Class Opening

Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Now bring to mind that being before you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them. That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way, feel how much you would like to be able to help them, recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short, how wonderful it would be if we could also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever.

Deep down, we believe this is possible.

Learning about karma and emptiness, we glimpse how it's possible.

And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention.

And with that intention, turn your mind back to your precious holy being.

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way.

And so we ask them, please, please teach me that. Show me that. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite, and so we think of the perfect world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise.

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers.

The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you.

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

Idam ratna mandalakam niryatayami

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest,

may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest,

may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest,

may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other.

The lineage of this Tonglen teaching

(7:32) So this group, we have enough time to do a practice module between now and Kyoto teachings, which sort of kicks off the holidays. So this time slot, I have a usual group who's studying the ACI courses, and I didn't want to go from now until mid-January, which is when we'll start up again. So this comes at a perfect time, really. 

With the ACI practice modules, there's usually eight two-hour classes that are half learning and half guided meditation to learn the practice that it's teaching about. Then in the reading, there are homeworks, but they're mainly for like outline of the important material. I don't require homeworks and quizzes, and there's no final exams for the practice modules. I just ask you to explore the practice, and I know some of you are also exploring the Mahamudra and the Bok Jinpa and the ACIs, and I know I'm overloading you. But do your best to do a little bit of all of those, right? Seriously.

The practice module I'm offering is called the module Tonglen. Tonglen is this practice of taking and giving that we do on our breath, and we learn the details about how it works and how it doesn't work, and where it fits in our Lam Rim, and who developed it, who brought it to Tibet. We learn all those kinds of details. And then we also learn the visualization and the practice and a sweet sequence of how to use it as a personal practice.

I particularly like Tonglen practice because it was my first introduction into Tibetan Buddhism back in 1989. At that time, I was studying theosophy, looking for answers about reality beyond the physical world, answers to questions like what's the purpose of life? The study of various mystical things, this tradition of theosophy looks at all the different religions, all the different philosophies of our planet, and looks for what's common to all of them, and then helps a student delve into all of that.

I was really learning a lot and enjoying the group I was with, we had a study group. And the study group decided, let's do a public service event. We decided to do a meditation retreat, a weekend retreat, and offer it to all of Tucson. We were hoping for lots of people, we got about 10.

But we invited someone named Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen. His home place at that time was Long Beach, California. He was one of the last formally trained Tibetan Geshes trained in Tibet. Then in 1959 he escaped Tibet, and finished his monastic training by way of doing his Diamond Way training in the monastery in exile, the Ganden Monastery in exile. But he got his full Tibetan training. Shortly thereafter, he was sent on assignments, as many of those highly trained Geshes were. I'll get back to what his history was in a minute.

One of the Theosophy study group members knew him personally, I had never heard of Tibetan Buddhism. I'm not sure I'd even ever heard of Tibet, to be honest with you. So it was all really, really new to me.

Geshe Gyeltsen, he spoke English, but very, very heavily accented. So in this beautiful weekend teaching that he gave at a place called Picture Rocks Redemptorious Retreat Center, which is a really, really sweet Catholic retreat center in Northwest Tucson, so beautiful. 

We were there, and he's teaching this program and I could really hardly understand what he was talking about. But the gist of it that I caught on to is that using our breath and a visualization, it's a practice where you imagine that you can take people's suffering and destroy it and give them happiness, just like magic, right? All you have to do is breathe and think and you've got it. Then there's this time gap between when you take their suffering and give them happiness, and when you actually see them free of suffering and being happy, it was like less about seeing the result as it was having a tool that I could use that would maybe be of help in those situations where I otherwise felt like just frozen. What can you do when you see another homeless person on the street corner? It's like, giving them five bucks, great, but that's not really gonna help in the long run. Like I was already thinking long term. And all the little worldly ways I tried to help, even if I was able to at the moment, it was just not satisfactory. Somehow this Tonglen practice held something, like it ripened seeds in me, that I knew that there was something powerful to it, just hearing about doing it.

I took to it like a duck to water and I was running daily at that time, I started doing it as I ran on my breath. I did it as I was driving to work. I did it anytime I was not actively interacting with another person, because then I couldn't think of that and that at the same time. But it just took on this beautiful life of its own that I was Tonglen-ing almost all the time. Eventually, I think I really did like sublimate the practice. Like I did some things to intentionally do that. So I don't have the sense that I'm remembering that I'm Tonglen-ing all the time. But I am and when I see a situation that I can't do anything about I'm whizzing by in my car, right? Breathe in, breathe out. And that's all it takes to plant these seeds for this tremendous shift.

So I started Tonglen-ing all the time. And I have to be honest, I didn't see any more miraculous results in me, or miraculous changes in my life. But it didn't daunt me, I just kept Tonglen-ing. Then now, like, count the years, 30 years later, 30 more than that, here I am doing what I'm doing, and what I have done in that time. I really do attribute it to Tonglen. It changed me, and it is still changing me. It's such a beautiful practice.

So I hope that it touches you, you know, in a little bit the same way, and in the long term that I hope that it brings about a change for you that's way bigger than the change it brought for David and I.

So we were interested in Tonglen. But there was nothing at that time written in English about the practice. This is the 90s. And we were part of a Buddhist study group by that time as well, hadn't met ACI or Geshe Michael yet. The people we were studying with they were interested in Tonglen too. But again, we didn't have anything really to go by other than Geshe Gyeltsen's teachings.

Then after  10 years, we meet Geshe Michael and the ACI group, and we see their list of ACI courses and practice modules, and it's like, Oh my gosh, look, they have instruction in Tonglen. So we ordered it.

They wrote us back and they said, we're so sorry, but that practice module isn't actually ready yet. So we'll send you ACI course 14, the Lojong, because Tonglen is inside that. Our little study group, we listened to course 14. And it's like, wow, right? Our heart’s hooked, at least David and I's hearts got hooked to the ACI coursework because it was laid out so beautifully, and those practices were so amazing. And there was an instruction on Tonglen. We eventually did get the practice module in audio tapes. In that time, you got audio tapes and, and hard copy materials. We did eventually get to study the Tonglen as Geshe Michael has taught it, which happened in 1999. Which we met Geshe Michael in 1999. So he had just finished teaching this course, which is why they didn't have it ready to send it to us.

Anyway, we were still doing that practice as our daily practice, as we started into learning the ACI coursework, and helping out at the Geshe Michael's retreat.

One of the caretakers of that retreat was a nun named Lobsang Chukyi. We sponsored her to come to Tucson to teach Geshe Michael's practice module of Tonglen in Tucson to some of our friends and various people. I don't remember how many were there. So we got the oral transmission rather than just the audio tape transmission of this course from Venerable Chukyi. That must have been 2001 or something like that.

