The following are practice notes of Pema Chödrön’s instructions on basic sitting meditation and Tonglen practice, from her book Welcoming the Unwelcome.
Basic Sitting Meditation
THE TECHNIQUE OF SITTING MEDITATION CALLED shamatha- vipashyana (“tranquility-insight”) is like a golden key that helps us to know ourselves. In shamatha-vipashyana meditation, we sit upright with legs crossed and eyes open, hands resting on our thighs. Then we simply become aware of our breath as it goes out. It requires precision to be right there with that breath. On the other hand, it’s extremely relaxed and extremely soft. Saying, “Be right there with the breath as it goes out,” is the same thing as saying, “Be fully present.” Be right here with whatever is going on. Being aware of the breath as it goes out, we may also be aware of other things going on— sounds on the street, the light on the walls. These things may capture our attention slightly, but they don’t need to draw us off. We can continue to sit right here, aware of the breath going out.
But being with the breath is only part of the technique. These thoughts that run through our minds continually are the other part. We sit here talking to ourselves. The instruction is that when you realize you’ve been thinking, you label it “thinking.” When your mind wanders off, you say to yourself, “Thinking.” Whether your thoughts are violent or passionate or full of ignorance and denial; whether your thoughts are worried or fearful; whether your thoughts are spiritual thoughts, pleasing thoughts of how well you’re doing, comforting thoughts, uplifting thoughts—whatever they are, without judgment or harshness simply label it all “thinking,” and do that with honesty and gentleness.
The touch on the breath is light: only about 25 percent of the awareness is on the breath. You’re not grasping or
fixating on it. You’re opening, letting the breath mix with the space of the room, letting your breath just go out into space. Then there’s something like a pause, a gap until the next breath goes out again. While you’re breathing in, there could be some sense of just opening and waiting. It is like pushing the doorbell and waiting for someone to answer. Then you push the doorbell again and wait for someone to answer. Then probably your mind wanders off and you realize you’re thinking again— at this point, use the labeling technique.
It’s important to be faithful to the technique. If you find that your labeling has a harsh, negative tone to it, as if you were saying, “Dammit!,” that you’re giving yourself a hard time, say “thinking” again and lighten up. It’s not like trying to down the thoughts as if they were clay pigeons. Instead, be gentle. Use the labeling part of the technique as an opportunity to develop softness and compassion for yourself. Anything that comes up is okay in the arena of meditation. The point is, you can see it honestly and make friends with it.
Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you’re sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, criticize people, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, all your weird little ways. You can know all that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. We are all in this together. When you realize that you’re talking to yourself, label it “thinking” and notice your tone of voice. Let it be compassionate and gentle and humorous. Then you’ll be changing old stuck patterns that are shared by the whole human race. Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
The text of “Basic Sitting Meditation” originally appeared in Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, © 1994 by Pema Chödrön.
Tonglen Practice
TONGLEN PRACTICE IS A METHOD FOR CONNECTING with suffering—our own and that which is all around us, everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming our fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our hearts. 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 whom we know to be hurting and wish to help. For instance, if we know of a child who is being hurt, we breathe in with the wish to take away all of that child’s pain and fear. Then, as we breathe out, we send happiness, joy, or whatever would relieve the child. This is the core of the practice: breathing in others’ pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open— breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever we feel would bring them relief and happiness.
Often, however, we can’t do this practice because we come face to face with our own fear, our own resistance or anger, or whatever personal pain we have just then.
At that point we can change the focus and begin to do tonglen for what we are feeling and for millions of other people just like us who at that very moment are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe we are able to name our pain. We recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. We breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion, and we send our relief or whatever opens up the space for ourselves and all those countless others. Maybe we can’t name what we’re feeling. But we can feel
it—a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness, or whatever. We simply contact what we 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, wanting everything to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others. The practice dissolves the walls we’ve built around our hearts. It dissolves the layers of self- protection we’ve tried so hard to create. 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. In the process, we become liberated from very ancient patterns of selfishness. We begin to feel love for both ourselves and others; we begin to take care of ourselves and others. Tonglen awakens our compassion and introduces us to a far bigger view of reality. At first this allows us to experience things as not such a big deal and not so solid as they seemed before. We start to connect with the open dimension of our being. With practice, we become familiar with the unlimited spaciousness of shunyata.
Tonglen can be done for those who are ill, those who are dying or have died, those who are in pain of any kind. It can be done as a formal meditation practice or right on the spot at any time. We are out walking and we see someone in pain—right on the spot we can begin to breathe in that person’s pain and send out relief. Or we are just as likely to see someone in pain and look away. The pain brings up our fear or anger; it brings up our resistance and confusion. So, on the spot we can do tonglen for all the people just like ourselves, all those who wish to be compassionate but instead are afraid— who wish to be brave but instead are cowardly. Rather
than beating ourselves up, we can use our personal 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. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
When you do tonglen on the spot, simply breathe in and breathe out, taking in pain and sending out spaciousness and relief.
