How To Turn Pain Into Power

Most of us have been conditioned to shy away from the suffering of others, causing us to unintentionally close our hearts.
In this meditation, you’ll learn how to transform pain into compassion — a powerful Buddhist practice that awakens your innate capacity to heal yourself and the world. With each breath in, you receive the pain of others; with each breath out, you send love, relief, and light.
This is the heart of true power — expanding your capacity to love without turning away.

Transcript

Hello,

Dear one,

And welcome to your meditation practice.

Today's practice is called Tonglen.

It's also translated as taking and sending.

Tonglen is an ancient Buddhist practice that awakens our heart's unlimited well of compassion.

It completely changes our usual conditioned philosophy of avoiding suffering and only seeking happiness.

In this practice,

We are visualizing taking in the pain and suffering of others with every breath in and sending out whatever will be medicine for them with every breath out.

How epic is this?

Yeah,

So with each breath in,

We take others' pains.

With each breath out,

We send them relief.

We send them medicine,

Okay?

So why we do this?

Because we are unintentionally closing our hearts every time we see someone suffering.

Why?

Because it brings up our own fear,

Our own confusion,

Our own anger.

You know,

So in this practice,

What seemingly is like poison will now be medicine.

And when we practice in this way,

We are eradicating selfishness from the garden of our mind,

And we're watering the seeds that support the activation of our hearts.

Get ready for a beautiful transformation.

So whenever you're ready,

My love,

I invite you to get settled into a comfortable meditation position,

A posture that balances awakefulness and relaxation,

And gently close your eyes.

And to begin,

Let's invite some relaxation and ease into the mind by resting all the energy of the mind,

All of your bits and pieces of your attention on the feeling of the breath.

So see where you can feel your breath most vividly.

Is it at the tip of your nose?

Is it perhaps at your upper lip,

Where you feel the cooling air brushing by your lips as it enters your nostrils?

Or is it a place in your chest or in your belly?

Where do you feel the breath most vividly?

See if one of these four main anchors is where you can touch base with the feeling of the breath.

And see if you can trace the breath in and out.

And noticing if your attention gets pulled away into any internal or external distractions,

Just notice it and do your best effort to resist the temptation to get carried away and just come back.

Place your attention back on the feeling of the breath.

We're practicing with the breath for another few moments here.

Come back to the breath.

Coming back.

All right,

And let go of the breath,

My love.

Let's begin Tonglen,

The practice of taking and sending.

So what I want you to do now is I want you to think of someone who you know that is suffering.

Maybe this is someone close to you or someone who you've seen on the TV,

On the internet,

Or maybe this is a friend of yours.

And then I invite you to breathe in feelings of heat as if you're breathing in their sadness,

Right?

Let's say this person is experiencing extreme sadness right now.

So breathing in feelings of heat,

Breathing in their sadness.

You may visualize the sadness as dense smoke.

And as you breathe in,

You're taking in this negative energy through all of your pores of your body.

You're breathing in their sadness into your being.

So continue to breathe in.

And again,

You may visualize the sadness as a dense,

Thick smoke coming in through every pore of your body.

So breathing in all of their sadness,

Breathing in deeply into your body.

And then as you breathe out,

You're breathing out feelings of coolness.

You're breathing out a clear blue light.

You're radiating happiness back into them.

This positive energy completely towards their well-being through all of your pores.

See if you can visualize this blue light that is happiness coming from your being into them,

Transforming what we normally think as poison into medicine.

So breathing in feelings of heat and sadness as dense,

Thick smoke into your body through every pore of your body.

And on the out-breath,

You're breathing out feelings of happiness,

Coolness towards them and this blue light radiating from every pore of your body and reaching them.

So practice with this person that you know for a few moments,

Right?

And see if you can synchronize the in-breath and the out-breath.