Then it was a long time, four or five, six years, maybe before I had the opportunity to teach it for the first time. Then a few more years later, before I had the opportunity to teach again, right? It's like it comes up every three or four or five years, depending on the groups I'm working with.

So what I'm sharing with you is from my notes from when the audio from Geshe Michael's original teaching. Now, he's taught it multiple times in multiple places. So there are different recordings of his teachings. This is the one I like the best. And I've added some of my own, of course, stuff over years of working with this. So it's a mix of the traditional teaching from Geshe Michael and my personal practice in order to share with you this practice of Tonglen, a method of taking suffering and giving happiness.

(21:22) I'm not teaching how Geshe Gyeltsen taught. So we are still in the ACI lineage. But I want to tell you about Geshe Gyeltsen. He is a Gelukpa. He entered the monastery at seven years old, and then at 16, he went to live and train at Ganden Monastery. He was there until he was 36 years old.

After finishing his tantric training in India, he got sent in 1963 to England to teach the Tibetan refugees’ children that were in England to teach them Tibetan language, Tibetan culture, and Buddhism. And then from there, he got sent, not sent, he got popular in the West, and he was asked to go teach in various places. Now, meanwhile, he gave back his vows and married, and he had a son. But then a number of years later, he divorced and took his vows back, or got them again, I guess you would say. So he again became ordained Geshe. If you give up your ordained vows, you don't lose your Geshe degree, of course. So all along, all through that, he was still Geshe Gyeltsen.

By 1978, he had founded this center in Long Beach called Thubten Dhargye Ling. And then it had satellite centers in other places in the United States, in Mexico, and in Europe. By then he's speaking English a little bit better, and giving these beautiful teachings. He is a Je Tsongkapien, formally trained Gelukpa Geshe, really, really an amazing man. He died in 2009. So while we were still in our training he passed.

So we had had the opportunity to meet with him and take teachings from him a couple of times besides that Tonglen practice. 

In Geshe-la's offering of this Tonglen practice module, he did it as a retreat, meaning like a four or five day gathering at a place they had for a while that was called Godstow in Connecticut. Which is a really beautiful place that they got given at one point, like property in Connecticut is not inexpensive, and this was a nonprofit center. I don't know what it was doing, but the nonprofit couldn't keep it up. And they were looking for some other nonprofit to give it to, and it landed in Geshe Michael ACI's lap. Curiously, we were back in that area to attend a nephew's wedding, and we're trying to find a wedding venue. And we're going down this back road in Connecticut, and here's this sign, Godstow. And we go, what? We went in and stopped to see, but there was nobody there. So we walked around the property, we went inside the buildings that were open, but there wasn't anybody for us to talk to at all. But we just thought it was an interesting connection that it's like, how do we end up there? Because the wedding venue was still pretty far away. But anyway, so we've seen the place.

The texts we are studying from

So when Geshe-la was preparing to teach this course, he also had found that there wasn't anything already written in English about it, even in 1999. Nothing had been translated. So he went into his ACIP database, and pulled out all the different references to Tonglen practice that are sutra, because there's also Tonglen Tantra. And he translated stuff for the first time, yet again, and made it into the readings that are offered with this practice module. It's not like it's just one text that's translated. It's some from here, and some from there, and some from there. But all of it is pertinent to learning about Tonglen, how to do it, why to do it, how it works, how it doesn't work, all the fine details as Gelukpas all want to do.

The main text that we'll be studying from is a text that is considered, it's funny, it's an open text, but it's used secretly. It was the text that the Diamond Mountain University Diamond Way group got taught as our course 18, 18th out of 18. The last thing we learned was this text called Lama Chupa, By His Holiness the First Panchen Lama Lobsang Chuky Gyaltsen, one of my faves.

When we get out of three-year retreat, we find everybody's doing Lama Chupa. Like it's in the practice book that Geshe-la has published. I have to admit, my first reaction was, what are they doing learning that when we didn't get it until the last thing? Then it was like, oh my gosh, look at the shift we've created, that people get this amazing text to use. Now, granted, Geshe-la has never taught it. So you don't really know what you're seeing. But it's so sneaky, right? Because you're planting the seeds for it to work even before you know what you're asking for when you read that text. And then eventually it's going to be, wow, I was doing that. I was doing that. It really is remarkable.

It's an offering to the Lamas. That's what Lama Chupa means. Within that text is this beautiful section of it where we are asking for the blessings of the Lama to be able to carry out this deep, meaningful, exquisite practice using our breath to end the suffering of the world. We'll see more why that's so extraordinary. 

This text was written by Lobsang Chuky Gyaltsen, the first Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama lineage is unique in that the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama, they're like offset in age. What evolved was that when the Dalai Lama withdraws their emanation, the Panchen Lama is the one that takes over the duties while the new Dalai Lama is being found and trained, and often the Panchen Lama helps in the training. They aren't always the direct teacher, but once the new Dalai Lama comes of age, by then Panchen Lama's old guy, right? They step away. Dalai Lama takes over. Old guy withdraws his emanation, new one shows up. They find him, train him to take over when this Dalai Lama withdraws. Do you see?  It was this beautiful… like that. And this Panchen Lama was the first to serve in that capacity. I don't know, we'll probably learn his more detailed story in subsequent classes, because he's a major player in our lineage, especially in Diamond Way. 

This sequence of Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama is a little messed up right now, because the Panchen Lama that trained this Lama withdrew his emanation. His new incarnation was recognized in Tibet, and the Chinese government recognized one in China, and insisted that their guy was the real guy, and the Tibetan one was bogus. It wasn't very long before nobody knew where the Tibetan one was anymore. He disappeared. We don't know since then. That happened in the 90s, and we don't know.

Then the Chinese Panchen Lama, I don't know the actual circumstances. But what I understand is that he isn't sequestered, ordained, that he's a householder. Who is been or being trained to take over when this Dalai Lama passes. That's the big conflict that's happening, is how the Tibetan people in exile are going to handle when this Dalai Lama withdraws his emanation, and they go looking for the new one, who's going to get to do that, and etc. So it's like it really is all beyond my understanding. But I feel for the Tibetan people that are losing their culture and losing this important sequence of connections that's happening. It's all karma, right? From all of us to see that it's happening.

Anyway, so it's a great goodness to study a practice that Lobsang Chuky Gyaltsen used himself and was so important in his time, that he took it from a very deeply held practice, passed like one-on-one from teacher to student, practiced in secret, because it's something you think as you breathe, right? You're not out doing bells and doorjes, you're not doing anything but being in a situation. So he's the one that went public with this particular practice. Not that it's a Diamond Way practice, it is a Sutra practice, it's a Lojong practice. But for those who have studied Lojong, Lojong was a secret practice. Until somebody finally said, somebody's going to miss out on this who could benefit, so I'm willing to take it out in the open. Lobsang Chuky Gyaltsen was the one that did it with Tonglen.

