Tonglen :

Begin the Tonglen by sitting quietly and bringing your mind home through the practice of meditation. To inspire your practice, meditate deeply on the suffering that all beings experience, and allow their suffering to open your heart and awaken your compassion.

To help you develop confidence, you can do the following meditation as a preliminary to your practice of Tonglen. In the sky in front of you, invoke the presence of a Divine Being for whom you feel devotion, or the presence of many saints or enlightened beings. Pray that through their inspiration and blessings the seed of your compassionate essence, your bodhicitta, may be awakened in your heart. Visualize that these enlightened beings respond to your prayer, sending tremendous rays of compassion and wisdom into you, dissolving the ego's clouds of selfishness and fear, and revealing your bodhicitta. At the end, visualize that all of these enlightened beings dissolve into you, becoming one with your wisdom mind--which shines out even more brilliantly with compassion. From this perspective, begin the Tonglen.

Visualize that sitting in front of you is someone in your life whom you know to be suffering. Open yourself to this person's suffering, allowing yourself to feel connected with him or her and aware of all of their difficulties. Feel rising in you a strong compassionate intention to release the person from their suffering and even its causes.

Breathe in the other person's suffering, in the form of a dark cloud, and visualize it coming into your heart center, where it dissolves any final traces of self-grasping, thus fully revealing the heart of your enlightened mind, your bodhicitta. As you breathe out, consider that you are sending to the other person, in the form of brilliant light, all your healing love, warmth, energy, confidence and joy.

Continue this "giving and receiving" with each breath for as long as you wish. If you like, you can even imagine your bodhicitta has transformed your heart or your whole body into a brilliant wish-fulfilling jewel that is able to fulfill any special needs or desires of the person for whom you are practicing. At the end of the practice, consider that your compassion has completely dissolved all the person's suffering and even its causes, filling him or her with well-being, peace, happiness and love.

As your Tonglen practice becomes stronger and more confident, you can gradually imagine others who are suffering in front of you--co-workers, patients, relatives or even strangers--and practice taking in and transforming their suffering, extending to them all of your happiness, clarity, understanding, forgiveness and love. While doing the Tonglen, as the light of your bodhicitta touches and fills those for whom you are practicing, feel a firm conviction

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As you conclude each session of Tonglen, dedicate its positive and healing power to those you had visualized and pray that the merit of your practice of compassion may benefit all other beings, who are as limitless as space."

This practice has been taught to us by our Ven. Khenpos Rinpoche and we include it in our everyday practice, after the 7 line prayer

Blessings to all

Dom

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Dearest Dom,

Thank you so much for including this into our group. I feel that it will definitely assist us all in our practice of tonglen!!!

Kemmy

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I'm really happy if this helps, don't forget, as our Ven.Rinpoches would say over and over, practice, practice, practice!!!

Love and Blessings to all

Dom

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Hi all!

On and off, I've been reading the 7 points of mind training on this website. I normally read the commentaries of Pema Chodron, but this site does provide commentaries on the 7 points by other teachers.

http://lojongmindtraining.com/

Kemmy

PS: To get to the "Preliminaries", you have to click on the tab at the top of the webpage.

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The only foundation stone of practice is renunciation.
The only gateway of practice is faith.
The only approach to practice is compassion.

-Jamgon Kontrul, Creation and Completion

Kemmy

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Hi Everyone!

Yes, thanks for sharing tonglen practice with us Dom. It is such a very beneficial practice and I wish to explore it more.

I do like the 7 points for training the mind you referred to, Kemmy ,and I also really like the book  The 8 practices for Training the Mind  by Geshe Sonam Rinchen. I have read that book at least 20 times.

My question is about the White Tara mantra that you have posted Kemmy- I am not so good at pronouncing Tibetan words, but I would really like to do that chant for the well being of HHDL. Can you umm, write the chant out for me phoenetically- as it sounds?

Thanks!!

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Hi Yaicha!

Yes, I feel that tonglen is a very important practice too, and I will look for the book that you've recommended by Geshe Sonam Rinchen.

With regards to the White Tara mantra, you can listen to it at:

http://www.wildmind.org/meditation/mantra/whitetara.html

Kemmy

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Absolute Bodhicitta Practice: Generally associated with awakening to the experience of shunyata, this practice introduces us to a fluid, open way of thinking and to the unlimited dimension of being. It is primarily a formal meditation practice based on shamatha-vipashyana (or mindfulness-awareness).

By clearly seeing the illusory nature of thoughts and experience, things become flexible and workable. This essential openness is fundamentally inseparable from relative bodhicitta practice.

