Tonglen Defined Tonglen is a breathing meditation.
Sitting alone in your safe meditation area, you close your eyes and do a visualization along with your breathing.
You imagine another person before you.
With your inhales you imagine taking something from the other person, and with your exhales you imagine giving something to the other person.
What you are giving and taking is the opposite of what you have been conditioned to give and take; you give to the other everything that you cherish, and you take from the other everything that he dislikes.
You imagine what you are giving is golden and holy, such as your wealth, health, good reputation, good karma, merit, and points toward heaven.
Everything coming off the other person is smoky and oily, like disease, bad karma, and bad reputation.
Your breathing is like a pump that incessantly gives him everything you possess that is worth having, and constantly takes from him everything he possessed that was not worth having.
This meditation is based on a text from India in the 7th Century and has been used in Tibet for almost a thousand years.
The point has been to unravel the patterns of greed, desire, and avoidance that hinder one's attainment of enlightenment.
The Dalai Lama, in his book Healing Anger (which comes from trainings he gave in Tucson, Arizona in 1993), tells how he used tonglen meditation to help him get over his anger toward a certain person who in 1959 had lied to him, murdered his friends and stole his land.
So we know Tonglen is powerful as a tool for healing oneself of powerful negative emotions.
I met the Dalai Lama when he was in Seattle in 1993 and I received an attunement from him.
He had come to give the required blessing to the newly renovated Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in North Seattle, where I was a member.
I had been reading the books of Tarthang Tulku and Chogyam Trungpa for years and during my time at Sakya Monastery I also began to study the classics, such as Shantideva's Bodicharyavatara.
In the 7thCentury Shantideva wrote: Whoever wishes quickly to become A refuge for himself and others, Should undertake this sacred mystery: To take the place of others, giving them his own But doesn't tonglen seem extremely unlikely? It sounds unnatural.
Who in their right mind would imagine their desires and aversions so reversed? I'll tell you who...
Tonglen and Your Mother Dilgo Khyentse recommends that on the first day you start practicing, the person you imagine in front of you is your mother.
Why your mother? Because it will solidify your practice to begin with someone who loved you and gave you great generosity.
Certainly, at a cellular level, you can generate compassion towards the one who protected you within her abdomen, fed you, cleaned you, and gave you oxygen for nine months.
B.
Alan Wallace also recommends beginning with your mother, but for a slightly different reason.
He notes that not everybody is in touch with compassion for his mother.
She might have been an alcoholic, he says, and selfish.
Still he recommends beginning your tonglen practice with your mother, as a psychological starting point.
For relationships with others are the key to spiritual practice, and relationships literally began for you with your mother.
You can see excerpts on tonglen by these two and five more experts at lojongmindtraining.
com.
There is an even better reason for starting with your mother.
She did tonglen with you for nine months.
Her breath she shared with you.
Her food she shared with you.
Your waste she took from you and processed it in her own organs, which sometimes made her feel nauseated.
You do not remember this in your brain's memory, but your cells remember.
Tonglen has been demonstrated for all of us, we all have the memory of it in our cells.
That alone is a very good reason to start your practice with your mother.
Tonglen is Normal, Natural and Commonplace Those of you who have actually been pregnant have already practiced tonglen.
Pregnancy is the nonstop practice of giving and taking for the benefit of another, 24/7.
Your brain may not recall your decision to give to the baby first from your oxygen and food, and to first clean the baby's blood before your own, but your cells remember.
It is not only human females who do tonglen for their fetuses, but all mammals.
Now let us return to the question; is tonglen natural? Is it farfetched? Who in their right mind would...
? The answer is, females would.
Females do.
Even female dogs and mice do tonglen.
Countless females have died in childbirth, for it is written in her very definition as a female to give her all so that the baby may live.
So tonglen is natural.
Tonglen is commonplace.
Everyone now living has been the recipient of tonglen and nearly half of those now living have long experience doing tonglen for someone else.
Therefore tonglen is not advanced, its average.
The vast majority of people who have already done tonglen did not even know how to read.
Women have been doing tonglen long before the Buddha or Jesus lived.
It is so easy to learn that women's bodies do it naturally without any training or even a conscious thought.
Tonglen as an Alternative Healing Technique Why don't we do tonglen as a technique for healing others? Chogyam Trungpa suggests tonglen is not simply an accelerator for one's own mind in meditation.
He says tonglen can actually make a difference with the person imagined.
In his book, Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness, he gives two examples of tonglen actually having effects outside oneself.
The first is a true story of a dog that is healed of its pain, and the second is the cleaning of air pollution.
Trungpa says that you may do tonglen on the air, sucking in the pollution and giving back pristine air, and that it actually does clean the air.
He was not aware of global warming when he passed away in the Spring of 1987 but if he is correct, then someone doing tonglen with the CO2 in today's air could stop global warming.
If Trungpa is correct, then the person you imagine during tonglen, actually receives benefit.
You are capable of taking that person's diseases and suffering away, and giving back equal amounts of health and happiness.
If this sounds scary, remind yourself that your mother did this for you for nine months, and millions of female humans and mammals are doing it right now.