So here it is, available to us. So thank you to Lobsang Chuky Gyaltsen.

How the Tonglen practice works

(34:45) Geshe-la said that Tonglen has been a popular practice and people hear about it and they take to it like I did, without really knowing how and why it works. Geshe-la said that he had seen that people would do the practice, which is using our breath to suck in people's suffering and using our breath to give them goodness, and then that person gets sick, the person themself gets sick, and they go, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? I really did take on that person's illness and I really did get sick. That was nuts. Like, why did I do that?

Of course, their conclusion, number one, it being nuts, ‘why did I do that?’ is mistaken. And the fact that they got sick was not because they were doing Tonglen.

We cannot take anybody's pain and suffering from them. We cannot give them our goodness. If that was possible, and Buddhas are omniscient and made of love, then they would have spontaneously, effortlessly taken all of our suffering and all our bad seeds and given us omniscience.

Now, maybe they did it for you, but they didn't do it for me, which means they can't do it. So why do we think we can do it? Why bother to Tonglen?

You guys know, right? It's the clue. Because it's planting seeds, the wish to take somebody's pain, the wish to give them happiness. Our own mind is watching. And it plants seeds and those seeds grow and they grow into a state of mind, a state of heart that grows into becoming that being who can help others.

How do Buddhas really help others? Now you all know, it's not their omniscience.

Their omniscience tells them how to help others, what others need to take up and give up, specifically me, specifically you. But they help others by way of teaching, by way of sharing, by way of demonstrating, by way of influencing. 

The way Tonglen actually works, we're going to learn the details.

But of course it only works by way of the seeds that we're planting. We can't suck anybody's pain out on our breath, but we can end their pain by doing Tonglen because we're going to change our whole world, because we're changing our seeds. So when we learn the details, we'll see how that works. If we didn't learn the details, we can still do Tonglen and still get a good result. It's just way more effective to understand what we're doing, when we're doing it, and to do it precisely, which is again the beauty of Geshe Michael's teaching us it, because we get those details, we get that precision.

Tonglen and Lam Rim

Where does Tonglen practice fit in our Lam Rim?

Lam Rim, we know, is those steps on the path from suffering being to totally enlightened being. We've learned that it starts with finding a teacher, but really there's a pre-step to finding the teacher, which is finding our own renunciation, finding our own need to find a teacher, right? So before the first Lam comes really the realization of renunciation.

If you remember your three principle paths teaching, ACI 1, we have those three principle paths, meaning path, meaning realizations, things that we come to make real for us: renunciation, Bodhichitta, and correct worldview.

I'll ask you guys, you know all this stuff. What's renunciation? All right, somebody unmute, tell us what's renunciation?

(student: I (am) tired of suffering and I tired to see suffering and I want to take out all suffering in my world.)

Yeah, I am sick to death of this broken world, right? It's an important piece, especially the more comfortable we get with our spiritual path practices and the higher we get that renunciation can start to take a back seat and it's useful to revisit it from time to time so that our deep inherent selfishness doesn't creep back in. Renunciation comes out of selfishness, right?

Selfish me does not want to suffer. Selfish me does not want to have another thing go wrong. It's all right. Without that, we would never get our renunciation strong enough to change ourselves enough to change the way we see our world enough so that we could stop suffering.

Geshe-la always says, eventually, everybody will get the disaster that they need to wake them up to their renunciation. It doesn't necessarily need a disaster, but they really help.

I had one, everybody has probably had something that has made them go, no more of this for me. No more of this for anybody, please. What do I have to do?

When our renunciation takes that second piece of no more of this for anybody, what's that state of mind? Or what's it the beginning of anyway? Renunciation turned on to others is Bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta is, Lord Maitreya's definition, not ACI 2 definition. Lord Maitreya's definition of Bodhichitta?

(student: The wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of every living being.)

Right, all living beings. Without renunciation, Bodhichitta makes no sense. Without our own personal renunciation, ‘I can't stand this anymore’. And then when we can't stand it for ourselves, and we see somebody else suffering similarly, or worse, it's like, right, I got it. I've got to do something. And we start this searching a path that's a little different than the path we were searching from just our own renunciation.

If we've got the goodness, and we meet the pen thing, we get a glimpse that the end of that suffering really is possible.

So renunciation helps us grow our Bodhichitta.

Geshe-la says, we had another course where it said, Bodhichitta is that feeling in your heart, where every being that you're aware of, your heart feels like they are your only child, burning up with 105 degree fever. Like you see the gnat, and you feel like that. Or you see the driver in the car go by, especially the one that cuts you off. And your reaction is, oh my gosh, my child who's suffering so badly.

It feels so contrived, because still, there's that part of me that just goes, jerk, right? Whereas before I would have gone. But Bodhichitta is really seeing beings’ suffering and knowing it's unnecessary. It's unnecessary because it's just been planted by seeds. It has no existence in and of itself. Like you just, if we could see that our behavior could change it, right? It's like this twisted feeling in our heart between terrible pain and amazing pleasure is Bodhichitta. And that Bodhichitta is love, is what we mean when we say love. Not just taking suffering, but wanting their happiness.

Not meaning I want it for me, but meaning my happiness is your… Seeing you happy is what makes me happy. Seeing this other person happy is what makes me happy. And nothing else than that. Sunsets don't do it. Chocolate doesn't do it. Triple berry pie doesn't do it. But seeing you happy is it. That's love. 

Love is, I'll do anything I can to help you be happy. Knowing full well that there's actually nothing I can do that can actually make you happy. But I'm going to try anyway. And then I'm going to fail. It's going to be a struggle and I might actually be successful from time to time that will keep me trying. But because what I do in the moment, isn't what's bringing you happiness.

So once I start to understand that more, it's like, well, then I want to show that I'm happy when somebody else does something for me, but I'm not always happy with what they do for me. But does that really matter? Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent.

The point is, this Bodhichitta, it starts, we get to have glimpses. And even the glimpses feel really powerful. We're growing it, growing it, growing it until that heart of your happiness is the most important thing. Whether you're a cockroach, or my spouse, your happiness is the most important thing to me.

Having that as what a friend calls my permanent address, like my mind, my heart is always in that space, is Bodhichitta, what we call a mind imbued with Bodhichitta. So that when the goodness that I do, by interacting with others, with that state of mind, gathers its force, and pushes me into the direct perception of emptiness Bodhichitta. And I come out on that first Bodhisattva bhumi on the conveyor belt to the end of suffering. All of that is what we are working with and working towards with our Tonglen practice. That once we do reach that on the conveyor belt, we're still going to Tonglen. 

Now it's being done with a state of mind that the seeds it plants are so much more powerful, that they can actually ripen within that lifetime, if we keep it up.

