In the Tonglen practice on giving and receiving, we take on, through compassion all the various mental and physical sufferings of all beings; there fear, frustration, pain, anger, guilt, bitterness, doubt and rage; and we give them through love, all our happiness, and wellbeing, peace of mind, healing, and fulfilment.
- Before you begin this practice, sit quietly and bring your mind home. then, making use of any of the exercises or methods I have described, whichever one you find really inspires and works for you, meditate deeply on compassion. Summon and invoke the presence of all the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and enlightened beings, so that, through their inspiration and blessings compassion may be born in your heart.
- Imagine infront of you, as vividly and as poignantly as possible, someone you care for who is suffering. Try and imagine every aspect of the persons pain and distress. then, as you feel your heart opening in compassion towards the person, imagine that all of his or her sufferings manifest together and gather into a great mass of hot, black granny smoke.
- Now, as you breathe in visualise this mass of black smoke dissolve, with your in breath, into the very core of yourself grasping at your heart. There it destroys completely all traces of self cherishing, there by purifying all your negative Karmas.
- Imagine now that yourself cherishing has been destroyed, that the heart of your enlightened mind your bodhichitta, is fully revealed. As you breathe out then, imagine that you are sending out its brilliant, cooling light of peace, joy, happiness, and ultimate wellbeing to your friend in pain, and that its rays are purifying all their negative Karmas. Her I find it inspiring to imagine , as Shanti Deva suggest, that your Boddhi Chitta has transformed your heart, or your whole body and being itself, into a dazzling, wish fulfilling jewel, a jewel that can grant the desires and wishes of anyone, and provide exactly what he or she longs for and needs. true compassion is the wish fulfilling jewel because it has the inherent power to give precisely to each being what ever that being most needs, and so aleviate his or heer sufferings and bring about his or her true fulfilment.
- So at the moment the light of your bodhichitta streams out to touch your friend in pain it is essential to feel a firm conviction that all of his or negative Karma has been purified, and a deep, lasting joy that he or she has been totally freed of suffering and pain
Then as you go on breathing normally, in and out, continue steadily with this practice. Practicing Tonglen on one friend in pain helps you to begin the process of gradually widening the circle of compassion to take on the suffering and purify the karma of all beings, and to give them all your happiness, wellbeing, joy and peace of mind. This is a wonderful goal of Tonglen practice, and in a larger sense, of the whole path of compassion.