Here are two methods you can experiment with.
I have tried them both many times over twenty years and feel they are practical tools that any healer can use.
1.
Tonglen Laying-On-Hands Massage therapists are generally motherly.
Massage mimics many elements of mothering; soothing the baby, handing baby the bottle, soft voices, putting baby to sleep...
Since we massage therapists are already imitating mothers, tonglen is not a stretch.
First rest your hands on the person.
There are a number of ways to do tonglen through your hands.
The one I have done most frequently is to imagine one hand gives and the other takes.
I will describe doing tonglen only with the muscles, but you could do it with other aspects of the person.
Imagine one of your hands is the nozzle of a shop-vac.
Imagine the toxins from the other person's muscles drawn through your vacuum hand, into you.
Your other hand pours good stuff back into the other person's muscles.
Fresh oxygen from your lungs and good nutrition from your digestion is pouring through your hand, bathing the other person's muscles.
Its as if this were your baby and your hands provide the placental connection, giving and taking.
Does it work? Can your hands really share oxygen and nutrition and waste across the skin barrier? If I were to write an answer here, I could only tell you my own opinion and experience.
You are certainly free to try it and find out for yourself.
2.
Tonglen Energy Technique Another way to do tonglen is with your hands above the body, or at a distance.
You are not touching the person.
In fact, the two examples that Chogyam Trungpa gave were at a distance.
If the person is present, say, lying horizontal, you may hold one hand over the person, perhaps 18 inches above her body.
You could imagine your hand is a shop-vac, sucking out any energy in her body that is not helping her.
Imagine that energy comes into your own body and gets filtered or processed.
(Imagine you have energy organs that process waste and nutrition, just like your physical organs do).
Your other hand pours energy back into the person.
If the other person is not present, you may still hold your hands up to help you imagine they cycle.
Breathing is another way to imagine it; with each inhale and exhale.
Whichever visualization you use, it is important to see the same amount of stuff--physical, energetic, emotional, spiritual, or other--comes out of them as goes into them.
Is Taking Energy A Problem? It was in the Fall of 1995 that I requested tonglen training from the Tibetan guru Jigdal Dagchen Sakya.
By a strange set of coincidences I met Stephen Bruno in December 1995.
He said he had been called.
Soon I was attending Stephen's workshops, some of which were about healing with energy.
At one workshop we practiced on a woman who had a fast-growing brain tumor.
In these classes we were only trained to give energy, not take.
People in these classes were always asking about bad energy and how to protect themselves from other people's bad energy.
Stephen patiently explained that energy is neither bad nor good.
He prepared a handout; a bibliography of books on Physics, including Einstein, relativity, and quantum mechanics.
Light is a form of energy, right? You don't think there is good and bad light energy, do you? Participants remained skeptical.
He trained us to do scanning and beaming with one hand about 18 inches or greater above the body.
That way, your hand won't be sensing body heat and static electricity, sensations which would distract you from feeling energy.
He said the other hand is just as important; The hand hanging at your side is like the other pole of a battery, so a circuit is created, he taught.
Once in the fall of 1998 I was invited to watch one of Stephen's healing energy sessions.
He encouraged me to ask questions during the session.
The woman told him about several health issues and concerns.
She lay face up (clothed) on a massage table.
I stood on the opposite side of the massage table from Stephen, and as he moved around the table, I moved around the opposite side so I wouldn't be in his way.
I kept my hands passively folded behind my back as I watched and listened.
He held one hand about 18 inches above her body and left the other hand out to his side, lower.
He walked around her body once, scanning, then returned to the areas he felt the most draw.
His hand came to a stop above her head.
His fingers were pointing into her jaw when he asked her, Can you feel that? No, she said.
Can you feel that, he asked, about ten seconds later.
Yes.
Is it too much? Yes.
Okay I'm turning it down.
How's that? That's good.
I'm using about a six on a scale of one to a thousand, he said to her, then he looked over at me.
She didn't reply.
I was very excited because in his classes he had never demonstrated, only guided others to do energy work with their partners.
I was dumbstruck that she could feel the energy so strongly that she wanted it turned down.
That had never happened with us students in his workshops.
Since he was looking at me I felt I should ask him something.
So I asked him about his sending hand that was over her jaw.
No, that's not the sending hand, he said.
I was surprised.
With this hand I am drawing the energy out of her and...
let's see, how I can explain this...
It's like I am filtering her energy through myself and then its cycling back into her.
This surprised me even more.
In his classes he had never mentioned taking others' energy, except to say there would be no harm, since there is no such thing as bad energy.
He had never suggested we try it as a form of healing.
I was seeing firsthand not what the teacher recommends to his students, but how he actually does it himself.
This was not him recommending I do it this way, he was simply being vulnerable, allowing me to view his personal practice.
That old nagging concern popped up in my head.
After three years in his workshops I knew not to ask him about good and bad energy, but still I was worried.
I found a way to ask my question without making the mistake of thinking energy came in two kinds, good and bad.
So I began hesitantly,If there was energy in her that was...
being used for less than healthy patterns, with unwanted effects...
Go on, he said, with a hint of a smile, as he continued cycling her energy through himself.
