Tonglen Meditation

This meditation was created with the intention of connecting to a space of compassion. Tonglen is one of the bravest practices that can be done. By choosing this meditation, you choose to create a ripple effect out into the world. When you heal, others heal.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to your Tonglen meditation.

Tonglen meditation is the meditation of giving and receiving.

This practice is done to develop our compassion and our ability to be present for our own suffering and the suffering of others.

It is a practice of great kindness that opens up our whole being to the overwhelming presence of suffering and our strength and willingness to transform alienation into compassion through the energy of mercy and the cultivation of openness.

Tonglist is one of the richest and bravest practices that we can do.

In teaching this practice,

It has been said that many people are helped immeasurably in attending to their own fears around pain,

Suffering,

Dying,

Loss,

And has given them a real basis for the joining of compassion and equanimity.

This is one of the great meditation jewels that offers a way for us to cultivate our natural mercy.

So go ahead and find a space to sit in stillness and begin to really breathe into this space where your heart is truly committed to helping others and working openly with our own situation.

Begin to take deep breaths in through the nose and out through the nose.

Make sure that the body is relaxed.

If you choose to lie down,

Please go ahead and do so.

Otherwise,

You can sit in your meditation posture and gently begin to close your eyes as you allow your body and mind to settle,

Letting a feeling of relaxation and openness take over.

And saying this prayer will generate a sense of spaciousness in which the giving and receiving can take place.

Having recognized the futility of my selfishness and the great benefit of loving others,

May I bring all beings to joy.

May I send all of my virtues and happiness to others through the strength of my practice,

And may I receive the suffering,

Obstacles,

Of all motherly beings in all realms.

Begin by breathing in whatever you are feeling.

Perhaps it's fear,

Agitation,

Anger,

Resistance.

Accept it.

On the exhale,

Breathe out well-being.

Clear your mind by bringing awareness to what is truly agitating you.

Breathe it in.

Accept it with kindness.

And as you exhale,

Give yourself some spaciousness.

Do this for a few rounds on your own until you are calm and alert.

When you feel settled,

We'll step and begin the next phase of the practice.

Which is to just establish a rhythm of breathing.

On your in-breath,

Imagine that you are inhaling heavy,

Hot air.

On your out-breath,

Visualize exhaling cool,

Light air.

Continue this pattern of breath.

Inhale heavy,

Hot air.

And exhale cool,

Light air.

Breathe in the heaviness.

Breathe out the lightness.

Continue with this cycle of breath until it becomes familiar to you.

The heaviness is suffering.

The lightness is well-being.

As you continue to breathe,

Imagine that you are breathing through all the pores of your body.

Intensify the sensation,

The feeling of the breath.

On the inhale,

Imagine heavy,

Hot air entering every pore in your body.

And on the out-breath,

Cool light flows from every pore.

Continue to breathe in and out.

Now visualize a metal shield around your heart.

And this metal shield is everything about you.

It's a representation of what is difficult for you to accept.

Your self-importance,

Selfishness,

Self-cherishing,

Self-pity.

It is the band of fear that hardens your heart.

Today,

There is an invitation for you to dissolve this metal shield and open your heart to its natural non-judgmental state of warmth,

Kindness,

And spaciousness.

You can do this by visualizing the metal shield breaking apart when you inhale the suffering.

Imagine that when you inhale,

The suffering touches it.

When the heart opens,

The hot,

Heavy air vanishes into its fast space.

And what arises is natural mercy.

It is this quality of unarmored heart that allows you to be with suffering and at the same time to see beneath all the suffering.

The reason you are doing this practice is that you are suffering others are suffering and you wish with all of your heart that all beings could be free from suffering.

Allow this wish to be specific,

Personal,

And sincere.

It helps to touch in with a being or an event that evokes this wish.

Bring your mind to some being still on this planet or perhaps gone with whom you feel a deep connection.

A parent,

A child,

A pet,

A grandparent,

Your dearest friend or beloved teacher,

Someone who is suffering.

