Generating Compassion Using Tonglen
Breath and visualization based Meditation for helping generate compassion towards self and others. Can be done seated or lying. Good for all levels of meditators. Useful to do when struggling with obstacles in life.
Transcript
Find yourself a comfortable position.
You can be seated cross legged,
Seated in a chair or even lying on the bed or the ground.
Whichever position you choose,
Just find a position that you're comfortable in and that you can stay in for around the next 20 minutes.
So this meditation we're going to work with compassion.
We're going to work with a practice called Tonglen and in this practice we might work with any obstacles we have towards others,
Any things that we're struggling with,
Any people in our life that may be causing us pain or suffering and recognising that they too are suffering and are in pain,
Hence why they create pain for us and others.
So it's a useful meditation for anyone struggling even if it's a sense of compassion towards oneself.
We begin first by purifying the channels.
Just working with Nadi Shodhana or alternate nostril breathing,
Just helping to clear energetically,
Bring in something new,
Remove something old.
From here I just want you to take your right hand,
Index finger,
Finger next to it and just place it around the eyebrow line just between the eyebrows.
Let the right elbow sit comfortably against the body.
From here just close off your right nostril with your thumb pressing into the soft of the right nostril.
Take a long,
Slow,
Deep breath in through the left nostril.
At the peak of the breath,
Hold the breath for a moment and close off the left nostril with the ring finger,
Take a full exhale out through the right.
Take a full inhale through the right.
Close the right with the thumb and full exhale out through the left.
This is one round.
And inhale deeply through the left.
Close the left with the ring finger.
Full exhale out through the right.
Full inhale through the right.
Close the right nostril.
Full exhale out through the left.
Just want you to continue back and forwards in this alternating fashion for the next minute or so.
Inhale deeply through the nostril.
Hold the breath for a moment.
Close exhale.
Inhale deeply through the nostril.
Close exhale.
As you inhale deeply have a sensation of breathing in a blue sky,
A white light,
A sense of an expanse in space.
And as you exhale imagine any obstacles,
Pains,
Restrictions moving out of the body.
Sometimes this outward movement can be represented by a black smoke.
It can be anything that represents those obstacles moving out of your body to you.
Try and begin the breath from the belly and let it come up into the chest.
And as you exhale just let the breath naturally come out of its own accord.
Every time the mind wanders,
Which it naturally will,
Just bring your attention back to the alternating of the nostrils,
Back to the breath coming in and out and back to the visualisation.
You want to work through four more breaths,
Two more rounds in your own time.
When you have finished those four breaths,
Two rounds,
Release your right hand back to your sides,
Back to your knees or thighs.
Just take a moment to observe any changes in your breathing.
Your breath has become a little smoother,
A little slower.
You may notice the body a little softer,
Heavier,
Emptier.
And notice the mind itself,
The mind has slowed down.
From here I want you to bring your attention to the middle of your chest,
Right around the sternum area.
Sometimes it can be useful just to rub this area,
Just to make that attention a little bit stronger.
Sometimes I'll take the heel of my hand and just circulate around the chest and I even just knock gently on my chest with the palm,
The heel or just the circulating action as before.
Just do this for five,
Ten seconds and you'll find that when you remove your hand back to your side,
Back to your knees or thighs,
It's a lot easier to settle your attention on the middle of the chest.
There's some sensation already there from the touch.
And I just want you to rest your mind gently on that part of your body.
Every time your mind wanders,
Just bring your attention back to your chest,
Back to the middle of the chest.
And visualize at the middle of the chest a little blue orb,
Maybe about the size of a small coin,
But very bright,
Luminous,
Radiating.
Don't get too concerned if you can't see this in your mind.
It's more important that you feel it there at the chest.
Keeping that awareness of the chest,
The breath naturally moving in and out.
Want you to remember a time that you felt a genuine sense of compassion for another person,
An animal,
Friend,
Family member.
A time where you really wished someone well,
Wanted them to be happy.
Going back to that moment,
Really try and feel it in your body,
Might feel it in the stomach,
Might feel it in the chest.
As you recall that memory,
Let a smile gently come to your lips.
Feel the feelings in the body associated with the memory,
The positive sensations in the body.
Feel the softening of the face and eyes,
The light smile coming to the lips,
The body relaxed,
And easy.
Keeping that experience of that positive emotion,
We're going to work with the breathing to build the strength of that experience.
As we inhale,
We'll feel that blue sphere at the chest growing stronger and that feeling in our body growing stronger.
As we exhale,
I want you to imagine it radiating outwards to everything around you in the vicinity.
We'll start small,
Just radiating it out into the room.
Take a deep breath in,
Feel that emotion strengthen.
Feel the compassion permeate the body and as you exhale,
Just feel that blue light move outwards to everything in the room.
Inhale feel that compassion grow in the body,
The chest.
Exhale feel that compassion radiate outwards.
I just want you to move through this for the next minute in your own time.
Inhale deeply,
Feel that compassion radiate through the body,
Expanding,
Growing.
