How the evening opened
A short tonglen practice
There are many ways to practice tonglen. Today, we will exchange suffering for peace. On our in-breath, we breathe in suffering, pain, and discomfort. On our out-breath, we exhale peace, love, and compassion. We will be using visualization of smoke and light in this meditation, however, if that doesn’t work for you, you can use the temperatures of hot and cool.
We start with ourselves. Sense into your inner experience for a place of suffering. Feel into it. Be present with it.
As you are present with this suffering, see if you can breathe it in as though it were a dark smoke. At the top of that in-breath, allow the black smoke to dissipate and dissolve into space, released.
Now, with the out-breath, send a bright soothing light of peace, love, and compassion to the place where the suffering once was. Linger in the sensation of that light, allow it to fill your body.
Repeat this cycle a few times. If you’re having trouble with the visualizations remember you can try to sense and feel a cold tightness of suffering on the in-breath and allow that to release into warm, more relaxed and open sensation through the out-breath.
Now we can try this with someone else.
Imagine someone in your life that you care deeply about is sitting right across from you. Imagine that they are suffering somehow. Take a moment just to be with that. Don’t intervene or take the suffering onto yourself just yet. Try and just feel their suffering from where you are sitting, here, across from them.
Now imagine that you can breathe that suffering into yourself as though inhaling black smoke. As you breathe all of that in, allow the smoke to dissipate into space, released. As you exhale, send that same bright, soothing light of peace, love and compassion toward them. Allow that light to fill the space between you. Notice what happens.
Repeat this cycle a few times either with light, smoke, or sensation.
As you finish your next exhale, let go of all visualizations, concepts, and intentions, and just rest in openness and presence. Sit with what is here.
When you are ready, come back.
The question we started with
- How is last week’s material sitting with you? Karma, liberation, bodhicitta (mothers).
- How do you think we can work with this broad, metaphysical material in a grounded way? How do you approach it in your day to day?
Teaching notes
Verse 11: Exchanging self and other
Verse 11 is about wishing for your own happiness as the root of suffering, and about exchanging your own happiness for the suffering of others.
- When the mind is in a state of self-concern, it gets locked into a pattern of thought relating to the strong existence of “I” and that this “I” lacks happiness. Kind of like a scarcity mindset. Happiness is always outside yourself.
- Seeking happiness also often leads to negative actions. How? Which leads to suffering in the future (karma). Think about it.
- Part of the mechanism of this practice is to wear away at our habit of considering ourselves, or the habit that perpetuates our existence within conditioned reality. The less we think of ourselves, in a purely mathematical way, the less karmic weight there is to our existence. The more real we are, the more solid our pain and suffering.
- It also brings us closer to buddhahood. Considering the buddhas as these great, expansive beings, they are entirely concerned with the wellbeing and liberation of others. They are already liberated, so their existence is dependent on helping others. By thinking in an altruistic way, we are literally practicing buddhahood.
- Finally, by expanding our awareness to the suffering of others, our heart naturally opens, expanding to hold more with every stretch of the imagination. Through this practice, we grow our own love, which in turn will guarantee our own happiness.
- Potential objections: leads to spiritual bypassing; can reinforce shame (I’m not worthy of respect from others); can lead to co-dependent relationships that foster resentment. Response: this isn’t self-sacrifice based on revealed prescriptions. It’s a descriptive approach to feeling better and having intense emotional intimacy and skill.
Verse 12: When robbed
Verse 12 is about what to do when someone, driven by wanting, takes everything you have.
- Oftentimes, when we feel wronged, our first reaction is self-defense in some way, which can even look like getting even. What is that emotional experience like? How do we carry that forward into the future? What feels better for our wellbeing?
- Look at our attachment: material or immaterial wealth are temporary.
- Karma: our karmic past has led to this. Make it non-judgemental.
- Builds on the views as set forth last week: people are your mother; tuning into a genuine wish for their happiness.
- Connect to a deep care for sentient beings. Notice how that affects your wellbeing.
