Calm Spirit / Ying Yu Jade

Tonglen practice comes from the Buddha who teaches compassion. The Buddha has also been called the Great Physician and there is an excellent book, Buddhist Healing Touch, which demonstrates healing techniques. Tonglen, which means taking and sending, is Buddhist medicine to cultivate compassion, and transform the poisons of evil, anger, grasping and ignorance into a remedy that can heal the suffering of all beings.

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and director of the Gampo Abbey in Novia Scotia, teaches Tonglen meditation and has written articles about Buddhism and its practices, and this article is derived from her teachings. She says the practical purpose of tonglen is to reduce the amount and density of suffering in the world, and to replace it with unconditional spaciousness. This exchange takes place on the medium of the breath. The suffering of others is taken in with the in-breath and relief is offered with out-breath to whomever needs it.

Tonglen can be practiced in formal meditation, or at the moment of encountering a painful situation. What you do is to change the energy of the environment by replacing the dynamics of fear, grief or anger with compassion. We are willing to take on the pain of other sentient beings who suffer as we do (compassion). We give away happiness and kindness that we have inside ourselves. Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. This liberates us from selfishness. We feel love for others and ourselves. Tonglen connects us to the open dimension of our being.

We begin to practice tonglen by taking taking on the suffering of a person we know is in pain whom we wish to help. For example, if you have a friend who is hurting because of a recent divorce, you breathe in with the wish to take away the anger and fear she is feeling. When you breathe out, you send her happiness, relaxation and peace, or whatever you feel would bring her relief.

If you find yourself blocked with this practice, it's probably because you are coming face to face with your own fear, anger, resistance or whatever your own personal sickness or pain happens to be with you at the moment. To get past this blocking, you can begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling, and for what millions of others just like you feeling. So you breathe in for all the people who are stuck in the same emotion you are in, and breathe out relief or whatever you feel brings relief for you and others who are feeling as you do. Connect with what you are feeling and breathe it in, take it in for all beings, and send out relief to all of us.

You can also do tonglen on the spot, at any time. For example, if you are in your car and you pass an accident, you can begin by breathing in their fear and pain and breathing out to send relief. But if you find that you are uncomfortable and turn away, and feel disappointed in yourself because you truly want to practice compassion, do tonglen for yourself, and for people just like you who turn away in fear or revulsion, by breathing in for all of us and breathing out for all of us. Being in touch with your unpleasant and unwanted feelings helps you develop compassion, and is a teacher.

When you see pain, anger, fear, or other emotional poison in the world, use it as medicine and breathe it in, breathe it out.

Tonglen as a formal meditation has four stages. First, rest your mind for a few moments to find openness or stillness. Then work with the texture of breathing in feelings of hot, dark, heavy, and breathing out cool, bright and light. Breathe in completely through all the pores of your body, and breathe out radiating, completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until your in and out breaths feel synchronized. Thirdly, start working with a personal situation that is painful to you or someone close to you. For example, if you are feeling disappointed in yourself, breathe that in for you and all others who feel that way, and breathe out acceptance for yourself and all others. Finally, enlarge the taking in and sending out. If you are doing tonglen for someone you care for, extend it to everyone who is in the same situation. Make it larger than just one person, and consider including people who have hurt you or others. Breathe in their poison, and breathe out sending them relief, good medicine.

You may ask, does tonglen really help in a tangible way?" Studies have shown the positive impact of prayer on hospital patients who may even be complete strangers to the people offering the prayers. Tonglen can be viewed as a form of prayer, with the wish to relieve suffering. There is a more profound way to impact the environment with tonglen. For example, when we are confronted with aggression, we might automatically respond with anger, which only escalates the situation. If one were to respond with tonglen, taking in the pain of aggression into oneself and offering peace, the predictable patter of escalation would be defused.

There is an abundance of violence, aggression, pain, suffering and evil in the world, and when we wonder what we can do to make the world a better place, we can use tonglen as a tool to change ourselves and the environment, to make good medicine out of poison.

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