Tonglen Meditation

Tonglen is a practice from the Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhist tradition. In it, we use the breath as a focal point as we consider the suffering of others, or the suffering of the world in general. Breathing in, we take in the suffering. Breathing out, we send pure positive, loving, blessed energy. This is a fantastic meditation to change your state when you're stuck in anger, resentment, or when you're feeling disheartened by the world.

Transcript

Welcome to meditation. This practice traditionally is called Tanglin and it comes from Tibetan Buddhism. This version is a little bit non-traditional but serves a similar aim. So like any meditation, Make your body comfortable, Center your awareness inward and you know you can use the feeling of your breath or as you relax your body you can use the feeling of your subtle energy as a focus. But this practice is about working with suffering and working with unwanted energies. Whether those unwanted energies are unwanted people or unwanted behavior or unwanted situations, The suffering of others, Specific others or others in the collective. And the way that it works is with the breath there's a visualization of breathing in the unwanted energy, Breathing in the energy of suffering and then breathing out freedom, Breathing out blessing, Breathing out loving-kindness. Like you're taking in as an act of service energetically the unwanted, What you could call negative, And you're breathing out the wiser, More compassionate, Sacred energy, What you could call positive. We'll begin with those unwanted negative energies within ourselves. We all have them. We all have aspects of ourselves that we don't like. We might have aspects of ourselves that we absolutely despise. We may have aspects of ourselves that are so unwanted that we don't even want to look at them or acknowledge them. So you can visualize them. You know you can visualize little movies where you're acting out those aspects of yourself or sometimes you can see those aspects of yourselves like characters, Like the angry one or the deluded one or whatever those despised aspects of yourself are. You breathe in and you imagine that energy. Sometimes we envision it like black smoke or some kind of energetic pollution. We breathe that in out of those aspects and we breathe out loving-kindness. We breathe out blessed energy. We breathe out an energy of welcome. You don't have to be banished. You don't have to live in darkness. It's as if we're saying that to these aspects of ourselves. I breathe in your suffering. I breathe in that energy that makes you feel that way, Act that way, Think that way. I breathe it in into my own heart and I breathe it out free. This is the first phase. Even superficial things, You know things that we dislike about our appearance, Dislike about our life even, Our accomplishments, Our lack of accomplishments. We're blessing the unwanted. A couple more rounds of breath practicing the tonglen with these aspects of ourselves and then we can shift. Just let yourself be very open to what arises. It may be individuals, Individuals that you know, Maybe individuals in your home, Maybe people that you're really close with or other people, Even people that you consider enemies or people that you really, You really see as they are wrong. They are wicked. They are malevolent. It doesn't matter. You breathe in their suffering. You breathe out love and freedom and kindness. May they be uplifted. May they be blessed wherever they are. As if the power of grace itself is in your heart using your breath to draw that toxic suffering energy out of these individuals and replacing it with love and light and freedom unconditionally. This is inviting you to really look at your own judgment, Your own hatred. So sometimes you have to go back to the first part. If you find yourself feeling bad about the way that you hate someone or feeling bad about how much you judge someone, Then you tonglen those aspects of yourself and go back again. But don't flinch here. Don't flinch. Let yourself really look at these things that you feel are so wrong, So bad, So ugly, So unwanted and just see what arises for you. It might be individuals. It might be situations, You know, Complicated situations with many individuals. Maybe societal situations or world situations. Very complicated, Dark, Ugly situations that are causing suffering for many people. If it arises in this meditation, It means it's somewhere in your heart. It's inviting you to open your eyes and open your compassionate heart to the world that you live in. We're not floating off in meditation to bypass the suffering around us or in us. We're sort of eating it and we're sort of taking it in and metabolizing it and giving back compassion, Giving back love, Giving back blessing. May you be free. May we all be free. We say, Hurt people. Hurt people. Whoever they are, Whoever comes into the lens of our tonglen, Whatever they're doing, We recognize. They wouldn't be acting that way if they weren't suffering. Sometimes in meditation, This practice is all we can do. Sometimes when we're in the midst of a hard moment or sitting in the fire of some situation in life, This is the only practice that is even doable. And again, Be present. Be present to your body. Be present to the way that these energies are showing up in you. It isn't about taking them on to hold them. So if you notice that, Then take care of yourself. Breathe into those energies and free them from your body. If again, You start to see some unwanted reflection about yourself, Then you go back to tonglening your own unwanted energies. Keep going. Instead of ignoring the haters, The harmers, Instead of ignoring the pain of the world, This meditation invites us to compassionately gaze and be fierce enough to open to love, Even in the face of the deepest ugliness. Not excusing, Not condoning, Just on the energetic level from soul to soul, Breathing in the darkness, Breathing out love, Breathing in the suffering, Breathing out freedom. As you go along, See if you can go deeper. See if you can be daring. The unlovable, The unthinkable, The ungazeable, Like you just can't even go there. And if you can't go there, And you're judging yourself for it, Once again, Tonglen your own feeling, Your own sense of readiness. We are where we are. Another minute to just see what's left. Breathing in the suffering, Breathing out freedom, Breathing in the pain, Breathing out love, Kindness, Healing. May everyone be free, May everyone be healed. With the next round of breath, Let the tonglen complete, And take a series of breaths that are cleansing breaths, Where you're just breathing in right into the core of your own body, Into the core of your own being, And just breathing out, And just letting go anything that might be left. Like the breath is just washing all the way through you. We're gonna leave this meditation clear. We're gonna leave this meditation clear. When that feels complete, You can take some nice big, Big breaths, And let your body move. And when you're ready, You can open your eyes. Thank you for joining me for this meditation.