As I continue to work with the HeartMath program, which I may have mentioned is a biofeedback program to increase heart coherence – and thereby increase nervous-system regulation, I’ve discovered that I shift into a higher level of coherence whenever I do the Buddhist practice of tonglen. For example, if I begin to feel any kind of time pressure or stress, or if my mind wanders to a problem, the moment I shift into tonglen, breathing. I breathe in whatever is distracting me and breath out ease, calm, compassion, or whatever quality I need, and I quickly shift back into a more coherent heart pattern. Because of my experiences, I wanted to revisit tonglen practice with you, as I think it’s one of the easiest and most powerful ways to shift away from the mounting stress that’s so much part of everyday life.

And so, I’d like to remind you how to do tonglen, and to give you some examples of how you might experiment with it. Basically, tonglen invites you to focus your awareness in your heart space and open yourself to whatever discomfort or disquiet you may experience. For example, if you find yourself stressed out over a situation at work where a colleague is behaving competitively with you, you could focus on the person’s experience of jealousy or feeling threatened by you. Then, you could remind yourself that, along with this person, you and many others have these same feelings from time to time. You can remind yourself that, in this moment, lots of people you will never meet are feeling exactly the way your colleague is acting. Then, you breathe into your heart space all that competitiveness and jealousy, including your own, allowing the fire of the heart to transform it into whatever quality you would like to send to yourself, that person, and all those other distressed people. You might choose compassion, peace, love, ease – whatever feels right to you for that particular situation and time.

There are an infinite number of examples of when you might use tonglen to lessen stress. For example, if you’re driving on a busy road and feeling frustrated at the amount of traffic around you, you can breathe in that frustration – yours and that of all the drivers around you – and breathe out ease. Or, you may be in a setting where people are agitated or angry. You might notice what happens if you were to begin to breathe in that anger, realizing that the same feeling sometimes exists in you and that many people all around the world are angry in that same way, and breathe out quiet, or calm, or peace. Or, you may find yourself feeling anxious about a presentation, or judging yourself in some way. When this happens, recognize that you’re having an experience many people have, breathe it in, and send yourself and everyone else an outbreath of gentle compassion and ease for this oh-so-human experience.

What’s surprising is that it’s the act of letting in what’s distressing that allows it to dissipate and then disappear. It’s the paradox of living with an open heart – the more we are willing to be present to our experience, the easier it is to be there.

There are a couple of key elements to tonglen. First is the recognition that the energy of the heart is transformative and capable of neutralizing any negative emotion or experience you may choose to breathe in. Secondly, tonglen reminds us that we are all connected within the human experience of suffering. We are all capable of feeling distress. Thirdly, tonglen encourages us to shift from a stance of aggression or defeat into an active stance of choosing to transform the energy within and around us. It invites us to offer ourselves and everyone else the gift of heartfelt compassion.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to play with tonglen, to notice your experience when you allow yourself to live from your heart space and to consciously engage difficulty and distress by choosing to transform it.