When you do tonglen as a formal meditation practice, it has four stages:
First, rest your mind briefly, for a second or two, in a state of openness or stillness. This stage is traditionally called “flashing on absolute bodhichitta,” or suddenly opening to basic spaciousness and clarity. What that means is a moment free of fixed mind—a completely open, fresh moment before thinking and bias set in.
If you have trouble connecting to this openness, you can bring to mind an image of a wide-open experience from your life. You can think about standing on the beach and looking out at the vast ocean or being high up in the mountains under an immense sky, with an expansive view of many miles. Or you can ring a gong and listen to its sound as a way of touching in with that fresh, still mind, free of fixation. Whatever you need to do, the point is to connect to a place of open mind and open heart, which is the background for the rest of the practice.
Second, work with texture. When you inhale, breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy. This is the claustrophobic texture and quality of tightly fixed mind. Visualize or somehow have the experience of taking in this discomfort. Breathe it in completely, through all the pores of your body. For some people, it’s helpful to think in terms of colors or images. A traditional image is breathing in black smoke. Some breathe in red because
it’s hot; some visualize green slimy stuff. You can do whatever works to give you the sense of taking in these uncomfortable feelings that you would normally avoid.
When you exhale, breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, airy, and light—a sense of freshness. Again, you can use whatever imagery works, such as the coolness of blue, or the brightness of white. Radiate this freshness 360 degrees, through all the pores of your body. Let it be a very complete experience. Continue for a while breathing these textures in and out. Keep going until they feel synchronized with your breath.
In the third stage, connect with a personal situation that’s painful to you. For instance, if your elderly mother is going through a hard time, breathe in her pain with the wish that she be free of any pain she’s having. With your out-breath send out happiness or spaciousness or whatever you think will benefit her. Or you can think about an animal that you know is in a cruel, abusive situation. On the in-breath, take in the pain of their experience, and on the out-breath imagine the animal free and happy.
For this stage, you can use anything that naturally moves you, anything that feels personal and real. However, as I described, if you are stuck, you can do the practice for the pain you are feeling and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind of suffering. For instance, if you are feeling inadequate, you breathe that in for yourself and all the others in the same boat, and you send out confidence and adequacy or relief in any form you wish.
Finally, in the fourth stage, we expand on the specific situation and make our taking in and sending out bigger. The third and fourth stages balance each other out. The idea is that if you’re too general, it doesn’t really touch the heart. But if you stay too specific, you can get bogged down, overwhelmed, or too self-absorbed about the particular situation.
If you started out by doing tonglen for your mother, then extend that to all people who are in her situation, or to all elderly people in general. If you are thinking about an abused animal, expand that to all abused animals, or all animals in any form of pain. But if these contemplations start to feel too general or abstract, come back to the specific case that is more personal to you.
If you began with your own experience of suffering, such as your feeling of inadequacy, expand that contemplation. Do tonglen for those close to you who feel inadequate and then go wider and wider, universalizing that feeling. When you start getting too distant, come back to your own inadequacy. Taste it, smell it, really experience it—and then go back to universalizing.
Another way to go from stages three to four is to expand out from those whom you easily care about to those who are further and further from the center of your care. After doing tonglen for someone close to you, try doing it for a stranger, someone you know nothing about and who doesn’t arouse any strong positive or negative feelings for you. Breathe in with the aspiration that they be free of any pain they may have. Breathe in with the wish that they be free from fixed mind. Then breathe out feelings of peace and joy, especially the spaciousness and stillness of their fundamentally open mind and heart.
From there, try to expand your heart beyond what currently seems possible. Think of someone you find difficult. Don’t go with your scariest person right away— perhaps just think of someone who irritates you. Call to mind their face or their name—anything that brings them near. Then do tonglen for them. And as your capacity increases, try doing tonglen for those people who challenge you the most.
Finally, expand your tonglen more and more throughout space. Do it for everyone in your local area, then in wider and wider circles until your taking and
sending covers the whole globe. Do it for all the women in the world who are hurting. Do it for all the men, all the children, all the animals. See if you can really stretch and do tonglen for the whole planet—for all the water, the air, and the land, which are all hurting. Do it as if you were on the moon looking back at the earth. Do tonglen for the whole planet and all the beings on the planet— wishing that all living beings could go beyond the fixated mind of “us and them,” that we could all regard ourselves as one family and live together in a state of complete peace and harmony. Ultimately, you can do tonglen for all beings, wherever they may be throughout the universe.
Tonglen can extend infinitely. As you do the practice, gradually over time your compassion naturally expands, and so does your realization that things are not as solid as you thought. As you do this practice, gradually at your own pace, you will be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be there for others even in what used to seem like impossible situations.