And you would do anything to help this person,

This being.

Be with this being and feel whatever they are experiencing.

Let your whole being,

Your whole body turn towards its suffering and your wish that it may be relieved.

See how vulnerable this being is.

Like a mother who will do anything to help her child,

You will do anything to help your friend.

Visualize the suffering of your beloved as polluted hot smoke.

Breathe it in through your whole body.

The instant that inhale of suffering touches your metal shield of self-centeredness around your heart,

The shield breaks apart and your heart opens to the suffering.

The hot smoke instantly vanishes into the great space of your heart and from this space spontaneously arises an out-breath of mercy and healing.

Send a deep,

Cool,

Light,

And spacious,

Healing breath to your loved one.

Let the out-breath flow through every pore of your body.

Let this being's suffering remind you of the many others who find themselves suffering in the same way.

This being,

This loved one,

Is your connection to them.

Breathe in their suffering.

Let your heart break open.

Send them healing with your out-breath.

And for the next few rounds of breath,

Continue the cycle of inhaling the heaviness in the heat and exhaling the deep,

Cool,

Light,

Spacious,

Healing breath.

Take a few rounds at your own breath,

At your own pace.

Now,

Begin to practice this with your own life.

And we're going to go back to a time when you were in a difficult situation.

You may still hold energy around this difficulty.

You may have been hurt,

Angry,

Depressed,

Outraged,

Or afraid.

Remember the feeling as vividly as possible.

Breathe in the heat,

The heaviness.

Breathe it in as polluted smoke.

Let go of any sense of blame,

Any object of blame.

Breathe in the raw feeling directly as the hot smoke of suffering.

Take it in completely through every pore of your body.

Own the heat and the rawness of it completely.

Remember that this is a courageous practice.

You might find yourself resisting,

Breathing in the suffering.

If this is happening,

You can breathe in your resistance as hot,

Heavy smoke.

Breathe in alienation,

Boredom,

Arrogance,

Confusion,

Grief,

Or clinging.

Whatever flavor of suffering this moment is bringing up.

Let the ego shield dissolve to reveal your vast and spacious heart.

Breathe out the sense of spaciousness,

Openness,

Kindness,

And surrender that arises.

Shower these beautiful qualities on yourself in a rain of cool,

Healing light.

When you do this,

That small,

Tight self,

The ego that habitually clings to anger,

Blame,

Or shame as a way of fortifying its illusion of solidity and separateness,

It breaks your heart open to your bigger self.

Don't analyze what you are doing.

Don't try to figure out anything.

There's nothing to justify.

Simply do the practice.

Continue breathing in the heavy,

Hot smoke of your suffering and breathe out that spaciousness,

That light.

As you breathe in your hot,

Heavy,

Tar-like suffering,

Own it completely.

And then exhale out clarity,

Surrender,

Relief,

Kindness.

Take a few more rounds of this breath.

Take a few more rounds of these sensations,

Of the inhaling and the exhaling.

The inhaling of the hot,

Heavy,

Unpleasant sensation and the exhale of that lightness,

That goodness,

That healing light.

And finally,

Allow the taking in and the sending out bigger.

For you,

For those you love,

Perhaps for those that are strangers to you,

Allow the breath that you inhale and you exhale to become more and more expansive.

Breathing in your pain and the pain of others and sending out relief to yourself and others as well.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

Expanding the circle of goodwill.

The scope of your imagination is the only limit.

Continue to breathe out happiness.

Breathing in suffering and the negativities.

Allow your heart's natural goodness to shine unreservedly and touch the world with its grace.

Let your awareness come back.

Let the breath begin to slow down.

And please know that if you need to take a few more rounds of breath,

If you need to take more time to settle back in,

Take this time to honor your mind and your body and notice the difference,

Notice the shift that may have happened and notice how easy it can be to own the unpleasant while still basking in the beautiful moments of life.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to practice.

I hope to see you again soon.

And until we meet again,

Have a wonderful and beautiful day.