Practicing Compassion

 

Sending and Receiving

“Tonglen practice has to do with cultivating fearlessness. When you do this practice for some time…you begin to realize that fear has to do with wanting to protect your heart…Again and again, in the Buddhist teachings, in Shambhala teachings, and in any tradition that teaches us how to live well, we are encouraged to cultivate fearlessness.”

Pema Chodron (The Wisdom of No Escape, p.56; Shambhala Publications, 1991)

          I first learned to do tonglen back in the 1990’s. It is the practice of “sending and receiving.” It takes a level of fearlessness to begin with and even more to continue. In this practice, we visualize someone who is troubled and/or in pain sitting before us, perhaps someone we love or someone that we know is suffering. We give an image to their suffering, a texture, or a color, perhaps. On the inbreath, we breathe in that image, allowing time for it to transform within our bodies, and then breathe out healing energy back to them. We keep doing this breathing in and breathing out until the image transforms in our mind’s eye. In my experience, it looks like a beam of pale yellow light.

          Tonglen is a way of helping to relieve suffering. It does not harm the one practicing simply because it passes through them, it doesn’t stay. In this practice, we learn about our own courage and willingness to show compassion. Sometimes, when confronted with someone else’s problems, we want to look away, or even turn away and run as fast as we can. In tonglen, we do the opposite. We turn toward, and willingly take on the suffering of another human being—not in fact, but in intention. It’s not a difficult practice, but it is a scary thing to contemplate. Beyond imagining one person sitting in front of you, and their pain as dark energy transforming into light, you can expand this practice to your family, your community, your city, to all beings. In doing so, you will learn both the limits of your compassion and the expansiveness of it. You will encounter your own barriers to open-heartedness and wrestle with clearing them. You will need a firece heart to confront this--thus, the practice encourages fearlessness.

          Some of us have an easier time showing compassion to other people, even to complete strangers, than we do to ourselves. So, in preparation for practicing tonglen for someone else, give yourself a dose of compassion. Don’t decide you don’t deserve it because everyone deserves it. So, summon up your courage and practice a little self-healing too.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane