Sending and Receiving practice, called "Tonglen" in Tibetan

[Dover]

Sending and Receiving practice is called Tonglen in Tibetan. It is a healing visualization that is effective for those who do it, and acts in such a way as to transform the quality of our relationship with others. The instruction here is from The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chodron (61 ff.)

How to Do Tonglen

"The first step is called "flashing absolute bodhichitta," which basically means just opening up.

The second step is working with the abstract quality of pain by visualising it as black, heavy and hot, and breathing that in, and working with the abstract quality of pleasure by visualising it as white, light and cool, and breathing that out ... .

Then you get to the third stage, which is actually the heart of the practice. Here you visualise a specific life situation and connect with the pain of it. You breath that in, feeling it completely. It's the opposite of avoidance. You are completely willing to feel pain -- your own pain, the pain of a dear friend or the pain of a total stranger. -- and on the out-breath, you let the sense of ventilating and opening, the sense of spaciousness, go out.

In other words, suppose there is someone in your life that you cannot stand, the very thought of whom brings up all kinds of negative feelings. You decide to do tonglen with feeling more open and brave and gentle in that particular situation. So you think of that person and up come all those awful feelings, and when you are breathing in, you connect with them -- their quality and texture and just how they grab your heart. It is not that you try to figure them out; you just feel the pain.

Then on the out-breath you relax, let go, open up, ventilate the whole thing. But you don't luxuriate in that for very long because when you breathe in again, it's back to the painful feeling. You don't get completely trapped in that, because next you breath out -- you open and relax and share some sense of space again. <... .>

After you have worked with the specific object for a while and you are genuinely connected with the pain and your ability to open and let go, then you take the practice a step further -- you do it for all sentient beings. This is a key point about tonglen: your own experience of pleasure and pain becomes the way that you recognize your kinship with all sentient beings, the way you can share in the joy and the sorrow of everyone ... .

So again, the first step is flashing some sense of openness and spaciousness, the second step is working with white in and black out, the third step is contacting something very real to us, and the fourth step is extending it out and being willing to do it for all sentient beings ... ."

http://www.khandro.net/practice_send_receive.htm

[Pallas180]

1. Dover,

wow.
very interesting and extremely heavy and profound stuff.