Loving Heart, Peaceful Mind: Tonglen

Take a few deep breaths,

Focusing on letting your belly be soft,

Those muscles relax so that your diaphragm can expand and contract easily,

Smoothly.

Your lungs filling and emptying completely.

Breathe naturally,

But extend your out breath a little bit.

And then bring your attention to the center of your chest,

To your heart,

Not the organ,

The heart,

But the spiritual heart.

And stay aware of your breath.

Know when you're breathing in,

Know when you're breathing out.

And we're going to work with compassion.

Passion is the wish for someone to be free from suffering.

And that starts with recognizing suffering and accepting that it exists.

And we'll start by acknowledging and accepting our own.

The Buddha said that birth is suffering,

Death is suffering,

Illness,

Old age,

Being separated from those that you love,

Associating with people and circumstances that you don't like.

All of those things are suffering.

So take a moment,

Think about the forms that suffering take in your own life.

Often often our initial reaction when we think about our suffering is to avoid it,

To push it away.

But to deal with it skillfully,

Which includes having compassion for ourselves,

First thing we need to do is accept it,

Recognize it.

And so as you inhale,

Imagine that you're inhaling your suffering and you're bringing it into your heart.

And folding it into your own heart so that you can respond with compassion to the difficulties and stresses that you experience.

And if you like,

You can imagine those things as a dark smoke or something along those lines,

Or you can just think of them and imagine that you're breathing them in into your heart.

And then as you breathe out,

Send yourself relief.

And if you'd like,

You can picture that as a white light.

So maybe you're worried,

Breathe in your worry.

And send yourself calmness.

Breathe in any grief over losses.

Breathe out comfort.

Bringing your suffering into your heart,

Accepting it,

And receiving yourself with compassion.

Don't engage in problem solving.

Just acknowledge what you're experiencing and send yourself freedom.

And you can use the thought,

May I be free from suffering.