Verse 13: When harmed though innocent
Verse 13 is about what to do when someone harms you badly though you did nothing wrong.
Analytical meditation
Settling
Find a way to sit that you can stay with for a while. Eyes closed, or lowered toward the floor. Take a few slower breaths, then let the breath go back to whatever it does on its own.
We explored three verses today. For our analytical meditation, I’ll read each one, walk through it briefly, and leave you with a question. Let’s try to check each step up against our own experiences and see whether it matches.
Verse 11
First, verse 11, on wishing for your own happiness as the root of suffering, and on exchanging your own happiness for the suffering of others.
Let something come to mind that stung this week. Nothing big. A comment, a delay, someone who didn’t do what you were hoping for.
pause
See if there’s a wish underneath the sting. “I wanted to be treated a certain way. I wanted the day to go differently. I wanted to be right, or seen, or left alone.”
pause
The verse isn’t asking you to stop wanting things. It’s asking us to experiment with whose wish comes first. So, if you’re willing, take the wish you just found and wish it for the other person in the scene. The same thing you wanted for yourself, wanted for them. Whatever that does or doesn’t do, let it be there.
quiet, one minute
Verse 12
Verse 12 is about what to do when someone, driven by wanting, takes everything you have.
Let something come to mind that was taken from you. Money, time, credit, a chance. Something where the taking is still a little alive.
pause
There’s probably a person in it. The verse says they were driven by great desire. See if you can look past what they took to what they were wanting.
pause
The verse then goes further than getting even, or even letting go. It says: give them more. Whatever you still have, and whatever good you’ve done, offer that to them too. You don’t have to mean it. Just imagine yourself doing it, this person, this loss, and watch what happens in your chest and your hands as you imagine it.
quiet, one minute
Verse 13
Verse 13 is about what to do when someone harms you badly though you did nothing wrong.
One thing before we go in. This verse is about what the mind does with harm. It is not asking anyone to stay where they are being harmed.
If it feels right, let a time come to mind when you were harmed and hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Choose something with some space around it.
pause
Let the innocence be true. You didn’t earn this. Then, if you can, look toward the person who did it and wonder what state they were in. Not what they did. What they were inside of.
pause
They did a harmful thing, and it will cost them something. The verse wonders whether you’d carry that cost for them if you could. Do you find any wish in you for them to be free of it? The answer might be no. It might be yes. Either is a fine place to be sitting.
quiet, one minute
Turning outward
The three verses so far have all been about harm that came to you. Let’s turn them around once. Think of someone who is being harmed right now and did nothing to deserve it. It could be someone you know, or someone you’ve only read about, or a whole group of people in a place you can picture. Let one face or one place settle.
pause
Ask what they’re wishing for tonight. Safety, probably. Sleep. Someone to notice. Whatever it is, wish it for them the way you wished it for yourself under the first verse. Then sit with one more question, and don’t force an answer. If this wish were mine to act on, what would I do this week?
quiet, one minute
Closing
Before we stop, one small thing to take with you. The verses tonight used big examples, a thief, an execution, but the practice mostly happens in small ones. Somebody pulls into the spot you were waiting for. Somebody gets thanked for the work you did. Somebody at dinner says the thing they always say, and you feel yourself start to answer.
Think about the next few days. Is there a moment like that you can already see coming? A person, a room, a conversation you know is on the calendar. Picture it for a second. When it comes, see if you can remember this room, and ask yourself one question in the middle of it: what could I give this person instead of what I usually give them?
pause
Let that go. Notice the weight of your body in the chair, the sounds in the room, the other people sitting here with you. When you’re ready, open your eyes.
Questions for the week
Choose one or more of these questions to take into the week ahead:
- What does it feel like to set aside my wishes for myself and consider what others wish for themselves?
- How do I usually react to conflict?
- What comes up for me when I consider the circumstances of those who have harmed me?
- What does it feel like to be generous to those who cause me harm? Can I do so while still honoring myself?