Tricycle Talks

When Viet Thanh Nguyen was growing up as a refugee in the United States, it was hard for him to find stories that represented his experience. Now, as a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, he is determined to center the narratives of Vietnamese writers and artists in the diaspora. His most recent book, The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora, which he coedited with Isabelle Thuy Pelaud and Lan Duong, is the first anthology to gather the voices and perspectives of Vietnamese diasporic authors from around the globe. Featuring dialogues among thirty-seven writers and artists, the book explores themes of history and memory, the ongoing legacies of colonialism and war, and the role of art in reckoning with the realities of diaspora and displacement.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Nguyen to talk about how writing can be a tool for fighting back against erasure and exploitation, why he rejects the trope of being a voice for the voiceless and believes instead that we should abolish the conditions of voicelessness, how contributors to the collection complicate notions of authenticity and authority, and how political imagination can be a resource for building a better future.

For the past forty years, Ken McLeod has worked as a teacher and translator of Tibetan texts, practices, and rituals. With his new book, This Unexpected Jewel: Reading the Diamond Sutra, he presents a fresh and accessible translation of the Diamond Sutra, one of the most revered texts in the Buddhist tradition.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with McLeod to discuss how his first encounter with the Diamond Sutra caused his mind to stop, why he frames his translation as a practitioner’s translation rather than an academic’s, how the Diamond Sutra cuts through our tendency to rely on conceptual understanding and points to a different way of experiencing life, and the transformative power of reading the sutra aloud. Plus, McLeod reads a few passages from his translation of the Diamond Sutra.

Sister Tue Nghiem is a dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition. She is currently based in Australia. In her new book, Caregiving and the Art of Presence: A Zen Nun's Journey of Love and Letting Go, she reflects on the challenges and unexpected gifts of caring for her mother in the final seven years of her life.

In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg sit down with Nghiem to discuss how she came to be her mother’s caregiver, what caring for her mother taught her about the importance of letting go, how suffering can be a catalyst for compassion, and what it means to cultivate the gift of non-fear. Plus, she leads a guided meditation.

In March 2014, the legendary avant-garde poet Kim Hyesoon embarked on her first foray into digital performance art. For a duration of eight months, she posted anonymously on the online blog of a major South Korean publisher under the moniker “Lady No.” Set in a fictional land called Aerok, or Korea spelled backward, the posts explore the anxieties and obsessions of modern Korean society, often using aspects of the occult to point at what is unspeakable or unsaid. In Lady No, poet Jack Saebyok Jung presents translations of these hybrid works into English for the first time.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Jung to talk about how Kim Hyesoon’s poetry resists and outmaneuvers censorship, Hyesoon’s aspiration to achieve transparent poetry, how poetry can respond to the pressures of everyday life, and the shamanic dimensions of Hyesoon’s work. Plus, Jung reads a few poems from Lady No.

Tara Brach is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, and she has been practicing and teaching meditation since 1975. She recently released a new book, The Courageous Heart Workbook: Choosing to Love in Perilous Times, which is a practical guide for awakening courage and cultivating compassion for ourselves and our world.

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Brach to talk about what courage looks like in our current moment, how choosing love can help counter the dangers of what she calls the trance of separation, how we can learn to recognize our own basic goodness, and the power of reconnecting with our aspiration and sense of what matters most. Plus, Brach leads a guided meditation.