Renunciation grows into the Bodhichitta, the heartfelt wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. That grows into the correct worldview, which actually is another way we use the term Bodhichitta. But call it ‘correct worldview’, first intellectual correct worldview, and then eventually direct perception of emptiness correct worldview.

The scripture suggests that of all the different practices that we can use to develop our Bodhichitta, to develop our correct worldview, the most powerful one is Tonglen practice. This using our breath to take away suffering and give happiness. 

It's how we act from our growing compassion and our growing love, what we do with those two states of mind is Tonglen.

Now, it doesn't mean you don't take flowers to your friend, if you want to take them flowers, or a meal. You don't say, Oh, all I have to do is Tonglen. You Tonglen as you're giving the flowers, right? You Tonglen before and after. So it's not an either or practice. 

And, Tonglen is not just a practice we do on our cushion. There is an on cushion Tonglen practice, and we will learn it. Then there's the walking around all day Tonglen that when we're familiar with the meditation practice Tonglen, it's very easy to see how to do the walking around all day Tonglen.

When we know about seeds, the number of seeds we plant contributes to the strength of the seeds that we are planting.

How do you increase the power of your karma? Repeat it in a stream, over and over and over. So when we're doing Tonglen practice on our meditation cushion, maybe on a good day, we spend a whole hour doing Tonglen, maybe only 20 minutes, and then there's 23 hours left. But we can also be doing Tonglen during a lot of those 23 hours, anytime we're not distracted by something or somebody else. So it's this beautiful way to increase, increase, increase the power of the seeds that we're planting to grow our Bodhichitta.

(52:08) Part of the reason why it's such a powerful practice is because we use the breath in a specific way. The Tibetan system, we say the breath is not a powerful object. We don't use it as a meditation object. And we're not using it as a meditation object in Tonglen. We are using it as a vehicle for our meditation object, which is the Tonglen practice.

There is a connection between our gross breath and the subtle body winds. They are not one and the same thing. But they are, what's the word? When you have a sitar, it has a string on top, and then it's got strings below, and you pluck the string on top, and its vibration sets the others to vibrating. But they're at a different, I don't know the word, but they're at a different octave. So you pluck this one, but you hear it in three different ways, the same sound. It's that way with breath and Tonglen. Resonant harmonic is exactly the word that I didn't know. So thank you

Using our breath for Tonglen and other things that we'll learn has this resonant harmonic with the winds inside our body.

We've learned enough about our subtle body that's in this tradition, deep, deep secret stuff. But when you go to yoga class, we can teach you that. So you know that your subtle body has channels, winds, and drops, and that the channels are all messed up, and the winds are all messed up. As long as they're all messed up, our thoughts will be all messed up, because our thoughts ride on the winds, and the winds are moved by the thoughts.

So as long as our thoughts are messed up, our winds are messed up. And as long as our winds are messed up, our thoughts are messed up. It's like, how do we ever get out of that?

Well, one way is to use it. Tonglen is the way we use that resonant harmonic by using our breath for this powerful goodness, rather than just breathing. We use it to take away suffering and give happiness.

Now, the secret weapon is that in between the taking away suffering, we use that very visualization breathwork to destroy the suffering and all the seeds for anything more like it–in our visualization.

Does it actually destroy the seeds?

You have to think about it. It's like, no.

(student: Not in the moment.)

Not in the moment. But ultimately, yes.

Is it a kind of purification practice? It's not in the list of antidotes. We can do it as a purification. But the very visualization that we do, and the reason that we do it, does make it be a practice that does go on to ripen, such that those negative seeds that we were Tonglen-ing about get damaged.

Because it doesn't work in the moment, because it doesn't have any ability to damage those seeds, and because those seeds themselves have no nature of their own, Tonglen can work. Just not in the moment, because you can't plant a tomato seed and have a tomato plant with tomatoes on it all at the same time. It's the same. We're creating causes for future results with something that we're doing all the time anyway. Breathing.

Geshe-la said, if you're breathing, you can Tonglen. Technically, you can still Tonglen even if you're not breathing. That comes later. But set up the seeds for that by learning how to use your breath. Soon, even without having to think about it. But for a while, we have to think about it a lot.

So when we are Tonglen-ing on our breath, the more we breathe, the bigger our Bodhichitta grows. That seems easy.

Yeah, it still takes time. It won't necessarily be tomorrow, although it could be. You do one Tonglen practice and your Bodhichitta explodes. It's possible. Took a while for me. 

The idea is that as we Tonglen, our sense of kindness, like kindness as our automatic reaction, starts to grow. Because our Tonglen as our automatic reaction is starting to grow, and that happens out of concern for the other person's suffering. That influences our own mind, our own heart, and so our own choice of behaviors. We get kinder.

The Bodhichitta is a higher kind of kindness, though. Geshe-la always says Bodhichitta is a higher state of love than we can know as ordinary humans.

He describes it as understanding Buddhism well enough, where we are getting pretty clear about what it will be like, those two pieces:

The Bodhichitta is this decision that I'm going to do everything I can to reach that state, no matter how long it takes. Like this really, really deep conviction that there's nothing there's nothing else for me to do than to create the seeds that will ripen as my Buddhahood. And everything else pales in comparison. 

It's a little dangerous, because it may seem like, okay, then I've got to ditch my family, drop my worldly life, and go find a teacher or a dharma center and just serve the dharma. I don't care if I eat, I don't care if I sleep. I don't care how sick I get, I'm just going to be on my path and not do anything else. We become dharma bums, right? We can't sustain it for very long, most of us in this degenerate age. So there's this delicate balance between this deep, deep urge to do everything we can to become Buddha in this lifetime, and still being in a worldly life where we have obligations to keep.

Our attitude towards those obligations can shift and will shift as we train more. But for a while, it may be that there comes a time when the worldly ways we're trying to serve people, it becomes so clear that they're lesser ways that we are serving people, and that there may come times when, so sorry, my precious family, but I know it's the holiday season, and you expect me to stay with you. But, I can go and do this retreat where I can learn better how to love you better. I know you're going to hate me for doing this, but I'm not going to be home for Christmas.

It's really hard. Don't do it until you are convinced that you are serving them in a higher way by not doing what they want you to do.

In my retreats, I loved retreating because I really had this clear feeling that I could do more for people in isolated retreat than I could do for them in this human body, human world. I was doing acupuncture, I was touching people on a really deep level, but it wasn't enough. Then, especially when I left my practice, I never talked with anybody about it afterwards, but no doubt they were all thinking, what happened to her? Like, why did she ditch us? We relied on her for stuff. But it wasn't enough. Leaving and helping Diamond Mountain, I could do more for them, even though they'd never heard of Diamond Mountain and probably still haven't.

But my whole identity, my whole way of view was changing so much that I couldn't stay in my old life. Fortunately, we didn't have kids that we were ditching. We didn't have that. We just had our careers to leave. So it was easier for us. So it's like this delicate balance between having our priorities clear, and not ditching out from our obligations, but rather finishing them somehow.

