Author Archives for Tricycle Blog
Buddha’s Big Break
Doyle Redland of the Onion Radio News files a shocking report:Calling the theological giant’s stranglehold on the religious industry “blatantly anticompetitive” a U.S. district judge has ruled that God is in violation of antimonopoly laws and ordered Him to be broken up into several less power ...>
Dalai Lama, Gazing West
"It is fascinating," he says, speaking in slightly stilted English. "In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences --yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours; yo ...>
Interview Exclusive: Buddha “Happy,” Watching Lots of TV
Scranton, PA. This reporter was granted a rare five minute interview with Shakyamuni Buddha today, April 1, when the Buddha unexpectedly turned up at the T.G.I. Friday's Restaurant off of Route 6. "Sure, why not, we can talk for a minute while my buddy's using the bathroom," he said, gesturing t ...>
Don’t Pray For Me
A new study, the most comprehensive and rigorous research into the alleged health benefits of prayer yet undertaken, concludes that prayer by strangers does not have a positive effect on the health of heart patients. In fact, there is statistically significant evidence that it may actually be harmf ...>
Turning the Light Inward
Next weekend, April 7-9, there will be a retreat for People of Color at the Zen Community of Oak Park, a Zen center in the White Plum lineage. The retreat is being led by Rev. Hilda Ryumon Gutierrez Baldoquin, editor of the recent anthology Dharma, Color, and Culture: New Voices ...>
The Opiate of the People
China's officially atheistic Communist ruling powers are getting into the religion racket. Concerned about growing tensions and disatisfaction with repressive one-party rule, Chinese leaders have hit upon Buddhism as a partial solution to their problems--both with pesky citizens who insist on havin ...>
Anatomy of a Buddhist Lynching
Buddhism's alleged an-iconism, much proclaimed during the Prophet Muhammad cartoon frenzy, took another hit last week, when a truly iconoclastic Buddhist Muslim in Thailand took a hammer to one of the country's most beloved shrines. Before twenty-seven-year-old Thanakorn Pakdeepol could completely d ...>
A Loaded Gun
"life is a loaded gunthat looks right at you with a yellow eye"--Billy CollinsThat's what Shakyamuni Buddha meant when he identified the three marks of existence as impermanence, suffering, and lack of self. Don't be fooled into thinking that life is all Sunday dinners and freshly-laundered sheets. ...>
A Historian’s Nirvana
It seems to me that one of the most unfortunate things about human beings is their inability to feel the living breath lying behind and supporting them in their everyday lives. History is by no means a mere succession of long-past events to be arbitrarily explained and interpeted by modern man. Li ...>
Better Off Dead
It's a bloody-minded day in the religious world, just a few short days after the celebration of the holiday of love. In Pakistan, Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, a Sunni Muslim imam, has called for the death of a Danish cartoonist who drew a picture of the prophet Muhammad--and it's slaughter for fun and ...>