Tricycle Talks

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

The Work of Not Knowing with Marie Howe

July 23, 2025 • 59 mins
For Marie Howe, poetry is a form of prayer. “It is a way of quieting down to listen to that still, small voice,” she told Tricycle. “It’s about something ineffable that’s trying to find its way through the poem.” Howe is currently the poet in residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her latest collection, New and Selected Poems, which brings together four decades o...
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A Fearless Heart with Thupten Jinpa

July 16, 2025 • 73 mins
Thupten Jinpa is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and former monk based in Montreal. Since 1985, he has served as the principal English translator for the Dalai Lama. In his 2015 book, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives, he draws from his experience translating for and traveling with the Dalai Lama to lay out simple daily practices to help us cultivate compassion for ourselves and others—and, in...
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Forever a Student with Sarah Ruhl

July 9, 2025 • 55 mins
Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, poet, and professor based in New York. Her new essay collection, Lessons from My Teachers: From Preschool to the Present, is an ode to the teachers she has had over the course of her life, both inside and outside the classroom. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Ruhl to discuss the teachers and tasks that have helped her learn how to listen, wh...
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Personal Liturgy with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

June 25, 2025 • 37 mins
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is a multi-instrumentalist and composer, Zen priest, and hospice chaplain based in the Hudson Valley. Since his first foray into experimental music in the 1990s, he has been a pillar of the American music underground, collaborating with a variety of artists including Liz Harris, Félicia Atkinson, and Ilyas Ahmed. Although his music has often been labeled experimental or ambient, he himself describes it as person...
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How Compassion Works with John Makransky

June 18, 2025 • 73 mins
According to Lama John Makransky, everything we care about—including our mental and physical well-being, our relationships, our spiritual life, and our ability to act justly in the world—depends on our ability to access our innate capacities for love and compassion. In his new book, How Compassion Works: A Step-by-Step Guide to Cultivating Well-Being, Love, and Wisdom, which he co-wrote with Paul Condon, Makransky draws from Tibeta...
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Buddhist Masters of Modern China with Benjamin Brose

June 11, 2025 • 63 mins
Benjamin Brose is Professor of Buddhist and Chinese Studies and chair of the department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. His new book, Buddhist Masters of Modern China: The Lives and Legacies of Eight Eminent Teachers, explores the histories and teachings of eight masters who brought about a Buddhist revival during the political turmoil of the 20th century. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycl...
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The Greek King and the Buddhist Monk with Maria Heim

May 28, 2025 • 58 mins
The Questions of Milinda is one of the most renowned texts within Theravada Buddhism—and one of the most translated Buddhist texts around the world. The text follows a transformational philosophical dialogue between the Indo-Greek king Milinda and a Buddhist monk named Nagasena as they discuss the nature of the self, the meaning of renunciation, and the sources of knowledge. In her new translation of The Questions of Milinda, schol...
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Remembering Our Belonging with Sebene Selassie

May 21, 2025 • 64 mins
As someone who has been living with cancer for nearly two decades, Sebene Selassie is no stranger to being with suffering. In her work as a writer and dharma teacher, Selassie focuses on how we can tap into a deeper sense of love and belonging in the face of pain, violence, and division. Her most recent book, You Belong: A Call for Connection, draws from Buddhist philosophy, multidisciplinary research, and her personal experience t...
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Buddhist Poet Ocean Vuong on Failure, Redemption, and Second Chances

May 14, 2025 • 63 mins
For poet Ocean Vuong, the act of writing is inextricably linked to his Zen Buddhist practice. In a previous episode of Life As It Is, he told Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg that he believes the task of the writer is “to look long and hard at the most difficult part of the human condition—of samsara—and to make something out of it so that it can be shared and understood.” Now, in h...
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Breathing Mindfulness with Sarah Shaw