Kids grow up. Parents finally die, sorry. So we finally do get free. But by then we've got ourselves ensconced in something else that we're obligated to. Just be careful. 

(64:00) So part of our renunciation is growing this recognition that of all the worldly ways we try to help people, they will fall short. Maybe they help, maybe they don't. And either way, that person's going to go on to be hungry again, homeless again, this life or future ones, sick again.

You cure their cancer and they drop dead from a heart attack.

You give them their favorite food and next week, they want something else as their favorite.

Our seeds from ignorance and selfishness ripen in a world that's impossible to satisfy, impossible to bring about the effect that we want by doing something in the moment.

So worldly kindness is great. But Bodhichitta is a kindness that wants to be able to help stop that whole mistaken cycle. Bodhichitta is this resolution to reach this goal of enlightenment and that part of that resolution then includes some sense of trying to be sure that the teachings about how to do it survive in the world.

Tonglen Meditation Part 1 – Using Ourselves a Meditation Object

(66:05) Let's do our first session. I'm going to lead us through a nice preliminary, a long and detailed preliminary. In your daily practice, you don't need to take so much time with the preliminary. From time to time, it's really nice to do it, because then when you do your faster preliminary, it's got more juice from having done it in this slow, sweet way. So time to time, revisit your preliminaries.

Then we'll take a little wiggle break, and we'll do our first Tonglen experience. We're actually going to do just the LEN part. 

TONG means means giving, LEN means taking.

This is the practice of taking and giving, but they call it Tonglen, not Lentong. Because the Tibetan syntax is backwards to the English syntax. Technically, the English syntax is backwards to the Tibetan syntax.

When they say Tonglen, what they hear is taking and giving, but LEN is the taking.

So we'll learn the taking first for a while, a couple of classes of taking, before we do the giving.

When we learn taking and giving, there are different beings who are the objects of our taking and giving. They say, the first object of our taking and giving should be our self, our future self. In tonight's exposure, it will be your tomorrow self. I'll explain it when we get there.

Okay, so settle yourself in for a meditation. Get your posture aligned, but don't be rigid. We're not shooting for direct perception of emptiness here.

But we want to be upright. If you go into it, great. Hallelujah. You might, may you. But we're just learning Tonglen. 

So line yourself up. You're up on your sit bones.

You've got that solid, down-going energy.

Suck your lower belly in just a little bit. Feel that energy rise. Rises your sternum, it raises your occiput, raises your crown.

Scan down the outside, relaxing everything, face, neck, shoulders.

Come back up the inside, all the way up and around to the sensation of your breath at your nostrils. Watch it go out. Watch it come back in.

That sensation is your object of focus. Get parked on it.

Check the clarity of your mind. Turn on the intensity if you can. Call it fascination or eager or curious, something that heightens the alertness.

Check it again. Focus, clarity, intensity.

Now intentionally shift from that object of focus to the object of focus, that precious holy being, your personal guide, perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, manifesting to help you see them there.

Feel your honor, your admiration. Bask in their goodness. Enjoy them there with you, you there with them.

Aspire to become like them. Aspire to please them and ask them to help you. And they say, turn your mind to someone who's hurting.

Recall how our worldly ways of trying to help them fall short.

Grow that wish to be able to help in some deep and ultimate way someday.

Feel it deeply in your being. I will do that someday. I will help them someday.

Then turn your mind back to that precious holy being.

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn, what we need to do to even help this other in a worldly way, but also how to become one that can help them in that ultimate way.

And so declare yourself to them, that holy being, and to their teachings and to those they have already taught.

I rely upon you. I entrust myself to you. I come to you for my shelter, for help.

By the merit that I do in this meditation, please help me become one who can help others reach their ultimate happiness. Please.

Now think of just one of their amazing good qualities and make a mental prostration admiring them. Aspiring to achieve that as well. Determining to learn about the changes we can make through which we change our selfish behaviors into wise ones.

Give them permission to help you. Give yourself permission to change.

Then our gratitude towards them arises. We want to make them offerings. So imagine any wonderful, beautiful thing. Multiply it and rain it down upon them.

See them enjoy its beauty, its comfort, its pleasure, whatever.

Then please them more by telling them of some goodness you recently did or said or thought based on something they have taught you.

See how even more happy they become.

And you feel so safe with them that you open your heart and show them some negativity that you know is in there. Some habit pattern, some unkindness that has been done, some mistake.

Tell them briefly of the situation, of your reaction to the situation.

Tell them your understanding of karma and emptiness so we know that deed will come back to us bigger and so feel your regret and tell them of it.

Remind yourself of your understanding of this process and your determination to live by it in order to create a happier world for ourselves and others.

And so make a determination to not repeat that mistake in the next similar situation. 

Make a promise you can really keep and tell them and make a determination to do a makeup activity, something especially kind to neutralize those negative seeds. It could be doing this meditation tonight. It could be doing this tonight's meditation once a day. 

Establish something as your antidote that you can actually do through which we damage and destroy those seeds as long as we keep our determination to not repeat them.

Now, already feel that there's been some space opened up in your heart and fill that space with rejoicing. Think of all the goodness that all the beings who see themselves as Buddhas must have done in order to bring themselves to that state.

Think of all the goodness that those who have learned from those holy beings have made and all the goodness of sharing those teachings with others that has been done. 

Rejoice in all of your own teachers and guides, all who have brought you to this place right now.

Rejoice in all the generosity in the world that results in so much abundance.

Rejoice in all the protecting life that has happened, all the caring for the sick that has happened, that so many people in our world are still living, made it through childhood, survived their heart attack, their stroke, their cancer.

Rejoice in any protecting life you have done and rejoice in some specific kindness that you did recently, intentionally because of your understanding of how to create your future by way of your moment-by-moment interactions.

Be pleased with yourself.

See your holy guide pleased with you and so ask that precious being and all your companions on your path to stay close to you, to continue to help you, to bring you opportunities to practice, to help you grow your compassion and wisdom.

Ask them to bring you teachings, experiences, formal and informal, especially to help you overcome innate selfishness and ignorance and then dedicate just these preliminaries to some specific goal you would like to achieve by the merit of what I've just done, by the truth of the marriage of karma and emptiness.

May, (fill in the sentence) come about quickly, quickly, quickly, so that I can become one who can help all others reach their ultimate happiness.

Now bring your attention back to your body. Check to see if you need to shift and wiggle. If you do, you may. Then settle back in. Again, come to your breath. Set the focus. Turn on the clarity. Try to get the intensity. I know it's late.

Next, bring to mind your own you. Sometime tomorrow, when you anticipate having a difficult time with something or someone, maybe it'll be frustrated in traffic, or a meeting with someone you have to discipline, or going to the dentist, or struggling with meditation, anything that will be uncomfortable.

