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 book of poetry, Into the Hush, experiments with this dance between sound and silence in presenting a startling portrait of the nuclear age, chronicling the plight of vanished languages and species and asking how to live fully in the face of catastrophe.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Sze to discuss the generativity of emptiness, how poetry stays present tense, and what it means for art to awaken us to what is.

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 editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Varvaloucas to discuss how mindfulness first entered the classroom, whether mindfulness is developmentally appropriate for adolescents, and the importance of pairing mindfulness with broader access to mental health services.

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 from her clinical research and her personal experience to explore the toll that loss takes on our bodies—and what this can teach us about care, compassion, and interdependence.

In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with O’Connor to discuss the phenomenon of dying of a broken heart, how grieving can be thought of as a form of learning, how meditation can change how we show up for others, and the challenges of rediscovering a sense of purpose in the wake of loss.

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 Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Lopez to discuss the challenges in attempting to tell any single history of Buddhism, how translation has contributed to Buddhism’s survival as a tradition, the debates surrounding Buddhism’s decline in India, and the story of the Buddha’s nemesis and would-be assassin.

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, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Mason-John to talk about how they first developed a practice of meditation after their experience in solitary confinement, how the Buddha’s teachings have supported their path to recovery, and how they’ve come to understand addiction from a Buddhist perspective.

Please note that this episode includes mentions of sexual assault and suicidal ideation.

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 Sharon Salzberg sit down with Brown to discuss how mindfulness can help us navigate conflict in relationships, the power of changing how we pay attention to the people around us, and why she believes happy relationships are possible for everyone. Plus, Brown leads a guided meditation.

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, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Garfield to discuss why our preoccupation with the self causes us so much suffering, how dismantling the self is a project of moral development and spiritual freedom, and what it means to be a person without a self.

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, Aflame: Learning from Silence, he explores the profound insights that come from silence—and how sitting in stillness can train us to care for one another in a world on fire.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Iyer to discuss how silence facilitates letting go of the self, why he sees monastic life as the true counterculture, and what his time at the hermitage has taught him about learning to love in the midst of loss.

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 what we gain by letting go of the delusion that life is something we have to solve, how our attempts at avoiding our anxieties often backfire, and why everything is much worse than we think—and why that’s OK.

Noelle Oxenhandler is a writer and longtime Tricycle contributing editor based in northern California. Recently, she has been thinking a lot about what it means to be ready to die—and what will happen to all her belongings when she does. In her article in the November issue of Tricycle called “Everything Is Buddha,” she explores the sense of obligation she has toward the objects she has accumulated over the years, including a rubber zebra in a sailor suit and an intricately carved moose donning flannel trousers. Using the teachings of Suzuki Roshi as her guide, she asks what it means to treat everything around us as Buddha.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Oxenhandler to discuss how to let go of an object without devaluing it, what we can learn from Suzuki Roshi’s notion of everything existing in the right place, and what it means for things to be more than just things.