Tonglen: Giving and Receiving

Tonglen: Giving and Receiving

Doing Tonglen sweeps away the dust that has been covering over your treasure that's always been there.

—Pema Chodron

Tonglen is a meditation practice in which the practitioner, attempting to generate Bodhicitta, actively chooses to take on the sufferings of others. One visualizes taking all pain, difficulties, and sorrows from sentient beings upon oneself and giving comfort, understanding, and happiness. The text

instructs us to “secretly take on” these sufferings. In other words, a practitioner doesn’t go around announcing that s/he is engaging in this practice, for this only encourages pride in oneself and suspicion and confusion in others.

First we need to contemplate the topics mentioned in Chapter 10, such as reflecting on the equality of ourselves and others. We can begin with our partners, our closest friends, and our family members. Once we have developed the practice to the point where we care as much for these people as we do for

ourselves, then we expand the circle of our compassion to include those toward whom we have neutral feelings (acquaintances and strangers), and finally to those whom we actively dislike. We should then reflect upon the disadvantages of caring only for ourselves, understanding that our self-cherishing egoism

is the cause of all suffering and unhappiness in our lives. We then contemplate the benefits of caring for and cherishing others. We see that this attitude is the source of all happiness and the key to the door of Enlightenment.

During these contemplations, we learn to change our point of reference. Instead of seeing ourselves as passively receiving happiness from the world, we begin to see ourselves as actively transmitting happiness toward it. We get used to giving what we normally keep to ourselves. We begin to take more and

more responsibility for our own experiences, both good and bad, and so begin to free ourselves from the idea that we are somehow a victim of fortune. Pema Chodron says that in Tonglen, “You are cultivating a fearless heart, a heart that doesn’t close down in any circumstance.”

Some people might feel nervous about engaging in Tonglen practice, thinking that meditating upon the suffering of others will increase their own pain. It is true that being reminded of another’s suffering can be a painful experience, but this does not mean that we are going to be somehow magically afflicted

by the suffering we are visualizing. If we engage in this practice for someone who is suffering from cancer, for instance, this doesn’t mean that we will get cancer ourselves! We should also bear in mind that whatever we experience is the result of our own actions, our karma. Doing this practice creates

spiritual merit, and therefore can only improve our karmic future. We should not avoid doing this practice because we think that we are the one who is suffering. Palden Gyatso, a monk who was tortured in Chinese prisons in Tibet for thirty-three years, said that it was the practice of Tonglen that helped him to survive. The Dalai Lama has said that he has carried out this practice for many years and has found it to be not only perfectly safe but extremely beneficial for his spiritual development. All we need to do Tonglen, says Perna Chodron, is to have experienced one second of happiness and one second of suffering. However, if we experience resistance to this practice, it simply means that we are not quite ready for it. We can begin with the first stage of the practice and gradually build to encompass the whole meditation. Or we can practice taking on our own suffering and then expand the meditation to others. The following is an abbreviated version of this practice.

Tonglen meditation

Whoever wishes to quickly afford protection

To both himself and others

Should practice that holy secret:

The exchanging of self for others.

—Shantideva

Visualizing the Six States of Existence

The beings in the six realms can be seen as metaphors for our own mental negativities, and the kinds of sufferings they experience as representing the afflictions that we experience under their influence. We imagine the anger and hatred experienced by the beings of hell, the greed and eternal

dissatisfaction of the hungry ghosts, and the ignorance and slavery of the animal realm. We visualize the human sufferings of desire and attachment along

with all the problems of the human condition, the jealousy and feuding of the demigods, and the confusion and anguish of the proud gods when they fall from grace and plummet into the lower realms.

Actual Meditation

In the Tonglen meditation we attempt to enlarge the arena of our compassion. We begin with our closest friends and family members, and then we extend our compassion to include everyone we know. Then we extend it even further to include the whole population of the country, the Earth, the solar system, and to

the beings in all realms of existence. We develop this universal imagery in our minds to create the universal heart. Geshe Gyeltsen says that we should especially focus on the physically and mentally ill, the homeless, and other social outcasts.

Receiving

We visualize that the sufferings and negativities of all these beings take the form of black smoke. This smoke travels from these beings toward us, merging to form a black cloud. In the center of our heart we visualize our own suffering and mental afflictions in the form of a black spot. Through our nose we

breathe in the black cloud of the suffering of others. We then visualize this cloud and the spot inside our heart dissolving into one another and canceling each other out. We should feel a powerful sense of having been purified and of having helped others to achieve a state of peace.

Giving

As we exhale out through the nose, we visualize healing white light rays emanating from our heart toward the suffering beings. These rays represent the essence of all our love, health, and happiness. The moment these rays come into contact with the beings, they are completely transformed, and each being receives a healing according to its own need.

By engaging in this practice, one begins to see oneself as less and less important, and as a result one’s own sufferings decrease in significance. Yet, practitioners must guard against feelings of pride caused by feeding the ego with the self-image of a savior of the universe. For this reason it is better

to begin with people one knows and expand gradually. We shouldn’t have too many expectations about the outcome of this practice or become disillusioned if, for example, the situation of a person for whom we are doing the practice doesn’t improve. The point of Tonglen is to learn to cherish others and to

transcend self-centeredness. The immediate transformation is not in others, but in the individual who is doing the practice. Ultimately these other beings do receive a benefit, for Tonglen helps one to develop the compassion needed to become enlightened, and an enlightened person is in a position to help all

beings. However, there may be other influences at work during such a practice, for studies have suggested that those for whom people pray heal more quickly than those who aren’t the beneficiaries of others’ prayers.