So the in-breath you're taking in their suffering,

Their pain,

Their sadness,

And you're breathing out the medicine,

The relaxation,

The ease,

The happiness,

The peace,

The love,

The compassion,

The potential as clear,

Beautiful,

Cooling blue light,

Right?

So practice with this person that you know for a bit.

And again,

Notice the resistance,

Notice the stories that may show up in the mind and just do your best effort to come back into the practice.

Stay with this visualization,

Okay?

As you continue to practice with this transformative and extremely healing visualization practice,

You are transforming your mind and you're awakening your heart.

All right,

Dear one,

Great work.

Now I invite you to see if you can expand to the whole world,

Right?

So let's breathe in feelings of heat,

Feelings of anger,

And visualizing them again as dense,

Thick smoke from the whole world.

And you're breathing it in completely,

Taking in this negative energy,

All the anger through all of your pores of your body,

Breathing it all in,

Pulling out the anger from the world into your body as dense,

Thick smoke as you breathe in.

And as you breathe out,

Feelings of coolness,

Clear blue light radiating peace through all pores of your body for all beings everywhere.

So practicing in this way,

Okay,

For all beings everywhere,

Breathing in anger as feelings of heat,

Breathing in all this anger from the entire world as dense,

Thick smoke,

Breathing in completely and taking in this negative energy to every pore of your body,

Pulling it out of the world.

And as you breathe out,

You're breathing out clear blue light,

Feelings of coolness,

Of peace from every pore of your body for all beings everywhere.

So see if you can synchronize the in-breath and the out-breath with this visualization practice,

Working with anger,

Bringing in the anger and giving peace,

Taking in the anger and sending peace to all people everywhere.

Now in the same way,

Breathing in feelings of heat,

Breathing in all the fear from the world,

Breathing in,

Visualizing as dense,

Thick smoke from the whole world,

The entire fear of the world as you breathe in,

Completely taking in this negative energy through all of your pores of your body,

Pulling the fear out of the entire world,

Breathing in deeply,

Deeply,

Deeply.

And as you breathe out feelings of coolness,

You breathe out this clear blue light radiating love,

This positive energy of love through all of the pores in your body,

Reaching all beings everywhere.

So practice with fear,

Taking in the fear of the world and sending love to all people everywhere.

Practice in this way with this visualization,

Right?

With each breath in,

Taking in the fear,

In each breath out,

Giving love,

Sending out love.

So practice in this way for a few moments here.

And now breathing in this agitation,

This boredom out of the whole world,

Out of all beings everywhere,

Taking in their suffering,

Their anxiety,

Their boredom,

Breathing it all in,

Breathing it all in as dark,

Thick,

Dense smoke,

Pulling it out of the world,

Breathing in completely,

Taking in this negative energy through every pore of your body,

Breathing it all in,

Breathing it in.

And as you breathe out,

You breathe out these feelings of coolness,

This clear blue light radiating relaxation and acceptance as blue light,

This positive energy completely radiating through every pore of your body and reaching all beings everywhere.

So breathing in this agitation,

This boredom,

This anxiety out of the entire world,

Out of all beings everywhere,

And then breathing out relaxation,

Acceptance,

And ease.

Okay,

So practice in this way for a few moments here and try to synchronize the in-breath with taking in and the out-breath with sending,

Taking in what we see as poison and sending out with the breath out,

Medicine,

What could be of benefit to them.

All right,

My dear,

Incredibly powerful work today.

Thank you so much.

Let all the images go,

Let it all go.

Check in with yourself now.

Take a spiritual inventory of your internal world.

Notice the quality of your internal landscape now.

And then bring both hands in prayer position in front of your heart.

Express gratitude for your effort,

For your practice,

And remember that this practice is an act of profound generosity because it not only benefits ourselves,

But it benefits all people everywhere.

So thank you for that.

Thank you for being part of the solution.

Thank you for shining your light so bright.

Thank you for uncovering your heart so,

So,

So,

So much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sending you love.

Thank you so much.