The Practice of Tonglen

Note: This transcript may contain errors.

So there are a number of ways of doing tonglen. Many Tibetans like to do tonglen visualizing the six realms and the hell realms and things like that. But for westerners just with the way we’ve been brought up and with our past, that never feels very real to us. We can come to believe…except maybe the catholics. But for most of us it’s really hard to emotionally believe in the hell realms as the Tibetans describe them. And for tonglen to work you actually have to invest yourself in it.

So for that reason we generally work with animals. Animals that we see with our eyes – bugs, birds, fish. So around here there are a lot of animals. There are stray dogs, there are bugs everywhere, eating each other. There are fish in the lake suffering from hunger and over-crowding, like living in a packed elevator. It is easy to take a walk around here and find a sentient being that is suffering.

So how you do this practice is you go find a sentient being that has some kind of suffering, and you imagine their suffering as a black smoke, like bus farts? You know what I’m talking about, right, that comes out of a bus, a diesel engine when it’s in bad condition. You imagine that their suffering is like that. And you inhale the black smoke through your nose. You think, I’m going to relieve them of the suffering by taking it on myself. And you inhale the suffering.

Now you have around you a sort of a bubble of self-focused-ness. What have you been thinking about all day today other than during the teaching? Even during the teaching. Your self, your laundry, your breakfast. You’ve got this bubble around you of self-focused-ness that isolates you from the rest of life. So you don’t see outside yourself. You trip over your feet. You miss things that are said. Because you’ve got your attention sort of on your stuff.

So think of this as a bubble, a membrane. When you inhale that black smoke of suffering, being willing to actually feel their pain instead of them, to take it on. And you have to really be willing. It strikes [claps hands] that bubble and like matter and anti-matter coming together both vanish. When your bubble of self-focused-ness and their suffering have destroyed each other in coming together, all that’s left is the pure clear light of aliveness, the light of love. The light that I brought you to in the previous practice. It is inherent in you. It is obscured, dimmed by your bubble. Like if you have a bulb in a lamp and that lamp is very very dirty. So the light can’t go out nicely. That’s your bubble. When you actually psych yourself up to be willing to feel the pain of the dying beetle that it may be relieved of its suffering, and you take that in in complete willingness and allow it to strike [claps hands] your bubble, all that’s left is the luminous clear nature of mind itself and that shines forth. And blesses both the being you drew from and all beings in the universe.

Do you understand how to do this? Go try it and come back. Yes?

Q. So with the breathing?

You breathe in the smoke, you imagine that their suffering is in the form of smoke and you breathe it in through your nose, where it strikes [claps hands] your bubble

Q. And breathe out?

You don’t have to breathe anything out in particular but if you do want to you can and you breathe out clear light, the clear light that is inherent in you that is no longer obscured by your bubble. [claps hands]

Q. Does it [inaudible] seems so scary I used to do tonglen, when… cancer… it’s like really too scary and kind of like… and you… strikes the bubble and doesn’t sound so scary

It has to strike your bubble. WIthout that people who are over-sensitive, past the mid-line, I don’t mean to make over-sensitive as a judgment. People who are on the spectrum of high sensitivity rather than earth folk like me will tend to give themselves illness sometimes by taking on all the suffering without hitting [claps hands] the bubble. Some people are just that sensitive. If they meet someone with a tummyache, they get a tummyache. You know people like that. Maybe you think they’re hypochondriacs or this or that. But just some people are like that. I’m not. I’m very fortunate. I’ve got the metabolism of a Tibetan. Roll me down a mountain, I get up and say, “Hm. OK. Where were we?”

Q. What do you recommend if you’re very sensitive?

That you make sure it pops the bubble. Go on. Give it a try. You won’t really know what your questions are until you try.

Q. You visualize the white light… is a pop… the being disappears and I disappear. Does the being automatically benefit from not being…

From being in that light, yes. All beings in the universe benefit from that.

Q. But there’s nothing. There’s this white light. So that’s it. I don’t need to send the white light to it directly.

No. You send it out in all directions, all beings. The being is included. And then you do it again. Start from the beginning. Go find another bug. Go find something else. Try it again.
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Q. I have a strange question.

Q. Are bacteria considered sentient beings?

Yes

Q. OK. How about plants?

Some are, not all. You can’t tell so be nice to all of them. Yes, anything that experiences aversion and attraction, hope and fear, is considered a sentient being. Plants do not individualize the way animals and bacteria do. They’re closer to group mind, like an ant hive.

Q. Or a bee hive

Bees not as much as ants but to some extent. So is that one sentient being or many? You have the same thing with plants. Therefore they do not reincarnate in exactly the same way as more individualized animals and bugs.

Q. Is it possible to use this practice on yourself?

No.

Q. The bubble is it….

Yes.

Q. So the smoke pops the bubble

The bubble is all around you It’s your bubble. The bubble is inside of you. It’s inside your skin.

Q. It’s a mental bubble

Yeah. Does anyone else have any questions?

Q. What about the lake? Is it sentient?

Well it’s full of critters. I don’t know. You can try it and imagine that it is. But that’s not an answer I have for you.

Q. When we exhale do we do something…

We exhale and that innate and natural luminosity which is freed from your bubble is breathed out goes out in all directions to all beings, including that one. Other questions?

Q. So your bubble, is that full of light waiting to be spread or is it full of smoke as well

It’s full of light. Your bubble, the bubble is your smoke. The reason you suffer is because of your self-focused-ness. When that is popped, what’s left is the true nature of your own mind, your own innate Buddha nature which shines forth as clear light, blessing the entire universe including the being you were working with.Other questions? Then we are complete.

Dedication