The Eight Verses of Mind Training – Verses 5-7: Tonglen
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, International Women’s Partnership Centre, Chiang Mai, Thailand, January 15th 2007, Part 3.
When someone out of envy does me wrong
By insulting me and the like,
May I accept defeat
And offer the victory to them.
Again it’s the same idea that normally when someone criticises us or says something nasty about us, we need to jump to defend ourselves and to prove them wrong. So here it’s saying that if it makes others happy to put us down, just let them do so. So what?
It’s not that we are trying to be masochistic, but it’s the idea that unless it’s something really important, what does it matter? We are always willing to take the credit when people say good things about us, but why not be equally pleased if people say bad things? What does it matter? If it makes them happy to spread bad things about us, that’s their problem.
Actually praise and blame are just words. If somebody praises us then we should look and see if their praise is valid or not. If it is true then that’s nice, and if it isn’t then they are praising their own projection.
And likewise if someone blames us and insults us, then we should look and see if what they are saying is true. If it is, then the people who criticise us are actually helping us by pointing out faults which we ourselves may not be conscious of. So we should feel grateful. And if it is not true then what’s the problem? It’s not true.
The only time when it would be considered acceptable to defend ourselves is if the defamation or the insult created some real problem, especially for other people involved. For example, if we are working as a part of an organisation and then people start spreading untrue rumours about our organisation which creates some obstacles or causes harm to any people, then it would be fair to set the record straight.
Usually when one is unfairly praised—praised beyond what is actually true—one might not immediately hurry to correct that wrong view, but still one is very fast to guard against any criticism! So we should be happy even when others speak badly about us through the force of their jealousy or envy. Just relax and let them be happy.
When someone whom I have helped
And in whom I have placed my hopes
Does great wrong by harming me,
May I see them as an excellent spiritual friend.
So here it is saying that when we feel let down by those in whom we have placed our trust, instead of feeling upset, instead of feeling betrayed, we can use this as a wonderful opportunity for learning compassion and patience in the face of difficulties. This is the ultimate test. It often happens in families and in relationships, that the people who at one time were so close and loving end up as the most bitter enemy. This is very tragic because everybody suffers, and nobody gains.
This is often caused by an inability to take this conflict and transform it. So here we are dealing with the ability to think, Well, this is my supreme spiritual challenge: instead of immediately falling into enmity, anger and bitterness, I shall create a heart of understanding, of compassion and of giving back love in place of hatred. Because if we don’t, we will end up suffering. We suffer, they suffer and nobody gains; it’s a lose-lose situation.
Somehow seeing this clearly is something with which human beings have a hard time as we see throughout the world: even in close relationships parents turn against their children; children turn against their parents; siblings blame each other; husbands and wives constantly divorce with acrimony; business partners fall out. Nobody wins in those situations. So this is a way of taking that situation and turning it right round so that instead of ending up in bitterness and anger for the rest of our lives, our hearts open up more instead of closing.
The whole point is that we have to use our life for something worthwhile, and if we just carry on with the same kind of reaction as an animal then we have basically wasted this lifetime.
In brief, directly or indirectly,
May I give all help and joy to my mothers,
And may I take all their harm and pain
Secretly upon myself.
So this refers to a practice which in Tibetan is called Tonglen. In Tibet this is a very popular practice that is done by most practitioners and the great lamas. It involves exactly what it says here, which is the taking on of the pain and suffering of others and giving out one’s own goodness and happiness.
So I will tell you a story just to illustrate what we are talking about. One time when I was a little girl about nine years old, I was playing with a ball in our kitchen. I was wearing a nylon dress and it caught against an electric fire and next thing I knew I was up in flames. Now at that time my mother, who normally worked in our shop, was in her bedroom, because she was very ill with kidney stones. So I remember running up the stairs alight with flames and screaming of course. I raced into her bedroom and although she herself was very ill at the time, she immediately got up and wrapped me in a sheet. Later she said that my whole back was burnt off and was just one great blister.
Meantime I had left my body as often happens in these circumstances. I felt that I was up near the ceiling looking down and surrounded by beings of light, who were saying, “Come with us, come with us!” So then I thought, Oh, I am going to die. That should be interesting. Let’s see how that is! and I really wanted to go with those beings of light, I did not want to go back into that little burnt out body down there.
So then meanwhile because of the screams some neighbours started coming in and then I found myself suddenly back in my body again. The next thing I remember is lying on a trolley in a hospital and the doctor saying to me, “You are a very brave little girl, you must be in tremendous pain.” And I said, “No, there is no pain.” I stayed in the hospital for weeks and months and the whole time I was in hospital I didn’t feel any pain. Actually I remember having a nice time in that hospital. Now consider, even if we burn the tip of our finger how painful it is. My whole back was burnt off and part of my face but there was no pain and there were no scars.
