Week 105: Revisiting Tonglen Practice – How Our Suffering Can Become Service

Continuing to draw from the tapes I listened to on my recent vacation trip, on one of the tapes, Sogyal Rinpoche talked about Tonglen practice in a way that moved me deeply. He described examples of people who had serious illness or serious emotional distress and how they learned to use Tonglen practice to help ease the suffering of others. In so doing, they were able to experience meaning for their suffering and, at times, even their own pain eased. I want to share his ideas with you here, as I think they offer each of us a gift that moves our suffering beyond our own painful experience.

Sogyal Rinpoche’s suggestion was to imagine all others in the world who are suffering as we are at a given time, to bring them into awareness even if we have no idea who or where they are. Then, we breathe their suffering into our own being, joining it with the suffering we experience. As we breathe in the suffering of others, we acknowledge that we do so in order to help them to heal. We accept their suffering in order to ease their experience. Then, as we breathe out, we exhale compassion, ease, love, and we imagine all those who suffer as we do enfolded in light and completely healed.

As an example, if you were deeply anxious, or depressed, or feeling loss, you would sit down and become aware of that suffering in you. Then, you would expand your awareness to others who feel the same way, even if you don’t know them. You hold the intention to connect with all those who suffer as you do. Next, imagine their suffering as gray clouds, or some other image, and breathe in the clouds, taking them fully into yourself, blending them with your own suffering. As you breathe out, imagine that the suffering has been transformed into compassion, ease, light, whatever you want those who suffer to receive, and send that transformed breath to all those whose suffering you have taken in. Finally, imagine all those others as enfolded in light and completely healed. You can imagine yourself as enfolded in light, as well.

If you are uncomfortable directly taking in the suffering of others, remember to imagine yourself surrounded by a healing light so that the suffering you take in is transformed into neutral energy by the light before it enters you. Then, as you bring that energy into your own suffering, imagine your suffering also transformed as you breathe out compassion, ease, light, or whatever you choose to send out into the world. Then, see yourself and all others who suffer as you do enfolded in light and completely healed.

Sogyal Rinpoche described how tonglen practice focused in this way not only offers healing to others, but creates a deep sense of meaning and healing in those who actually do the breathing practice. This week’s experiment invites you to get in touch with whatever kind of suffering you experience (and we all have some kind of suffering), extend your awareness to those who suffer in a similar way, and to do tonglen practice on that suffering. Remember that there’s no right or wrong way to do the experiment. Rather, there is an opportunity to notice how you feel afterward. Pay particular attention to your body once you complete the process, and to the quality of your thoughts and feelings.

Notice what happens if you give 5 minutes a day to this practice of tonglen. As always, be sure to bring curiosity to the process, a willingness to be aware of mixed feelings and any other thoughts or physical sensations that may arise.