Tricycle Talks

Tricycle Talks: Listen to Buddhist teachers, writers, and thinkers on life's big questions. Hosted by James Shaheen, editor in chief of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the leading Buddhist magazine in the West. Life As It Is: Join James Shaheen with co-host Sharon Salzberg and learn how to bring Buddhist practice into your everyday life. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review creates award-winning editorial, podcasts, events, and video courses. Unlock access to all this Buddhist knowledge by subscribing to the magazine at tricycle.org/join

Episodes

Reimagining the Story of Citizenship with Daisy Hernández

March 18, 2026 • 57 mins

Daisy Hernández is an associate professor at Northwestern University and a Tricycle contributing editor. Her new book, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, blends memoir and political analysis to examine the shifting narratives around citizenship and what it means to be an American. This episode is a little different from our usual focus, but we wanted to talk with Hernández about how she brings her Buddhist practice to bear on ...

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Dementia and the Sense of Self with Philip Ryan

March 11, 2026 • 51 mins

Philip Ryan is Tricycle’s executive editor, and he has worked at Tricycle on and off for the past thirty years. In the Spring issue of Tricycle, he wrote an article, "Old Friend," about his father’s dementia diagnosis and the questions it has raised about memory, impermanence, and identity. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Ryan to discuss how Buddhist teachings on the min...

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Demystifying Tantra with Richard Payne

February 25, 2026 • 67 mins

Tantric Buddhism is often mischaracterized or misunderstood, both in the academy and in the popular imagination. Scholar Richard Payne has dedicated much of the past twenty years to studying tantric teachings and practices—and to dispelling some of the common misconceptions associated with the tradition. Payne is the Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, as well as an o...

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The Practice of Refuge with Sunita Puri

February 18, 2026 • 59 mins

Sunita Puri is a writer, a palliative medicine physician, and an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour. She recently wrote an article for the Spring issue of Tricycle called “Seeking Refuge,” where she discusses how she has found refuge in nature in the face of burnout. In this episode of Life As It Is...

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Poet Li-Young Lee on Awe, Adoration, and Turning Toward the Unknown

February 11, 2026 • 59 mins

For poet Li-Young Lee, writing is a deeply spiritual practice. Taking inspiration from Daoist and Christian texts, his poems investigate the paradoxical relationships between silence and sound, stillness and motion, and form and formlessness. He recently published his sixth collection of poetry, The Invention of the Darling, as well as a translation of the Dao De Jing, which he completed with the poet and cosmologist Yun Wang. In ...

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‘To Live the Right Way’ with David Guterson

January 28, 2026 • 48 mins

David Guterson is a writer based in Washington State. His new novel, Evelyn in Transit, follows the interlocking stories of Evelyn and Tsering, a young woman from Indiana and a Buddhist monk from the mountains of Tibet. Their lives come together when Evelyn’s son is revealed to be the seventh reincarnation of a high lama, and Evelyn must decide whether to send her young child to Nepal. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s...

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Into the Long Dark with Francis Weller

January 21, 2026 • 67 mins

Francis Weller is a writer and soul activist who has worked as a psychotherapist for forty years, and he is currently on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program. In his most recent book, In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty, he lays out practices for embodying new ways of being so that we can meet the anxieties and unknowns of our time with presence and faith. Weller is also the author of The Wild Edge...

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The Afterlife of Japanese American Wartime Incarceration

January 14, 2026 • 56 mins

Brandon Shimoda is a poet and a professor at Colorado College. His new book, The Afterlife Is Letting Go, examines the ongoing legacies of the US government’s mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Drawing from years of archival research, visits to the ruins of incarceration sites, interviews with survivors and their descendants, and his own family history, the book explores the resonances between forms of op...

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Choosing Kindness with Sarah Ruhl and Sharon Salzberg

December 17, 2025 • 50 mins

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, poet, and professor based in New York. She recently published her first children’s book, as did meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. Sarah’s book, The Dreams I’ll Dream Tonight, is a whimsical bedtime story that illustrates the power of choosing where we place our attention, while Sharon’s book, Kind Karl: A Little Crocodile with Big Feelings, follows a young crocodile as he learns to control his temper. ...

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Being a 'Bad' Buddhist with Sharon A. Suh

December 10, 2025 • 54 mins

Sharon A. Suh is a professor of theology and religious studies at Seattle University, and she is currently the president of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. Her new book, Emergent Dharma, brings together the voices of eleven Asian American feminist Buddhists to present a dynamic vision of Buddhist practice and identity. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down w...

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Sitting in the Fire with Ralph Steele

November 26, 2025 • 39 mins

Ralph Steele is the founder and guiding teacher of Life Transition Meditation Center in Santa Fe, where he teaches somatic meditation and other practices geared toward supporting people through major life changes. Steele grew up on Pawleys Island, where he was raised by his grandparents after his father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. As a teenager he moved with his mother to Japan, where his exposure to martial arts sparked a life...