April 23, 2025 • 59 mins
Over the course of the last hundred years, breathing mindfulness has become the most popular method of meditation around the world. Yet its history remains largely unrecorded. In her new book, Breathing Mindfulness: Discovering the Riches at the Heart of the Buddhist Path, scholar Sarah Shaw provides a historical survey of some of the methods of breathing mindfulness and how they developed. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricyc...
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How to Stay Engaged without Burning Out with Daisy Hernández

April 16, 2025 • 58 mins
For the next few episodes of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg will be talking about specific themes that have been coming up in their practice, with a particular focus on navigating our current social and political climate. In this episode, they discuss how to stay engaged without burning out—and how cultivating equanimity can provide a necessary balance between wisdom...
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The Edge of Language with Arthur Sze

April 9, 2025 • 56 mins
For poet and translator Arthur Sze, poetry offers a way to ask difficult questions without any expectation of an answer. “It helps us slow down, hear clearly, see deeply, and envision what matters most in our lives,” he told Tricycle in a 2020 interview. “When one reads a poem, one has to pay attention to the sounds of words, to the rhythm of language, [and] experience the dance and tension between sound and silence.” His twelfth ...
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Classroom Mindfulness Put to the Test with Emma Varvaloucas

March 26, 2025 • 54 mins
Emma Varvaloucas is the executive director of the Progress Network, a nonprofit media organization that aims to take a constructive approach to solving some of our most intractable problems. In her article in the February issue of Tricycle called “Classroom Mindfulness Put to the Test,” she explores the surprising results of recent research on mindfulness programs for adolescents. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s edit...
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The Grieving Body with Mary-Frances O'Connor

March 19, 2025 • 75 mins
Grief is often thought of as a psychological phenomenon. Yet loss also has a profound impact on our bodies, often affecting our cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems. As a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, Mary-Frances O’Connor specializes in studying the physiology of grief. In her new book, The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing, she draws fr...
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A Journey through Buddhist History with Donald S. Lopez Jr.

March 12, 2025 • 46 mins
Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan and a longtime Tricycle contributing editor. In his new book, Buddhism: A Journey through History, he lays out a comprehensive introduction to the history of Buddhism, tracing its development across continents and centuries. In this episode of T...
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Uprooting Harmful Habits with Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John

February 26, 2025 • 48 mins
Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John is a senior teacher in the Triratna Buddhist Community, and their work focuses on how Buddhist teachings can support a sustainable path to recovery. In their new book, First Aid Kit for the Mind: Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behaviors, they lay out practical tools for uprooting harmful habits, building emotional resilience, and reconnecting with our bodies. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricyc...
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Planting the Seeds of Happy Relationships with Kimberly Brown

February 19, 2025 • 56 mins
Kimberly Brown is a meditation teacher and author based in New York City. In her new book, Happy Relationships: 25 Buddhist Practices to Transform Your Connections with Your Partner, Family, and Friends, she lays out a practical guide to help us cultivate and maintain healthy relationships with the people who matter most to us. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Shar...
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How to Lose Yourself with Jay Garfield

February 12, 2025 • 59 mins
No-self is a core teaching across Buddhist traditions. Yet what does it look like to actually live without a self? In How to Lose Yourself: An Ancient Guide to Letting Go, scholars Jay L. Garfield, Maria Heim, and Robert H. Sharf present a series of accessible and engaging translations of key Buddhist texts on why we are selfless persons—and why this insight leads to greater freedom and compassion. In this episode of Tricycle Talks...
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Learning from Silence with Pico Iyer

January 22, 2025 • 58 mins
After his family home burned down in a California wildfire in the 1990s, journalist Pico Iyer found refuge in an unlikely location: a small Benedictine hermitage outside of Big Sur. Though Iyer initially arrived looking for a bed to sleep in, he soon found the silence of monastic life transformative, and over the course of the past thirty-three years, he has returned to the hermitage more than one hundred times. In his new book, Af...
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Embracing Our Limitations and Making Time for What Counts

January 15, 2025 • 48 mins
Oliver Burkeman is an author and journalist based in northern England. In his new book, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, he lays out a practical guide for living meaningful and fulfilling lives as finite, imperfect humans. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Burkeman to discuss...
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