Wouldn't that energy, when it comes into you, have the same tendency to do unhealthy or unwanted things in you? Not at all.
Energy doesn't know what it used to be used for.
As it moves out of her and into me, its just energy.
In me it does what my patterns direct, not hers.
I didn't know what else to ask.
I just watched in awe.
When she got off the table an hour later I could see she looked taller, younger, and more vibrant.
She looked more attractive in a natural way.
All the pains she had reported at the beginning were gone.
She seemed satisfied, happier and-since I knew her from the groups I could tell-nicer that she usually acted.
Kinder.
I felt I could trust her more.
But the real curiosity was that Stephen didn't seem any worse for taking her energy.
I have read so often and heard from energy healers that you need to protect yourself from other people's energy so you don't get infected.
And even using protection, the practitioners often end up feeling heavy or sick or depressed or angry, all kinds of negativity.
Stephen was his regular kindly good-humored self.
I could detect no change in him.
Ethics and Boundaries In my profession, we are trained to create and maintain boundaries between giver and recipient.
Tonglen seems designed to cross boundaries.
What is the right way? Boundaries protect safety.
Our culture is based on the "natural law" of boundaries.
The United States Constitution is based on the boundaries of individual rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuits.
The fact that most people agree to established boundaries of "mine" and "yours" allows individuals to walk freely through the streets without carrying weapons.
The parts of the world that agree to these boundaries are much safer.
In this safety, people feel safe to turn their minds away from defense and have leisure to think of higher pursuits.
People in safe parts of the world are more productive, creative, and inventive.
Humanity progresses much faster with agreed boundaries.
Boundaries in therapy allow both the giver and the recipient to feel safe enough to let down their guard.
Therapy is pointless when either the giver or recipient is guarding and defensive.
However, tonglen is different.
A pregnant woman does not create a boundary between herself and the fetus.
The fetus needs her blood and oxygen to survive.
The fetus cannot process its own waste yet.
If pregnant women created and maintained boundaries, no fetuses would survive to birth.
It's not difficult to imagine a mother would extend her boundary around the fetus so that both were considered her "self.
" She loves her baby and wants the best for it.
But this is not how the Dalai Lama did it.
He applied tonglen to his worst enemy, the person he considered the most evil in the world.
It would be unethical to my profession's codes and unconstitutional for me to suggest that you drop your boundaries.
But what if you simply extend them around those you want to heal? You are the best judge of your own boundaries.
I highly support people doing what they need to feel safe.
Please use tonglen only when you feel it is safe to do so.
Tonglen and Partner Responsibility I have been working on this article for about ten years but something was missing.
I spoke with Stephen Bruno a few weeks ago to clear up something that had concerned me.
I reminded him of the energy session I had watched him perform in 1998 and asked him about the recipient's responsibility.
He said that he started out in the 1960's doing healing that way, but he long ago moved to a partner-therapy, where the recipient takes increasing responsibility in her healing.
The session I viewed was mostly for my own benefit.
Tonglen is an example of a method where the healer is doing all the work and the recipient doesn't have to do anything.
The mother does all the work and the baby has no responsibility.
This is natural because the fetus lacks capability.
Once the fetus is born and grows as a child, more and more capabilities are embraced.
People arrive into adulthood with a set of capabilities.
In many cases adults lack certain capabilities; they simply are not able to care for themselves.
In other cases adults simply do not want to do the things that would help them.
They have the capability, they just lack the incentive.
Therapy serves best when therapists resist the urge to help people who are capable of helping themselves.
When therapists help people who already possessed the capability, but just didn't want to help themselves, then the recipient grows dependent on the giver.
This recipient may be in better health, but is worse off because he is now less likely to be self sufficient.
Often people simply are not able to do things for themselves.
Yet.
So the best way a therapist may be of service is not just to do those things for him, but with him.
In partnership.
The best therapist withholds therapy from those who are able.
Like a physical therapist who won't open the door for you, even it is your first day on crutches.
Withholding help teaches and empowers the recipient to take more and more responsibility for his own life and healing.
A partner-therapist watches the capabilities of the recipient moment to moment, and helps or withholds exactly matching the rate the recipient is able.
Partner-therapy leads to empowered people who can not only help themselves but step into the responsibility of serving others.
The world becomes a better place.
The population increases its responsibility for self and others.
Tonglen is not partner-therapy.
Tonglen is unconditional healing.
Tonglen does things for others without their having to lift a finger.
If you are the kind of person who wants to empower others to be their best, you will use tonglen sparingly.
Still, even if you are the kind of person who wants to empower others, it serves for you to have at least a few experiences of unconditionally healing others.
Why? Because after you have seen the effects of tonglen, you will be different.
Your relationships will be different because all realize that unconditional healing really is an option.
Then when you suggest to a person that she can do something herself, she knows you are not simply shirking your responsibility by doing less, but that you are doing less for her benefit.
This is where I am in my learning.
As of today, November 17, 2011, I haven't seen any uncontestable evidence that anyone has been healed under my hands, but I keep experimenting.
In the mean time I encourage recipients to do what they are able, and I do my best to do the rest in partnership.