Tonglen

AA said: Danke, Sabina, das ist sehr, sehr gut!

BB said: Manchmal, liebe Sabina, ist es fast unheimlich wie gut Deine Briefe zu meinen Stimmungen oder Situationen passen!  Gestern ist das kleine Kind einer meiner besten Freundinnen schwer erkrankt liegt auf der Intensivstation. Lungenentzündung - ganz ohne Corona! Sie ist noch nicht zwei und mir war gestern den ganzen Tag kalt und ich, wir, haben versucht, gute Energie zu ihr und ihren Eltern zu senden und nun schickst Du auch noch eine Anleitung genau dafür! Danke! Dankedankedanke!

Tonglen

The essence of the practice is the willingness to share pleasure and delight and the joy of life on the out-breath and willingness to feel your pain and that of others fully in the in-breath.  
                         Pema Chödrön: The Wisdom of No Escape

The tonglen practice is a way to share the human condition. We train to awaken compassion. With each in-breath, we take in others’ pain and with each out-breath, we send them relief.

Here is how to do it: 

1. Get Centred

To begin with, go to your favourite meditation spot, sit down, and get comfortable. Take a few minutes to just relax and breathe, to settle in, to quiet your mind, and become centred and present here and now.

2. Call To Mind Someone Who Is Suffering

Think of someone you know who is hurting, or struggling in some way.

Call up a clear picture of them in your mind, see them as vividly as possible. Whatever it is they are going through – illness, depression, financial troubles, divorce or bad break up– imagine how hard it is, and what they might be feeling.

Really put yourself in their shoes, and try to understand the extent of their suffering; physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The point is to feel that pain like it is your own (because it is), and to let it crack open your heart with compassion.

3. Breathe In Their Pain

Now imagine that you can relieve them of their pain, by taking it upon yourself.

Buddhist tradition instructs us to envision the other person’s suffering as a dark cloud of ash or smoke, and to breathe it in. Take a deep breath, and breathe in all that pain, fear, exhaustion, sadness, loneliness and suffering; all of the negative energy. Welcome it and accept it as your own.

As you breathe in, you may say silently, “May you be free from suffering.”

4. Transmute Darkness Into Light

Pause for just a moment, between the in-breath and the out-breath.

And as you do, take that energy into your heart, to your innermost self. There, all that pain and suffering is transmuted, cleansed and purified — it becomes fuel for the fire of awakening. See how that cloud of misery is consumed by the pure light of awareness.

But that’s not all that is consumed. As you take on the suffering of others, and transmute it, your own fear and ignorance, your pettiness, selfishness, your clinging ego, is burned up along with it.

The poison becomes the medicine. The problem becomes the solution. What you instinctively fear and avoid becomes the vehicle of your liberation.

5. Send Them Peace

Now as you breathe out, send that suffering person good vibrations – a pure white light, the energy of life, peace, happiness, well-being, relaxation, safety and freedom.

Visualize that light and energy going into their mind and body, healing and rejuvenating them. See it going into their heart, the very core of their being, bringing them relief and peace, giving them new courage and strength.

6. Repeat

Repeat steps 3 – 5 for a few minutes, or as long as you wish.

Each time you breathe in, you take in the other’s dark energy, their pain and suffering. You take it into your heart, where it is transmuted, transformed into pure light, compassionate awareness. Then you breathe out, and send them that pure, life-giving energy.

With each cycle, see them becoming more calm and at peace, more healthy and happy and strong. Until finally, in your mind’s eye, they are totally free from suffering, radiant with light and life and energy.

7. Expand your compassion

Finally, make the taking in and sending out bigger. If you are doing tonglen for someone you love, extend it out to all those who are in the same situation. If you are doing tonglen for someone you see on television or on the street, do it for all the others in the same boat. 

It’s worth noting that tonglen can be practiced for entire groups of people like a community in grief, a nation ravaged by war, all people who are hungry or homeless – or all the people suffering from the physical, psychological or economical effects of the Corona virus.