How to do Tonglen

How to do Tonglen 
(And Defeat Anxiety)

Tonglen practice is a powerful tool that can be used to defeat anxiety. I myself used it for such and totally defeated anxiety within me. It's also a powerful meditation practice in general and can be used to create great merit and help the practitioner develop the mind of Bodhiccita, which is the sincere wish to help all beings.

The video below is an excerpt from a talk by Khenpo Lodro Donyo Rinpoche given in 2017. This talk gives an excellent instruction on how to do Tonglen practice. Included is also a transcript of the talk for the sake of those who may be hearing impaired.  Following this, I have included my own notes from my own practice on how to use this practice to defeat anxiety. These were originally recorded in my spiritual diary and I am sharing them here in the hopes they may be useful.

~ Sara

How to do Tonglen (Taking and Sending practice)

TRANSCRIPT:

"So for these 10 minutes of meditation, we should connect it with the topic of our teaching: loving-kindness and compassion. So we can do this through the practice that we call “Tonglen", or “Taking and Sending”.
So, while breathing out, imagine that, in the form of rainbowed light; imagine that all of the *good things* that you possess, or experience, or your well-being of body, or the things you possess; your happiness, your virtue...
Imagine that: all sentient beings... imagine that this rainbow light strikes all sentient beings, and that they share in, or they partake of all the goodness that you have experienced. —So this is the part that we call “Sending”.

"And further when you breathe in, imagine that all the things that sentient beings experience, which are suffering, or which they don’t wish to experience: —Imagine that *these* things enter you in the form of a black light. —And do this without any fear or hesitation. Think that: “If I could be able, if it could be the case that these things could ripen in me and they would be free of them, wouldn’t that be wonderful, I would feel so fortunate.” —Try and have that kind of attitude.

"So in this way, send out the positive things that you experience in *your* life in the form of rainbow light; take on the suffering of sentient beings in the form of this dark, black light; and in *this* way, we will meditate on the essence of loving-kindness and compassion.

"-And then towards the end of our session, you can just let your mind *rest*, in it’s own nature; don’t alter it, don’t try and create some state of meditation; try to just *relax* into the nature of mind. "

[Do 10 minutes of meditation like so]

~Khenpo Lodro Donyo Rinpoche

Personal Notes: How to Defeat Anxiety

To cure generalized anxiety:

Do Tonglen practice to help general anxiety that comes up. In particular, focus on the areas where the anxiety is coming out of. So for fear areas, the kidneys and upper abdomen region. For worry, a bit lower down can be good. And what I mean by “focus” is imagine that the black light coming in, and the rainbow light coming out, (and the suffering of sentient beings coming in, and all the good things in your life going out) are entering in, and coming out of the specific area that is tense. I find it helpful to also check in with each chakra too, going up and down the chakras doing this, to see if any one in particular, or multiple needs help by this. This also can help regarding anxiety focused on a particular specific person.

But in general, this is a POWERFUL tool to cut through anxiety, very immediately.


To cure social anxiety:

Do the same as above, but for social situations, focus on the specific people in the social situation the anxiety is coming up around, and give extra special focus and attention to *their* suffering, and taking that in, and offering all the good things, etc, in your life out -to them. Still keep all beings in mind as you do this, but just give an extra special focus and attention to them. Sometimes if you need to focus on one or more of the people involved while you do this, more directly, that is good too.

© 2019 Sara Isayama