Taken from: http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/bodhicitta2.php

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1. Practices of Aspiring
   1. Practices for cultivating the four limitless ones.
      1. Unlimited friendliness (maitri)
      2. Compassion
      3. Joy
      4. Equanimity
   2. Formal meditation practice of tonglen
   3. The three noble principles
      1. In the beginning: start with the motivation of compassion
      2. In the middle: maintain a non-grasping attitude
      3. In the end: share the merit with all beings
   4. The daily life practice of relative bodhicitta
      1. Arousing maitri and compassion
      2. Doing tonglen on the spot
         
         
2. Practices of Entering
   The daily life practices of the six paramitas, which lead us to the inseparable experience of shunyata and compassion.
   1. Generosity
   2. Discipline
   3. Patience
   4. Exertion
   5. Meditation
   6. Wisdom (prajna)

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According to Buddhist logic, we change the world by changing ourselves. What is this world? In a real way, the world is whatever we project it to be. Thus, it is essential that we clean up our own act in order to be of any benefit whatsoever to others. We need some semblance of being clean ourselves so we don't pollute the atmosphere further in the name of propagating our particular brand of truth, whether it is Buddhism or impeachment of the president or whatever. This, of course, is the problem with the world. There is so much contagion, confusion that is endlessly propagated because no one is willing to take responsibility themselves to clean up their own act. Imagine, if everyone did, that would be it! The best example we can give to others is to be clean ourselves. Our state of being effects others far more than what we say.

The logic of tonglen is not like graduating from kindergarten into grade school, so now that we have worked on ourselves, we are progressing on to work with others. Rather, we are continuing to work with ourselves, but we are committing to gradually change our motivation to work for the benefit of others. This is the shift from the Hinayana to the Mahayana path of working more deeply with our motivation, not just our behavior. If you follow the Hinayana path completely, your behavior becomes pretty clean---you don't commit gross harmful actions to yourself or others any more. But Hinayana practice does not fully address our motivation. We can see our negativity, but we need a deeper, stronger tool to uproot it entirely and this comes through the Mahayana path in general and tonglen in particular.

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According to Buddhist logic, we change the world by changing ourselves. What is this world? In a real way, the world is whatever we project it to be. Thus, it is essential that we clean up our own act in order to be of any benefit whatsoever to others. We need some semblance of being clean ourselves so we don't pollute the atmosphere further in the name of propagating our particular brand of truth, whether it is Buddhism or impeachment of the president or whatever. This, of course, is the problem with the world. There is so much contagion, confusion that is endlessly propagated because no one is willing to take responsibility themselves to clean up their own act. Imagine, if everyone did, that would be it! The best example we can give to others is to be clean ourselves. Our state of being effects others far more than what we say.

The logic of tonglen is not like graduating from kindergarten into grade school, so now that we have worked on ourselves, we are progressing on to work with others. Rather, we are continuing to work with ourselves, but we are committing to gradually change our motivation to work for the benefit of others. This is the shift from the Hinayana to the Mahayana path of working more deeply with our motivation, not just our behavior. If you follow the Hinayana path completely, your behavior becomes pretty clean---you don't commit gross harmful actions to yourself or others any more. But Hinayana practice does not fully address our motivation. We can see our negativity, but we need a deeper, stronger tool to uproot it entirely and this comes through the Mahayana path in general and tonglen in particular.

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In short may I directly and indirectly offer Benefit and happiness to all beings, my mothers. May I secretly take upon myself the harmful actions And suffering of my mothers.- from Geshe Chekawa

Developing a good heart is the cornerstone of spiritual practice

This series of classes will explore efficient, powerful advices on practices to do throughout the day, based on the Advices for Training Oneself in the Greater Way by Kadampa Geshe Chekawa (1101-1175).

 Learn meditations that can turn everything that happens in your life into a means to become compassionate, with heartfelt love for all. These practices were kept secret for centuries because masters of the past did not want their seemingly mystical verses to be misunderstood. 5 intensive sessions studying authentic, enjoyable methods to keep a good heart.

Venerable Lobsang Chunzom was ordained a Buddhist Nun by Sermey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin Rinpoche from Sera Mey Monastery, where she has also studied. She is dedicated to her training in Buddhist scripture and continues to receive extensive teachings from Geshe Michael Roach at Diamond Mountain University. - currently teaching ACI courses and meditation in NYC.

These drop-in classes are free – Mondays 7-9pm, come for one or all

Three Jewels, 61 Fourth Avenue between 9th -10th Streets, 3rd floor, 212.475.6650

Please contact chunzom@ yahoo.com

 with any questions. DATES: March 20, 27 April 3, 10, 17

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14

A Tibetan Monk Who Was Tortured for His Religious Beliefs Shares His Thoughts About Compassion

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World  (tags: tibet, 'HUMANRIGHTS!', china )

Jaron Ten
- 2 hours ago - sfgate.com

An interview with Phagyab Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama who survived torture by Chinese officials.

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