Give us a few breaths to settle on one.

Now pretend this now-you is like an invisible angel and you are there with your tomorrow's-you. See tomorrow's-you there. See the circumstances.

Recognize that you's discomfort, the feelings that are coming up, emotions, the thoughts, the reaction that's building up.

Now-you's compassion grows. You're aware of that you's distress.

You know it's building up to them doing something that will just hurt themselves and others later. You're feeling like, no, no, don't do it. Let me help.

And so your angel-you, by the power of your concentration, see all that distress and negativity in that other-you, like a black goo flowing in that inner body, within their body, this black, yucky stuff.

See it, focus on it. And by the power of your concentration, it all reverses its flow outward and gathers back into a tight, black, yucky ball in the middle of that-you's chest.

That you is still feeling distressed.

This you's compassion is desperate to help them.

Your focus on their distress is drawing it all into this tight little ball.

All their suffering at the moment, all the seeds for more of it in the future, all held within that black gooey ball.

Now your now-you says to yourself, I'm going to take all that distress–name it, all that distress, this resentment, or jealousy, be specific.

I'm going to take all this distress from you to help you to take that suffering and the causes for future similar suffering. I'm going to take it.

So now watch your this-you's exhales.

The air goes out like a ribbon, a pretty ribbon, out a little ways.

And as you inhale, it just pauses there.

With your next natural exhale, it goes a little further. It's going towards the that-you. 

Another exhale, and it reaches close enough to them that as they inhale, they're drawing it in. And as you exhale, you're sending it in.

And watch as this beautiful breath, your breath of compassion goes in, curves around, goes down. With each exhale going a little further.

Being attracted to that black awful ball of suffering and seeds for more until your exhale actually hooks into that little black ball of that particular suffering and all similar seeds.

Once it's hooked, shift your attention to your inhale.

And on each inhale, inhale is like a crane that's pulling that little black ball of yuck out of that distressed you. It's coming up through their chest.

Take your time, a little further, further yet, till it turns and comes down through their nose and out their nostrils.

Watch it carefully, your breath hooked with that black ball at its end. You're drawing it towards you. Your compassion, eager to have it, eager to take it.

When you get it to very, very close to your own, now-you’s nostrils, let it sit there.

Remind yourself what it is. That specific kind of suffering from those kinds of situations and the seeds for any more of it.

Leave it there, and in your mind's eye, look into this-you's middle of your chest and you see a tiny little bright flame there.

That tiny flame is our inherent self-cherishing, self-grasping, meaning my belief in a me and so my resultant selfishness. This little powerful flame, it drives those behaviors–I want, I don't want.

So you see that flame, really the source of all suffering. You see tomorrow-you's specific suffering in that tiny little ball and you feel your compassion. ‘I want to stop this suffering. I can stop this suffering.’

And so think: By the power of my compassion, my wish to stop the suffering of the world, including my own, I am going to take this black ball of icky, nasty suffering and its seeds and use it to destroy the selfishness that it comes from.

So sit in this vision while I explain what's going to happen next, but don't do it yet.

On one long inhale, you will draw that black goo of suffering in, around and down, watching it ever so carefully to see the first moment where the black ball touches the tiny flame.

The instant they touch, there'll be like an explosion, a flash, a brilliant flash, and the black goo will disappear. The flame will go out. There'll just be a little wisp of smoke and then it will disappear.

All of that on one nice slow inhale.

And now once the wisp disappears, you go back to breathing normally.

So let's set it up again.

This is now-you, whose compassion has withdrawn that distress from tomorrow's-you, gathered it into this tiny little black ball in front of you, aware of the flame of selfishness and ignorance inside the middle of your chest.

And by the power of your compassion and growing wisdom, when that black ball touches the flame, they will extinguish each other in a flash of bright light and a wisp of smoke.

So feel the power of the compassion and allow yourself a nice long exhale first.

And when your inhaler's ready, you go: Draw the black ball in. Watch carefully.

The flash, the disappear, the smoke, and it's gone.

Breathe normally.

Now look back to your tomorrow's-you.

See them suddenly free of all that distress. Whatever that upset was, they can't even remember it. Their heart is open. They feel kind. They want to help.

They feel so much happier.

They're able to deal with whatever the situation was in a whole new way.

Enjoy that you's relief and enjoyment.

Rejoice that you were able to help them in that way.

Dedication

Dedicate this effort to reaching the ability to truly help stop suffering and its causes, to bring others to the love that is the cause of all happiness, to bring others to the joy of knowing truth directly, to bring others to their perfect freedom from ignorance.

Then turn your mind back to your precious holy being.

Feel your gratitude to them for what they are teaching you.

Offer them the goodness that you've done.

Ask them to please continue to guide you and help you.

See them accept your offering. They bless it, and they carry it with them right back into your heart.

See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good, we want to keep it forever.

And so we know to share it:

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies

That merit and wisdom make.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one other from the beginning of class, to share it with everyone you love, including tomorrow's-you, to share it with every existing being everywhere.

See them all filled with happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom.

And may it be so.

(110:06) Be sure you're well grounded before you get up. Feel yourself in your room. Feel your body on your chair. Give a good stretch.

So between now and next class, please continue to Tonglen your future you. It can be tomorrow's-you or next week's-you. You decide. But be specific. Really, be specific about something you anticipate you will experience.

Great. Okay. Any questions, concerns? We have three minutes.

Good. Everybody happy? Okay. Thank you, everyone.

(student: Is there for like, when we concentrate the black ball, what size is like the maximum? Like, you don't want it to be bigger than like a golf ball, or because mine always like grows. And then like, in between the journey from the other person to me, it's like this whole thing.)

Yeah, yeah. Really, that it can be a personal practice, as you get familiar, you'll develop a way that works best for you. They say that first black ball should be no bigger than an olive, a black olive. But you know, if you're going to pull it up and out your nostrils, a black olive is not going to come out of these. So it needs to be small enough that when you're imagining it somehow coming out of your nostrils, it'll actually work. Right? Although, technically, it doesn't matter, it could be a watermelon, it'll still come out. But shrink it down.

For meditation purposes, the smaller you make something, the clearer your mind has to be. So it's good seeds to make them teeny, teeny, teeny. But if you make it too teeny, you'd get too squished, and your mind will pop off, it won't stay.

So get it to a comfortable place. And then there will be a teaching where it'll say it comes out in a stream, and then it collects. If that's how it seems to work for you, just take the time by the time it gets here to collect it all. Because it may be that there's some of it that's trying to go back in the other guy. Significant, right? If you find that that's a repeated thing, it's like, no, I'm taking all of it. And then have it all there. And then this one, again, you want it small enough so that your little flame, it's not going to smother the flame, it's got to explode. So it can't be too big. If it's too teeny, you can't see it. So I don't know, pea size, lentil size. So you can clearly see it. And then watch, watch, watch, watch, watch for when they first touch.

