed. By receiving unconditional love and compassion from those whove awakened before us, we sense that we too can relax into the very source of such love in the unconditioned nature of our minds, our buddhanature. - John Makransky, "Aren't We Right to be Angry?"

Putting Your Body to Good Use

What should you do to put your body to good use? Most people have no idea. A craftsman who borrows some tools will try to make the best possible use of them while they are available. Your body, too, is actually on loan to you for the time being, for the brief period left before it is taken back from you by death. Had you better not use it to practice the dharma while you can? - Dilgo Khyentse, "The Day After You Die"

How to Let Go
The starting point is realizing that letting go is not a dramatic moment we build up to some time in the future. It is happening now, in the present momentit is not singular but ongoing. Letting go is based on our present realization of the reality of impermanence. - Judy Lief, Letting Go

The Ground of Compassion

To be truly and wholly present even for the briefest moment is to be vulnerable, for we have arrived at the point where the obstacle that fear constructs between ourselves and others dissolves. It is here that the heart is drawn out of hiding and the inherent sympathetic response called compassion arises. - Lin Jensen, An Ear to the Ground

Beyond the Reach of Stress

We should be intent on cleansing and polishing our hearts so that they can gain release from their worries and preoccupations, the source of pain and discontent. Peace, coolness, and a bright happiness will arise within us, in the same way as when we unshackle ourselves from our encumbering burdens and debts. We'll be freebeyond the reach of all suffering and stress. - Ajaan Lee, Sowing the Seeds of Freedom

See the World in a Moment

It is very important to see your life not only from the narrow view of your egoistic telescope but also from the broad view of the universal telescope called egolessness. This is why we have to practice. Right in the middle of the stream of time, we have to open our eyes there and see the total picture of time. Through spiritual practice we can go beyond our egoistic point of view. We can touch the core of time, see the whole world in a moment, and understand time in deep relationship with all beings. - Dainin Katagiri, Time Revisited

Simple Practice
Its definitely the case that we can practice at any given moment. We can always try a little more to be kind, to be compassionate and be careful about what we do and say. - Chkyi Nyima Rinpoche, "Keeping a Good Heart"

Living a Virtuous Life

Buddhist practice is never about creating goals and trying to achieve them. Its about learning to see clearly for ourselves our own real state in each and every moment. As we come to see what life really is, we begin to behave more logically and ethically, because thats what makes sense. - Brad Warner, The Enlightenment Pill

Meditation in Action
Buddhism often appears to promote personal transformation at the expense of social concern. Some Buddhist teachings claim that the mind does not just affect the world, it actually creates and sustains it. According to this view, cosmic harmony is most effectively preserved through an individual's spiritual practice. Yet other Buddhists amend the notion that mind is the primary or exclusive source of peace, contending that inner serenity is fostered or impeded by external conditions. Buddhists who place importance upon social factors and social action believe that internal transformation cannot, by itself, quell the world's turbulence. - Kenneth Kraft, Meditation in Action

A Change of Heart
A change of heart requires a great deal of courage and a great deal of compassion. The courage is to not avert our gaze, but instead to turn to the various sufferings in our own life or in the world around us and see them with the concern and compassionate eyes of the Buddha. - Jack Kornfield, "A Change of Heart"

The Power of Perspective

Only a beings perspective leads to suffering. Two people in the exact same situation, according to their outlook and expectations, can have completely different experiences. Turn that around, and any conditions can be a vehicle for bondageor freedom and awakening. - Vinny Ferraro, "The Heartful Dodger"

Daydreams of a Poet
It is possible to take our existence as a sacred world, to take this place as open space rather than claustrophobic dark void. It is possible to take a friendly relationship to our ego natures, it is possible to appreciate the aesthetic play of forms in emptiness, and to exist in this place like majestic kings of our own consciousness. But to do that, we would have to give up grasping to make everything come out the way we daydream it should. - Allen Ginsberg, Negative Capability: Kerouacs Buddhist Ethic

The Mind's Buddha

Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It's not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can't grab it. Beyond this mind you'll never see a Buddha. The Buddha is a product of your mind. Why look for a Buddha beyond this mind? - Bodhidharma, "The Snaggletoothed Barbarian"

Riding the Highs and Lows of Life

Skillful attitudes of mind are the key to facing potentially explosive situations and the ongoing highs and lows of life and practice. In fact, recognizing these attitudes and cultivating their antidotes is the foundation for all spiritual growth. By cultivating skillful attitudes of mind, we will respond to more and more of life with awareness and wisdom. - Steve Armstrong, "Got Attitude?"