Tonglen Practice

The practice of tonglen, sometimes called "sending and receiving" or "exchanging one’s self for others," involves visualizing suffering and negative energy in the form of a black smoke or light that, when inhaled, is purified in the heart chakra. What is exhaled, is love and light. In tonglen, we look at the products of our mind that separate ourselves from others and see them for what they are...products of our minds. When we strip away the narrative of the storylines in our minds, we see that our suffering is no different from the suffering of anyone else. We begin by feeling compassion for ourselves, but ultimately what is engendered, is compassion for all sentient beings. Many of us spend a significant amount of our time feeling alienated...feeling alone. But when we see that the walls that separate self from other are nothing more than constructs of our own minds, we stop being leaves being blown haphazardly by the winds of life and become beacons of light, shining into the darkness of the world!