Don't be thinking about the other classes, they never touch, honey. Because they're gonna touch in this class, they are gonna touch. And when they do, boom, flash of light, gone, wisp of smoke, gone, gone. That's the important piece. Gone. Yeah?

Okay. 

Yes, you can do it. Week later-you, years later-you know, we probably all have a looming event that we might be concerned about, like a parent's death, right? A spouse's death, our own. It's like, can I work with that one? Yeah, absolutely.

Does it mean you won't care when you get there? No, of course you'll care, right? But will it mean it'll help you not be all like, urgh when it happens? Yes. So yeah, as far as you need to, it's fine.

Very good. Anything else? Great. Have fun. This is a beautiful, beautiful practice. So simple. So powerful. Thank you all for the opportunity. Thanks for being here.

Okay, for the recording, welcome back. We are the Tonglen practice course session two. This is November 9th, 2025. We'll do our usual opening prayers and go right into the meditation. We'll do a shorter preliminaries than we did last class, but we'll do the similar Tonglen on ourselves. But I think we'll have time to do maybe two versions. So just so you know what's coming up.

So let's gather our minds as we usually do, please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening]

Meditation: Tonglen-ing Ourselves

(7:00) So bring your attention back to your breath.

Turn on your focus, your clarity, your intensity.

Keep checking and adjusting, trying to find that sweet spot, the mind ready to meditate. 

Preliminaries

Now shift the object of focus to your precious holy being before you.

Feel your reliance upon them.

Think of just one of their good qualities that you admire so much you aspire to achieve it.

Then make a mental prostration to honor them for that.

Think of how they've helped you already and how devoted they are to helping you all the way to reaching your goal and feel your gratitude so that you want to offer them something.

What they like best is to hear something from your practice.

Tell them some special effort that you made because of something they had taught you. See how happy they are to receive that verbal gift.

We feel so safe with them that we can clean our heart of some negativity, something recent that we did or said or thought that we regret having in there those seeds.

Apply your four powers. Tell them of the situation.

Tell them what you understand of karma and emptiness to grow your refuge and your regret.

Then go on to establish a power of restraint and an antidote in either order you wish.

I'll give us two minutes.

Fill that space with rejoicing.

Tell them of some goodness or kindness you saw someone else do.

Tell them another kindness that you yourself did.

Tell them of some goodness about someone that you have a problem with. Find something good. Tell that precious being.

See how happy they are seeing you, hearing you tell them about goodnesses.

They want us to grow those seeds, water those seeds.

Then ask them to please, please stay close.

Ask the Dharma people around you to please stay close.

Ask that holy being to please continue to bring you teachings, formal ones and the everyday ones that we get through our interaction with others.

Ask them to help you be aware that those challenges are your holy angel helping.

They are there to help you make your choices of response.

Open yourself up to receive from them.

Open yourself up to changing yourself.

Give yourself permission.

Dedicate what we've done just so far to learning this Tonglen practice, learning about how it works and how it doesn't, so that it can become an effective tool for helping to stop distress and give happiness.

Tonglen Meditation

Then let go the preliminaries as the object of focus.

Do a body scan to see if you need to shift and adjust.

If you do, now's the time.

Then settle back in. Check your posture. Sit bones solid on your seat. Lower tummy pulled in just a bit to send that energy rising. Raising your sternum, raising your crown, tucking your chin.

Stand back down the outside, inviting everything to relax. Forehead, scalp, face, neck and shoulders, arms and hands, upper torso, front and back, lower torso, front and back, hips, thighs, knees, calves, feet, toes.

Turn and come back up as if you're coming up the inside, just rising to come back to that safe sensation at your nostrils.

Use the breath again to trigger the mind into deepening concentration mode.

Now bring to mind your own self sometime tomorrow where you anticipate having some difficulty. Settle on one and now imagine this-you is invisibly in front of tomorrow's-you, aware of their distress very specifically.

Get it, identify the situation, who or what that-you is blaming, how they feel, how that feeling is propelling an action.

You there with them can see it all before their reaction actually happens.

Feel in this-you's heart, no, no, don't do it me, I will help you.

And by the power of your concentration, gather all that black gooey stuff that's inside them related to this event, these feelings, these beliefs, this anticipated action.

On the power of your concentration, that outgoing stuff is turning and gathering into the middle of tomorrow-you's chest.

This-you looks deeply into all the areas of that-you's body, looking for any residual, drawing it all.

Now looking at that ball of black goo, you know that it's all the different parts of this distress and the misunderstanding about it.

And in that goo is also karmic seeds for more of the same from past behaviors, past habitual reactions.

Focusing deeply on that black ball of goo, this you makes that strong determination:

I am going to take this away, I am going to take it and destroy it.

And with that determination, you shift your focus to your this-you's exhales, invisible you in front of tomorrow's-you.

This ribbon of your exhale is going towards them, a little bit closer with each exhale, strengthening your resolve to take it no matter what.

Your exhale reaches their face, their inhale pulls it in, your exhale pushes it.

See it go in and down, and down and hook into that black ball of goo.

Imagine tugging at it a little bit to make sure it's hooked well.

And then make the determination again, I am going to take this away from you, tomorrow's-me.

With that determination, you shift your focus to your inhales like a crane machine, you're cranking that black ball of goo up, out of them.

Each inhale, it goes up a little ways, a little more, a little more until it's smoothly rising with each inhale, coming around and out their nostrils towards this you there in front of them, invisible, bringing that black ball of goo of their distress and seeds for more towards you.

Bring it to hover just below your this-you's nostrils.

Remind yourself what's in that goo, the situation, the distress, the feelings, the blaming that action that was going to happen.

Get it clearly identified and all the seeds for more of that.

Now let that stay waiting and turn your mind's eye into your own now-you’s middle of your chest. You see there that tiny little flame, the flame of our belief in things having their own natures. Our belief that there's a me independent of seeds ripening, our belief that that me is most important to be taken care of, our me that misunderstands.

Recognize this tiny little flame. It's the underlying cause of all that distress.

Make the determination when that black ball of goo touches that tiny little flame, they will destroy each other.

Then set yourself up with a gentle nice long exhale, so that on your inhale you'll draw that black goo up in and down, slowing it down as it meets the flame so you can see it happen: The flash, the disappear, the wisp of smoke, and then the gone, the absence. 

So get yourself prepared. I'll use a few breaths to let you do that.

Then when you're ready, that nice long exhale followed by the inhale, do it.

Then go right back to breathing normally, gazing at that absence of the flame and absence of the black goo gone and turn your focus back on your tomorrow-you’s state. 

See them so relieved. They don't know what happened. They feel relaxed.

