I want to know if you can sit with the pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it…
It doesn't interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and dispair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children
-oriah mountain dreamer
10:30 p.m..almost asleep…. Shit! Skyler's gym clothes haven't been washed ! ( have you had the joy of experiencing the "afterglow" of an athletic 16 year old's gym clothes?) . Up I go. And wash the gym clothes. 4:00 a.m…dream state…SHIT! The gym clothes aren't dry! Up I go… wet clothes to dryer. Might as well get the school lunches started. And how fitting and perfect is this? He forgot to take the clean clothes. This is all of my own doing - or undoing - and the children need to be fed.
Through all the years of my maturing and evolving personal practice, and in guiding students through their own, I've found the practice of Tonglen to be one of the most liberating and expanding life meditations. The tears of our world seem heavy now. There are long moments where the anguish of the mothers and fathers that cry these tears overwhelms me .
My first take on this bold asana was …" beam me up Scotty! "… or " Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ( no judgment on the shot Amy… You did a bang-up job! ) . The biggest challenge has been my attachment to the security and traction of my yoga mat. I'm united with the yogis that practice on ice, fire, nailbeds! Holding strong, steady and breathing , soft heart and gaze... I came up and said , " Makes me want to barf! ."
Tonglen requires no special mala beads or sitting cushion. Just you and a safe place of quiet to dive in deep and receive ….let the gates of love open.
~Breathing in your own deep heartache . Hold it . Stay. It will move through you.
Breathing out joy from the wounds and scars , and memories of your suffering.
For you, For another being, for the world . ~
THE PRACTICE OF TONGLEN
by Pema Chodron.
In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. In particular, to care about other people who are fearful, angry, jealous, overpowered by addictions of all kinds, arrogant, proud, miserly, selfish, mean —you name it— to have compassion and to care for these people, means not to run from the pain of finding these things in ourselves. In fact, one's whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one's heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind.
The tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering —ours and that which is all around us— everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem
to be.
We begin the practice by taking on the suffering of a person we know to be hurting and who we wish to help. For instance, if you know of a child who is being hurt, you breathe in the wish to take away all the pain and fear of that child. Then, as you breathe out, you send the child happiness, joy or whatever would relieve their pain. This is the core of the practice: breathing in other's pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open, and breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever you feel would bring them relief and happiness. However, we often cannot do this practice because we come face to face with our own fear, our own resistance, anger, or whatever our personal pain, our personal stuckness happens to be at that moment.
At that point you can change the focus and begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can't name what you're feeling. But you can feel it —a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in —for all of us and send out relief to all of us.
People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together. Truthfully, this practice does go against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others. The practice dissolves the armor of self-protection we've tried so hard to create around ourselves. In Buddhist language one would say that it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego.
Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we begin to take care of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger view of reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness that Buddhists call shunyata. By doing the practice, we begin to connect with the open dimension of our being. At first we experience this as things not being such a big deal or so solid as they seemed before.
Tonglen can be done for those who are ill, those who are dying or have just died, or for those that are in pain of any kind. It can be done either as a formal meditation practice or right on the spot at any time. For example, if you are out walking and you see someone in pain —right on the spot you can begin to breathe in their pain and send some out some relief. Or, more likely, you might see someone in pain and look away because it brings up your fear or anger; it brings up your resistance and confusion.
So on the spot you can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward.
Rather than beating yourself up, use your own stuckness as a stepping stone to understanding what people are up against all over the world.
Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
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