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Coming Home to Ourselves with Brother Pháp Hữu

November 19, 2025 • 60 mins

Brother Pháp Hữu is a senior teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s international community and the abbot of Plum Village in southwest France. In his new book, Calm in the Storm: Zen Ways to Cultivate Stability in an Anxious World, which he co-wrote with Jo Confino, he lays out a compassionate guide for coming home to ourselves and meeting the challenges of our time with greater presence and resilience. In this episode of Life As It Is,...

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Naturalistic Buddhism with Gil Fronsdal

November 12, 2025 • 44 mins

Gil Fronsdal is a dharma teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, and at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. He has practiced extensively in the Soto Zen and Theravada Buddhist traditions, and he draws from both traditions in his framing of what he calls naturalistic Buddhism. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Fronsdal to discuss what h...

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Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions with Joseph Goldstein

October 22, 2025 • 70 mins

Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder and guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He recently wrote an article called “Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions” that will be published on Tricycle’s website later this month. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Goldstein to discuss why he sees non-clinging as so central across Bud...

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Remembering Joanna Macy with Jess Serrante

October 15, 2025 • 63 mins

Jess Serrante is a climate activist, organizer, and longtime facilitator of the Work That Reconnects, a global movement and community created by the late environmental activist Joanna Macy, who passed away in July. Last year, Jess and Joanna produced a podcast together called We Are the Great Turning that explored Joanna’s teachings on cultivating courage and connection as we face the many crises of our time. In this episode of Li...

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US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze on Translating Loss and Renewal

October 8, 2025 • 58 mins

Arthur Sze is a poet and translator based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and he was recently named the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States. To celebrate his appointment, we’re visiting a 2024 Tricycle Talks episode with Sze. Unlike many contemporary American poets, Sze did not attend a traditional MFA program to learn to write poetry. Instead, the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist turned to translation to hone h...

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US Poet Laureate Ada Limón on the Practice of Startlement

September 24, 2025 • 62 mins

Ada Limón is the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States and the author of seven books of poetry. Her latest book, Startlement: New and Selected Poems, brings together two decades of her work. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Limón to talk about how poetry can help us decenter ourselves, her daily practice of loving-kindness, ...

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Revisiting the Story of the Buddha’s Life with Donald S. Lopez Jr.

September 17, 2025 • 57 mins

Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan and a longtime Tricycle contributing editor. In his new book, The Buddha: Biography of a Myth, he draws from a variety of sources to trace a single narrative of the Buddha’s life, from his birth through his enlightenment to his passage into nirvana. While a number of scholars have attempted to “...

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Traveling in Bardo with Ann Tashi Slater

September 10, 2025 • 57 mins

In Tibetan Buddhism, the bardo is a between-state. While the term is usually associated with the passage from death to rebirth, it can also refer to the journey from birth to death—as well as the various transitional states we encounter along the way. According to writer and Tricycle contributing editor Ann Tashi Slater, Tibetan bardo teachings can transform the way we live—and help us find lasting happiness in a world defined by i...

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Ethical Living in Uncertain Times with Stephen Batchelor

August 27, 2025 • 64 mins

Stephen Batchelor is a writer and longtime Tricycle contributing editor based in southwest France. In his new book, Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times, he explores how the Buddha and Socrates can teach us to live a just and dignified life in an unstable, contingent world. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Batchelor to discuss how Socrates and the B...

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Tricycle Talks

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Reimagining the Story of Citizenship with Daisy Hernández

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dementia and the Sense of Self with Philip Ryan

Demystifying Tantra with Richard Payne

The Practice of Refuge with Sunita Puri

Poet Li-Young Lee on Awe, Adoration, and Turning Toward the Unknown

‘To Live the Right Way’ with David Guterson

Into the Long Dark with Francis Weller

The Afterlife of Japanese American Wartime Incarceration

Choosing Kindness with Sarah Ruhl and Sharon Salzberg

Being a 'Bad' Buddhist with Sharon A. Suh

Sitting in the Fire with Ralph Steele

Coming Home to Ourselves with Brother Pháp Hữu

Naturalistic Buddhism with Gil Fronsdal

Liberation Through Non-Clinging Across Buddhist Traditions with Joseph Goldstein

Remembering Joanna Macy with Jess Serrante

US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze on Translating Loss and Renewal

US Poet Laureate Ada Limón on the Practice of Startlement

Revisiting the Story of the Buddha’s Life with Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Traveling in Bardo with Ann Tashi Slater

Ethical Living in Uncertain Times with Stephen Batchelor

Popular Podcasts

Reimagining the Story of Citizenship with Daisy Hernández

Dementia and the Sense of Self with Philip Ryan