Exhale feel that compassion radiating outwards to everything around you.
If you're comfortable with radiating outwards to the room,
You can start to radiate that compassion a little further,
Maybe out to the people in the houses next to you,
The people in the street,
The building you're in.
Every time you exhale,
Just having that sense of compassion towards them,
Wishing them well.
Wishing that they overcome their obstacles.
I want you to take three more deep breaths,
Radiating that compassion a little bit further than you have for the last breaths.
You've been working in the rooms to radiate outwards from the room.
You've been working in the building,
Radiate out into the town,
The streets.
And after those breaths,
Just return to normal breathing,
Relax,
Aware of the chest.
Also become aware of any changes in your body and your breathing.
I like to conceptualize them,
Just become aware of them.
From here,
We're going to work a little bit more directly with a person or situation,
Which is an obstacle for us.
I want you to again reconnect to that memory of a compassionate moment towards another person,
An animal,
Friend,
Family member.
Feel it in your body.
Feel a smile on your face.
And as you're resting here,
I just want you to imagine someone sitting in front of you,
Standing in front of you.
Again,
You're not going to worry too much about the details.
You're just going to feel the person.
And that person I want you to choose is anyone in your life right now that's creating obstacles for you.
It might be a work person,
Work situation,
A partner,
An ex-relationship,
A family member,
A son or daughter.
It may even be yourself.
Just feel their presence in front of you.
It's very normal when you engage with that presence,
You might feel a tightening in the body,
Tightening in the chest,
A sense of aversion.
I just want you to refine that compassion and stay connected to the compassion at the chest and in the body.
Just as before,
This time we're going to work with the person in front of us with the same breathing.
As we inhale,
That compassion grows in our body,
Expands that blue light at the chest.
As we exhale out through the nose or the mouth,
That compassion radiates directly outwards to the person in front of us.
Like it bathes them in that luminous blue light.
Inhale feel that compassion growing in the body.
Exhale luminous blue light radiates outwards to the person in front of us,
Immersing them in compassion.
Exhale for the next minute,
I just want you to work back and forwards like this with the breathing.
Inhale expand,
Exhale radiate outwards to the person in front of you.
Every time the mind wanders,
Which it naturally will,
Bring your attention back to the visualization,
Back to the breathing and back to the sense of compassion.
If you're feeling okay with generating the compassion outwards to the obstacle or person,
You can take this practice a little bit further into the full Tonglen practice.
Tonglen is giving,
Receiving.
What we're going to do is take it up a little bit further.
As we inhale,
We're going to inhale the person in front of us,
Their suffering,
Their obstacles,
Their pain.
After the inhale we'll hold the breath for a moment and we imagine their pain,
Their suffering being transformed into compassion inside our body.
As we exhale outwards,
We radiate that compassion back even stronger,
Fuller with more power to that person.
As we inhale those person's obstacles,
Pains,
Obstructions,
Suffering,
You might imagine it coming out of them in the form of a black smoke.
And then inside your body,
Feel that black smoke being brought to life into luminous blue white light.
Feel it radiate through your body as you transform it.
And then as you exhale,
You're radiating a stronger amount of compassion back.
It's very normal when you start to work in this way,
You might feel emotions,
Sadness,
Pain.
You might feel an aversion to taking on the other person's suffering.
By the very act of taking on their suffering and transforming it inside you to compassion,
It is the very vehicle that protects you from the pain.
This has a lot to do in Buddhism with the Bodhisattva path,
Where a being seeks awakening by helping all other beings.
For us in daily life,
It can just be a very strong and powerful way to break the attachments to the obstacles in our life and the people in our life that make obstacles for us.
It's a way of severing that connection so that we're no longer ruled by it.
And our compassion towards our enemies or those that we struggle with is the very thing which sets us free.
If you find this inhaling of the person's suffering and pain is just too much for you,
Just revert back to the practice before where you're inhaling and you're growing that compassion inside yourself from that memory.
And as you exhale,
You're just radiating it outwards to that person,
Wishing them well,
Understanding that they create suffering for you and others because they themselves are in pain.
I'm going to keep going for one more minute in whichever practice level you've chosen.
Take three more deep breaths in and out to finish.
At the end of those breaths,
Just release back to normal breathing.
Here imagine that person in front of you now transformed.
They are bright white light now.
All obstacles removed for them and you.
Slowly as if the two of you move closer together,
Meeting in an embrace.
As you meet in the embrace,
Everything just gives way to that luminous white blue light.
This white blue light inside you.
This white blue light outside of you.
The person in front of you dissolves away into luminous white blue light.
Again,
We find that emotion of genuine compassion you had.
Let it fill your body and we'll finish with the Tibetan dedication.
Dedicating this practice not only to ourselves,
But to all others we may meet and all others who are struggling.
You hear the dedication just rest naturally,
Relax on the words.
Genuine sense of compassion to yourself and others.
Om Dari Dari Vandari Svaha Jaya Jaya Siri Siri Jayaarenala Jada Dub brutal Jaya Thank you.
