Towards Bodhicitta: Tonglen For Yourself

This meditation is from a series of teachings Venerable Sangye Khadro gave in part of the text “Ornament for Clear Realization.” This is the tenth meditation of 11, though they do not need to be listened to in order.

Tonglen is the practice of imagining taking on others' suffering and giving away your happiness. Though it can be done with anyone in mind, this meditation visualizes taking pain and giving happiness to your future self. With practice and time, we can extend tonglen to others.

Transcript

So take a few minutes to make sure your mind is settled down in the present,

Not thinking about the past or the future,

Other things.

Put all those aside for now and generate a really positive motivation for being here.

Really open your heart to all living beings and how they're suffering,

Although they don't want to suffer just like we don't want to suffer.

And they want to be happy just like us,

But they're not able to find genuine lasting happiness because of ignorance,

Not knowing how to get that.

So really feel compassion and the wish to help them.

And by learning about the path to enlightenment,

The bodhisattva's path,

Then we'll be able to start practicing that path and creating the causes to become a fully enlightened Buddha ourselves,

And then be able to help all other living beings,

To guide them out of suffering and its causes,

Guide them to genuine happiness and its causes,

All the way up to the highest happiness of enlightenment.

So really try to make that your motivation for being here.

So we'll do a meditation on tonglen or taking and giving.

So we've been meditating on the various points of the method for developing bodhicitta known as equalizing and exchanging self for others,

Where we first contemplate how we're all the same,

All living beings,

All sentient beings are the same and that we want happiness and do not want suffering.

And then we look at the disadvantages of being self-centered or selfish,

Thinking only of ourselves,

Placing ourselves at the center of the universe and making that our number one priority,

Just achieving our own happiness and freeing ourselves from suffering and not caring about others.

And that kind of attitude dominates our mind,

Dominates our life,

Motivates most of the things we do,

But this is normal.

This is how sentient beings in samsara are.

But we can change this.

We don't have to continue being under the control of that kind of attitude.

And then we looked at the opposite attitude,

Which is cherishing others or altruism.

We gradually transform our priorities and become more concerned for others than for ourselves.

And that has a lot of advantages as we've looked at.

So just briefly remember those points that we've contemplated and really try to feel convinced that cherishing others,

Altruism,

Dedicating yourselves to the well-being of others is much more satisfying and brings the greatest peace and happiness for yourself and also for others.

And it's also an essential thing to do in order to develop along the path and succeed in following the path and reaching enlightenment.

So really try to feel convinced that it's necessary,

It's important to bring about this change in our attitude and become more concerned for others and less self-centered.

But then even if we do sincerely feel the wish to change our attitudes in this way,

We may feel overwhelmed by how difficult it is because self-centeredness is so strong and so pervasive and so much like a habit.

We're so familiar with it and it can seem very difficult to stop being that way and to be more concerned for others.

It is difficult to change,

But it's not impossible.

And there's a technique that is very helpful,

Very effective in bringing about this transformation of the mind,

The technique of tonglen or taking and giving.

So you probably heard about this,

But I'll just briefly explain it.

The taking part involves meditating on compassion,

Generating sense of compassion for other beings,

Seeing how they suffer and really wanting them to be free of suffering and then getting to the point where you want to take their suffering onto yourself.

You would rather have that suffering yourself than have them have to go through it.

So you imagine taking away the suffering of others and taking it into yourself and then using that suffering to eliminate,

To overcome the self-centered attitude in our heart.

And the giving part is to meditate on love,

Loving kindness and really wish others to have happiness.

And then generating that feeling so strongly that you're willing to give your own happiness to others.

If you could do so,

If you could give everything you have that is good and joyful,

Beneficial,

You would like to give that to others so that they can enjoy happiness.

Then you imagine all your resources,

Your body,

Your good health,

Your merit,

Your virtue and so on,

All the good things you have,

Imagine them as a kind of wish-fulfilling jewel and then it sends out light and becomes whatever others need to be happy.

And so the traditional way of explaining the practice is like that.

You do it with others,

Take away their suffering and give them happiness.

And some people are comfortable doing that right from the beginning,

But other people feel uneasy,

Even frightened of the idea of taking away other's suffering.

So they say it's good to start with yourself by taking on your own suffering and giving yourself happiness.

So doing the practice like that with our own self and the kind of problems we'll experience in the future can make it easier to then later do the practice with others,

Starting with people like family and friends,

People we already care about and so on.

