An Expended Derivation of Tonglen Meditation for World and Self Healilng

As I continue to work with the tonglen meditation, new approaches emerge in my experience and practice, and I’d like to share those with you.

The following meditation draws greatly on the initial one I posted, but has evolved to include some new elements.  I’m rewriting the entire thing here so you can have the whole thing in one place.

Tonglen allows us to actively serve the healing of the world and of ourselves with each breath.  It is a way to be actively involved in transformation when we feel helpless to make a difference.  It also offers us a way to carry a healing process with us into any and every moment of the day.

In standard tonglen practice, you breathe in suffering and breathe out ease.  The change I made in the initial Tonglen Derivation was to add protective light around ourselves in order to neutralize negative energy before it enters our mind/body being.  In my own meditative experience, I was uncomfortable bringing raw negativity directly into my body and psyche, and I have felt both settled and empowered using a protective, healing light surrounding me during the meditation. 

What I have added in this version is a variation that includes an accompanying mantra that applies to either healing the world or healing the self. These mantras are noted in the body of the meditation that follows.

The Meditation Process

¨     Begin by imagining yourself surrounded by a healing light – white, gold, or some other color that speaks to you of qualities that neutralize and transform any kind of negative, heavy, or difficult energy.  This can apply to thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations.

¨     Then, identify the energy you’d like to transform.  You may choose to focus on hatred, violence, fear – whatever comes to mind as you focus on any upsetting or negative energy – in you or others.  Remind yourself that this energy represents a universal human feeling, thought, or physical experience – something that is possible as a potential in any of our lives and that many people are experiencing right now, in this moment.  This allows us to resonate with our connectedness, with our underlying unity.

¨     Then, begin to breathe in this negative quality/energy, bringing it through the healing, transformative light that surrounds you.  As the negative quality moves through the light all around you, it is transformed into neutral energy, entering you through every pore.  When you exhale, send out to the world energy that is now characterized by ease, comfort, peace, or whatever healing quality comes to you as you breathe.

¨     With each breath, repeat the following mantra:

Breathing in, I cleanse the world.

            Breathing out, I heal the world.

            and/or

            Breathing in, I cleanse myself [my fear, my doubt, my anger].

            Breathing out, I heal myself.

Regular practice of Tonglen creates not only your own internal comfort and ease, but a deepened sense of connection with others that is, in itself, comforting.

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