Sogyal Rinpoche on Tonglen

[image source]

This was this morning's Glimpse of the Day:

Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince even to think of it.

Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for your actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.

So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm; you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to go to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.

~ Sogyal Rinpoche, Glimpse After Glimpse

I liked the simplicity of how Rinpoche presented this. We can use tonglen practice to help us own our own mistakes and hurtful actions. In tonglen, we embrace our suffering and our responsiblity -- in doing so we become free.

Pema Chodron writes this about tonglen practice:

People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together. Truthfully, this practice does go against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others. The practice dissolves the armor of self-protection we've tried so hard to create around ourselves. In Buddhist language one would say that it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego.

Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we being to take care of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger view of reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness that Buddhists call shunyata. By doing the practice, we begin to connect with the open dimension of our being.

This is another powerful way to work with our pain, our fear, our suffering. When we do, we can create a new openness within us that makes space for all of who we are. We can use this practice to build our capacity for compassion.

In the end, it is our capacity for compassion -- both tender and fierce -- that enables us to see beyond our own limited egos.


Technorati Tags: Buddhism, Tonglen, Sogyal Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, Compassion, Ego