So we'll do that tonight.

We'll do the tonglen practice in that way tonight and then next time we can do it with respect to others.

So think about problems,

Painful experiences that you will likely go through in the future.

For example,

Later tonight or tomorrow or the coming week,

Coming month,

What kind of problems might you encounter?

It might be physical problems,

You might get sick,

You might have a stomachache,

A headache,

You might get injured and have pain in some part of your body.

You might experience things that are distressing,

Things not going the way you want them to go,

Going opposite to the way you want them to go and so on.

So just try to imagine what kind of problems you'll be experiencing in the near future and think about problems you'll probably experience later in life.

As your body gets older,

You have more difficulties related to aging,

Probably more illness,

More things going wrong with your body and also on the mental or emotional level,

Again,

Things happening other than the way you would like them to,

Unexpected problems appearing in your life,

Not getting what you want and so forth.

Just realize that there will be such problems,

Such experiences coming in the future.

And then at some point,

We don't know when it will happen,

But we will die.

This life will come to an end,

We'll face the end of our life and that will bring various problems with it.

Again,

It could be physical pain or other difficulties and most probably mental or emotional ones,

Anxiety,

Fear,

Not wanting to die and other kinds of things coming up in our mind.

So contemplating these problems that your future self will experience,

Generate compassion for yourself,

Compassion for this future you who will have to face these problems,

These difficulties without choice,

Without control.

Really feel the wish for your future self to not have to suffer and to be free from all these different kinds of problems and difficulties.

If it's difficult to really have that feeling,

You could try just saying to yourself,

How wonderful it would be if my future self could be free from all suffering and causes of suffering.

Then generate the wish to take away those problems and take them onto yourself now so that your future self can be free of them.

Imagine those sufferings taking the form of smoke,

Fog.

Imagine drawing that to yourself.

You can imagine breathing it in if you want or just coming into yourself in whatever way you like.

And imagine that at your heart,

Your heart chakra,

Your self-centered attitude,

This attitude of thinking I am the most important person in the world,

Everything has to revolve around me,

So that kind of attitude.

Imagine it there in your heart as a kind of lump,

Blob.

And when the suffering of your future self comes into you in the form of smoke or fog,

Imagine it transforming into a bolt of lightning or thunder or even a bomb.

And it crashes down on this lump of your self-centered attitude and completely smashes it into smithereens so that it's not there anymore,

Gets destroyed.

Remember,

This is just an attitude in your mind.

It's not you.

It's just a certain aspect of your mind that is self-centered.

That's what we are smashing,

Destroying,

Overcoming.

And imagine that all those self-centered thoughts,

Those thoughts about I,

I,

I,

Me,

Me,

Me,

I'm so important,

They just vanish.

They just stop happening.

They're not there anymore in your mind.

And just let your mind rest for a few moments in the peacefulness that that brings.

Now generate a feeling of love,

Loving kindness for your future self,

Wishing that future self,

Future I,

To be happy,

To have good experiences,

Not bad ones,

And especially to have the inner qualities,

The inner resources to be able to stay happy and positive no matter what happens.

Now imagine that all your good qualities,

Your virtue,

Your knowledge,

Your wisdom,

Your kindness,

Your compassion,

And your body,

Your resources,

Things you own,

Your health,

So all the good things you have at present,

Imagine gathering all those things together and it transforms into something really beautiful,

Like a beautiful light or a wish-granting jewel,

Sparkling,

Bright,

Pure.

Imagine it at your heart,

Center of your chest.

And imagine light rays going out from this to your future self,

And the light transforms into whatever your future self needs to be happy,

Both external things like enough food to eat and a place to live and good experiences coming from outside,

But more importantly,

The inner qualities that are needed to be able to stay happy no matter what kind of situation happens,

Even illness,

Even death,

But being able to remain positive and use those experiences in the spiritual path.

Imagine giving your future self all of those things,

And imagine your future self receiving all those things and looking happy and peaceful and positive.

Remember that the main cause of happiness is dharma,

So imagine giving your future self whatever she or he needs to continue practicing dharma,

Staying connected with spiritual teachers and spiritual friends,

Having all the conditions to continue practicing the dharma,

Especially the inner conditions,

The aspiration to continue practicing dharma,

Confidence,

Joyous effort to keep practicing right up to the end of life.

Imagine giving all of that to your future self.

Your future self looks happy,

Radiant,

And they're flourishing.