This tonglen meditation is a very powerful practice for sending compassion to others.
It's a pretty profound practice and actually can be pretty intense for some people.
Because it's not just wishing people be free of suffering and be content.
It's actually about,
It's an act of taking in of people's pain and suffering yourself and then giving out to them feeling of lightness,
Contentment,
Happiness.
So it's a practice I want to just give a word of warning to that you want to be feeling pretty content yourself.
You want to be able to be a type of person who could take in essentially someone's pain without it letting overwhelm you.
We're going to be doing this in a four part process.
The interesting thing about the tonglen meditation is where it sometimes translates as giving and receiving.
You're giving people feelings of lightness,
Feelings of happiness,
Joy from yourself.
You're receiving from them feelings of pain and suffering and darkness.
We're going to do this by riding the breath.
It's a very kind of easy practice in that way.
So while it's,
In some ways it's a simple practice,
But let's say it's not easy because it could be pretty intense.
So just know yourself,
Give it a go.
And this is one of the more powerful compassion practices you can undertake in your life.
Very very powerful.
Part one is just a touching in.
So we check in with ourselves,
Resting the mind with a sense of openness and stillness.
And you could let this just be a general letting the mind scan the body.
You could work with posture,
Just feel that align yet restful state as the spine rises and the body relaxes.
You could bring your attention to the breath,
Just being with the inhale and exhale.
Or more embodied breathing,
Awareness.
And once you've brought yourself to a bit of a calm aware state,
We could begin the second part.
The feeling here is that you're going to be breathing in this feeling of dark,
Thick,
Heavy,
Almost claustrophobic feeling.
So in the past,
People have a difficulty with this.
The transition they're always told in other meditations is breathing in lightness,
Right?
Breathing in a sense of joy and happiness and breathing out stress or anger.
We're doing the opposite now.
We're breathing in darkness,
Breathing in a sense of heavy.
And then what we breathe out,
Clean,
Light,
Fresh,
Joy.
Some people like to work with colors.
You breathe in dark or black,
Breathe out white,
Fresh and light.
There's two ways to feel this.
You want to be feeling this in the body.
It could be just a general sense of this.
You have this feeling in the whole body.
Breathing in dark,
Breathing out white light,
Or you could do this breathing directly into the heart center.
This seems to be a more direct and better practice for people.
They connect with more.
So bring your awareness to the heart center,
Center of the chest,
Where once again,
Breathing in a feeling of heaviness,
Darkness.
As you exhale,
Breathing out white,
Light,
Fresh,
Clear.
So all the awareness on that heart center.
As the saying is,
You're taking and sending on the medium of the breath,
Riding the breath,
Breathing in dark,
Breathing out light,
Breathing in a sense of suffering or pain from someone dying,
Breathing out a sense of lightness,
Fresh relief.
Now bring this to step three.
Now that we've established ourselves,
We're riding the medium of the breath,
We bring to mind a specific person.
And I would say bring to mind someone that you care about close to you that's dealing with some problems.
This could be medical problems,
It could be psychological problems,
Just anything that's causing them a bit of suffering.
Bring them to your mind.
And as you breathe in,
You're breathing in their pain,
Their suffering.
And as you breathe out,
You're breathing out to them relief,
Lightness,
A sense of white,
Fresh,
Clear light.
Breathing in their suffering,
And then breathing out,
Sending them relief,
Light,
Fresh,
White light.
So once again,
Taking and sending.
Taking in their dark,
Suffering,
Sending out relief,
Joy,
And light.
Now,
Instead of moving to another person in your life,
The fourth step is thinking about everyone else in the world who's suffering in the same way this individual that you've been focusing on.
So maybe the person you're focusing on is dealing with some health issue.
Think about everyone else in the world who's suffering from a similar health issue.
Taking in their suffering,
And riding the media in the breath,
Sending out relief.
Taking in that dark,
Heavy,
Black,
Sending out light,
White,
Fresh,
And just taking and sending,
Riding the medium of the breath,
Very somatic way,
Cultivating this Bodhisattva principle,
Putting others before the self,
The intention that our path is not just about being content and focusing on ourselves,
The project of me,
But doing what we can to relieve the suffering of others,
Putting others before the self.
And you could just ride the breath for as long as you like,
Taking and sending.
And as we draw the practice to a close,
You could let go of the feeling,
The meditation.
Now bring your awareness to yourself,
The body.
Just let your awareness be open.
Not needing to be on the breath,
Not needing to visualize a person.
Just let the awareness be open and pure.
Being with any and all sensations as they arise and come and go.
And when you're ready,
You could slowly come out of the practice,
Sending out these feelings of kindness and compassion.
Thanks for joining.
Have a great day.
