Tonglen: Meditation of Compassion

Tonglen means giving and taking in Tibetan. This meditation invites the listener to think about somebody who is suffering. By breathing in the suffering, the listener can come to develop compassion for the person or group of people. The meditation progresses to sending healing energy to that person or group of people.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Dr.

Brett Wade.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my guided meditations.

I hope you've been getting some personal enjoyment and some healing perhaps from these meditations.

This meditation is called Tonglen.

Tonglen is Tibetan for give and take.

This meditation is about trying to understand the pain and suffering of a person or of a group of people.

In this meditation you will be breathing in someone else's pain and suffering,

Understanding it,

Developing compassion,

And then breathing out a healed or washed energy.

Begin by sitting in an upright and dignified posture.

Close your eyes.

Center yourself in your seated position,

Finding balance between your sits bones.

Align the curves of your spine so that your spine is not held rigidly,

But not slumped either forward or to either side.

Center your head and neck so that your head feels almost weightless.

Finally have your hands and your feet in a symmetrical position.

So whatever your left hand is doing,

It is the same on your right.

Begin to tune into your breathing.

If it's available to you,

See if you can breathe in and out through the nose.

With each breath in,

Count in your head one and the exhale as one.

Do this again from one to five.

Now,

Bring into your mind somebody or a person or a group of people that you know to be suffering.

Perhaps this is somebody suffering from a physical illness in a certain part of their body.

Perhaps they're going through a difficult treatment.

Perhaps this is a condition of the mind.

Perhaps this is a pain or difficult part that they're feeling in their heart or somewhere else in their body.

As you bring this into their mind,

See if you can actually see where they are suffering.

See if you can see this area emanating from their body as a dark and thick color,

A heavy texture on your next inhalation.

See yourself breathing in this heavy,

Dark,

Heavy textured color,

Breathing it in through your nose,

Bringing it into your chest,

Just holding it there,

Developing some understanding and some compassion and breathing it out.

This breathing in allows us to understand exactly what's happening and why they're feeling this way.

Holding and letting it out.

As you continue to do this process of breathing in this heavy,

Dark energy,

Holding it in for understanding and compassion and breathing it out,

Don't be alarmed that this energy,

This heavy energy that you're breathing in,

Don't be afraid that it might harm you.

It won't.

This is not your energy.

This is someone else's energy.

This is for you to understand.

On the next time you breathe in this heavy,

Darker energy from this person who's suffering,

I want you to begin a washing process inside your chest.

This means as you breathe in this dark,

Heavy textured energy,

I want you to wash it inside and just start to change the texture,

Lightening the texture a little bit.

And as you breathe it out,

Perhaps breathe it out as the same color but see it as a lighter texture.

Continue this process of breathing in this heavy,

Darker energy,

Washing it inside and breathing out the lighter texture.

On your next inhalation as you breathe in this dark,

Heavy textured energy,

Just notice that it is starting to become a little bit lighter as you inhale it.

The texture is lighter and you feel it is a bit lighter in your chest as you wash this energy.

As you breathe it out,

I want you also to start to see the color changing,

Not just the texture but the color is changing.

Breathing in this energy which is starting to lighten,

Washing it and breathing it out what is a lighter color.

You're transforming this energy.

You started with an understanding and developing of compassion and now you're washing the energy.

Now with each exhalation,

I want you to see this energy getting lighter and lighter.

In fact,

I'd like you to start to notice that as you're breathing out this beautiful light healing energy,

See yourself exhaling it directly towards this person,

This group of people or if you can,

A specific area in a person where they need the healing.

You're beginning to cycle the healing now.

Inhaling the darker textured energy,

Washing it,

Exhaling the healing energy right towards them.

Begin to cycle this energy with your breath.

Start to notice now that the colors and the textures of the energy that you're inhaling are starting to look very close to the energies that you're exhaling as you're healing and lightening this person.

Just giving and taking,

Just healing their spirit.

Begin to notice now that in fact the color and the texture of the energy coming from this person that you're breathing in is in fact now the same color as the energy that you're breathing out.

It's as if you're cycling one energy,

One beautiful healed energy.

Know that you've done some important work for this person or this group of people.

You've developed some compassion,

Understanding,

And you've also helped them begin the process of healing.

However,

That may look for them.

That healing could be acceptance,

That healing could be understanding,

Or that healing literally could be starting a process of repair and regeneration.

Begin to bring some gentle movement back into your fingers and your toes and gently,

Very gently allow your eyes to come to an open position as you bring yourself back to this time and space.

I want to thank you for taking the time to participate in this Tonglin or Tibetan meditation of giving and taking.

I want to thank you all for your participation,

For your willingness to help another human being or a group of people and know through your actions that you're making the world a better place.

I hope you've enjoyed this session of Tonglin and encourage you to see more of my videos at YouTube at Dr.

Brett Wade.

Also see some of more of my recordings on the Insight Timer app.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.

Reviews

Dr Brett this was a caring and peaceful meditation. I prayed for friends & myself for healing and peace. Thank you for your teaching us how to relax ourselves. 🙏

Soothing, this is helping my worry for the person of my focus. Thank you❣

The visualization was a bit dificult to me, but it is a beautiful practice.

Thank you! Namaste

Wonderful practice ! Visual metaphor is quite helpful

Great meditation, recommend!

My favourite Tong Len meditation so far.

Just what I needed. Thank you,🙏💓

By helping others we also help ourselves. 💜☮️💜 thank you and Namaste

So inspiring and grounding, exactly what I was looking for, Namaste 🙏🏻

Great explanation. Thank you.

Beautiful visualization. Soothing, relaxing and productive at the same time.

Great meditation and introduction to Tonglen. Will definitely do it again and explore Tonglen meditation more. Thank you 🙏🏽🧘🏽‍♀️ namaste

Been a while since I have practiced tonglen. I was very happy to find it at the top of my options this morning. Thank you.

Great voice, clear recording, excellent instruction