Tonglen Meditation
On the in-breath you recognize suffering – maybe for yourself, maybe for another. On the out-breath you offer mercy and compassion, creating enough space so the discomfort or pain becomes more bearable. Eventually you widen out the practice to include all beings who are experiencing the same kind of suffering.
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Building on the Compassion & Skillful Courage modules we can find new paths out of familiar territory. Tonglen means "sending and receiving." It is sometimes referred to as "exchanging oneself for others." This does not mean sacrificing yourself for others but recognizing that your fear is universal fear. Your pain is universal pain.
Meditation teacher Pema Chödrön puts it like this:
"So tonglen meditation has three levels of courage. The first is to say, 'Other people feel this.' And that is enough. But if, in that particular moment of time, it feels genuine to say, 'May this become a path for awakening the hearts of all of us,' do so. And the one that takes you to the deepest level of courage is: 'Since I'm feeling this anyway, may I feel it so that others could be free of it.'"
- Pema Chödrön, Good Medicine