Then, years later, when I grew up, I was talking about this with my mother and she said that at that time when she saw me lying there unconscious she thought I was going to die. So she prayed and she said, “Please, don’t let her die and please don’t let her suffer! She is too small to suffer. Please give all her suffering to me; I will take her suffering, just don’t let her have any pain.” Now, my mother at that time was already in agony with her kidney stones but she would have rejoiced to take on my pain also if I could have been relieved from it. So it worked out that the pain was indeed taken from me but she didn’t have to suffer. Obviously the purity of her love invoked the power to remove the pain from me. So of course this is the love of a mother for her child and it is this kind of love we are being asked to try to generate for other beings also.
In this practice of Tonglen, “tong” means to give out and “len” means to receive: so it’s a practice of giving and taking. There are two main applications: meditation performed for those who are sick or in trouble, and meditation performed when oneself is sick and in trouble. But the basic idea is the same in both.
The common sense idea would be that we expel all negativities from ourselves and we draw in the light. Everybody can understand that. But here that is reversed and we are calling in the darkness and we send out the light. So the easiest way to explain it is by just telling you what you have to imagine.
So imagine in front of you somebody that you know, that you care for—because that makes it easier in the beginning—someone who is suffering either physically or mentally or for whatever reason; someone who is experiencing dukkha. If you are not good at visualisation at least get a feeling that they are here. In private you can even look at a photo of that person if you have one, but have a sense of their presence and picture in your mind their suffering.
Then with the inbreath, breathe in this black light or smoke. It’s like a vacuum cleaner, we are sucking in all their pain, all their suffering, all the negative karma which has created this suffering. And one takes in this dark light together with the breath that goes down into the centre of the chest where there is a small black spot, like a black pearl, which represents that deep dark point of our self-cherishing mind.
Because normally however much suffering we see that others are experiencing and however much compassion and empathy we may feel for their suffering, there is still something at the back of the mind which is saying, “I am glad it’s not me!” So therefore drawing in this dark light counteracts all our sense of self-preservation. As the dark light is absorbed the black spot instantly transforms into a brilliant diamond that represents the true Nature of the Mind: luminous, clear, cognisant, pure awareness, and empty! This is our Buddha nature which is always there and no matter how much dirt and darkness is absorbed, like a diamond, it can never, ever be tainted.
So just as a diamond cannot be ever defiled however much dirt or mud we stick on it; likewise the pure nature of the mind can never be defiled no matter how much darkness we invoke into ourselves: the Nature of the Mind is always totally pure. So then from this perfect diamond in the centre of the heart radiates out a tremendous bright clear light which represents all our wisdom, compassion, good karma, everything positive and good within ourselves. That immediately radiates out and travels with the outgoing breath and absorbs into the person that we are imagining in front of us.
It’s important that when the breath starts to come in and hits this little dark spot of self-cherishing at the centre of our chest, that we don’t hold our breath, but instantly transform into the diamond of clear pure light that then radiates out on the exhalation. So this giving and taking rides on the breath. The incoming breath bringing in the darkness, the outgoing breath giving out the light. It’s very simple in its concept.
So we start practising this by just imagining someone in front of ourselves and this way we can get used to the visualisation. Actually it is very useful for example, when we visit somebody in hospital, or who is very sick, somebody who is dying or if we are sitting with somebody who is very troubled. Without them even knowing about it since we are just sitting there breathing, but we are doing this visualisation on their behalf. Often when we are in the presence of great suffering we feel so helpless and so this is something which we can do quietly without it being anything noticeable that is going to cause any concern. But sometimes—as shown with my mother who did it spontaneously not even knowing what she was doing but motivated by her great love and compassion—actually if our motivation is very pure it really can help.
For instance if we get down on our knees and start praying for them or we start waving incense over them or something, it might be very embarrassing for all concerned. But with this Tonglen practice nobody knows what we are doing and yet we are doing the most that we possibly can to benefit them. However if our motivation is sincere then distance makes no difference, the object of our practice doesn’t have to be in front of us in person. If we are really concentrating on them, our ideas of near and far are very relative. When we are thinking with sincerity that they are present then it works just the same.
The other application of Tonglen which is frequently done is if oneself is sick. When asked what meditations they are doing when they are ill or even dying, many practitioners including great lamas in the Tibetan tradition reply that they are performing Tonglen.
For that we imagine that whatever our disease may be, for example supposing we have cancer, then we can imagine that all the cancer suffered in the world is being drawn into us: on our in-breath we are taking in all the cancer of the world in the form of dark light and then on the out-breath we are sending out in the form of the light all our health and happiness from our inexhaustible pure nature and all the good karma we have ever created to all those beings who are suffering from this disease.
So again it’s making use of what is happening. Instead of just lying there feeling sorry for ourselves, we can use our own difficulties for some genuine benefit both towards others through compassion and pure intention and to ourselves in reducing our self-cherishing attitude.
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May All Beings Benefit
Sarva Mangalam