They feel able to make a wiser choice of their reaction.

The situation is maybe still happening, but they have no distress about it.

They know exactly how to handle it.

They even feel a little bit happy.

So let this you be happy with the tomorrow's-you relief.

And then shift and think of you further in the future. Maybe later into the week or later into the month.

Find some circumstance you anticipate being in.

It will cause some kind of distress, something different.

When you find it, see that future-you in or approaching that situation.

Invisible you is right there with them, seeing the situation, feeling their distress, feeling what they're thinking about the situation, knowing the impulse to act. 

And this-you feels, no, no, don't do it.

And you turn on your Tonglen. Focus on the blackness inside them, gather it, be clear what the mental afflictions are.

Talk to make sure you have it all gathered. Recall that all the seeds for more of that same distress are in there as well.

Say to that you, I will take this from you and start your focus on the exhale, sending it out–feeling your determination to help them.

The exhale gets to them, goes in, down, looking into that black ball of this distress and then shifting to the crane, shifting to your inhale, drawing that black ball up, up around and out, coming out of their nostrils, slowly being pulled towards this you until you have it hovering underneath your nostrils.

Again, identify clearly what's in that black ball when you have that clear.

Let it sit there for a moment while you look down into this you's chest and doggone it, there's that little flame again, my belief in self-existence, my self-cherishing, my self-grasping, the source of all this distress.

I will use that ball of goo to destroy this flame of ignorance and I will use the flame of ignorance to destroy this ball of goo.

So set yourself up and when you're ready, that nice long exhale and do it.

Go back to breathing normally, rest in the freedom, the absence of the black ball, the little flame and then turn your attention back to that you, that other you. See what relief they feel, their confidence in the situation to respond with kindness, their sense of freedom from something, maybe they don't even know what.

They feel so much better, so much more confident, they're eager to resolve this situation and so this-you enjoys this state of mind, state of heart, wanting to be kind, it feels so good to have helped them in this way.

Now come back to your this you now, recalling that precious holy being who's there with you. Think of the goodness that you've just done, taking some suffering out of the world for someone.

See how happy they are with you.

Dedicate what we've done to all beings being free of that kind of distress, once and for all.

See your precious being smile.

Then bring your attention back to your own body, on your this chair, in your this room, in this class.

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch, get refreshed.

(48:19) How do you feel? It's such a simple practice, isn't it?

I mean, I know you all know Tonglen already, but even if we were learning it brand new, it's like, wow, is that all I have to do?

No, there's the other half, the giving part, but it's just as simple.

Probably the hardest part is really getting clear, what is that distress that I'm taking from them. We can tend to just go, oh, they're angry and they're blaming the boss and I'll just suck that from them and that's fine. But as we get good at this practice, we can get into the real details.

Their feelings are hurt because they're being blamed for something, because their brother always blamed them for something. It's triggering this upset with the brother, even though you haven't seen the brother in a long time. You'll know stuff about your future distress that's being triggered by that outer event. You'll know more than you would somebody else, of course. Why not use that to your advantage and include that in the black stuff that you gather. Then always remember “and all the seeds for more of that” to help grow the size of what we're doing.

Then up it comes and out. I don't know why you don't just do it in one long stream, one long inhale or exhale. They say take 10 breaths or so to gather it, 10 breaths or so to bring it. I think it has to do with training our meditative concentration.

So when you're on your cushion, do the whole breathing thing slowly.

When you're out, driving by somebody and you just get a glimpse out of the corner of your eye and you Tonglen, you just sniff it in, destroy it, sniff out the happiness. That's all the time you've got and it works that way too.

But on cushion, take your time. Take your time to see the ball go in, the little flame is there, gone. So get a clear image of that and that feeling of, wow, it's really gone. And don't let your mind go. No, it's not. It was just my imagination. Just shut up. It's gone. You know how it's going to show up later, doesn't matter. We just destroyed it with conviction.

Then take the time to look back at them. What just happened? I feel so much better. Like I know what to do now. Wow. Cool. They don't, where did it come from? Who cares? Right? They feel better. 

Any questions, unclearities about what we've got so far?

We're just doing the taking for a while.

How far in your future you can go? You go far as you want. Probably more closer future-you’s would be more useful because they'll be more real than trying to imagine some distress you're going to have when you're 75 years old and you're not close to it yet. It's hard to really know what it's going to be. So you can do that, but probably better to stay a few days to a week to a month.

If the holidays are stressful for you, go forward enough to deal with holiday-you stressed out. You can go that far. Okay.

(58:28) Something I want to share. If ever I'm online at class start time and there's nobody else on with me, I will shut the zoom off. Like I keep my finger on the button. It will go off and you will need to get that class from someplace else. I won't do a makeup. So take that as a warning. It just got close in this class. I'm just sharing. 

How to Grow our Bodhichitta

Where does Tonglen fit in the Lam Rim?

(student: Are we doing it to ourselves? Are we doing it to other people?)

I'm asking, I'm really asking, where does it fit?

(student: Bodhichitta.)

Growing our Bodhichitta. Renunciation, Bodhichitta, correct worldview.

Which Bodhichitta? The heart opening Bodhichitta or the direct perception of emptiness Bodhichitta?

(student: First heart opening and after it anyway lead you to direct perception.)

Yeah. Good. You have to have the heart opening before you see emptiness directly in order to see emptiness directly?

No, you can see emptiness directly without any Bodhichitta, without any compassion. Is it very likely? No, probably not. But those two are not cause and effect, not in either direction. But they are related, aren't they? In the sense that heart opening Bodhichitta, deceptive Bodhichitta, wait, it's not deceptive. It's the real thing. But no way.

It's the appearing thing versus the absence of it. So it has to be deceptive.

It's not deceptive. It happens in deceptive reality.

That Bodhichitta is growing our sense of caring for others more and more deeply. And so we want to help them. But all the worldly ways we try just fall short. So what's the point?

It's wanting to help, trying to help in worldly ways with our growing understanding of why the worldly ways can't help in the way that we expect them to. And so therefore actually could help if our seeds, their seeds ripen for the worldly way to help the worldly way will help. But it wasn't the worldly way that did it. It was the seeds ripening that made the worldly way work when it does.

Because in it, from it, it doesn't ever, because there's no such thing as a worldly way that's in it, from it, they can do anything. We've all trained in that. So it shouldn't be too hard.

Because we care for others, we try to help in worldly ways with a mind as imbued with our two Bodhichittas–the wisdom one and the heart opening one–so that the goodness we make by trying to help grows our intellectual understanding of emptiness and karma. So that we can do our worldly caring with greater wisdom to grow that wisdom on our meditation cushion to take us to that direct perception of emptiness. And that as our caring increases, our mind imbued with Bodhichitta increases, because our caring is based on understanding that the only way I can really help somebody stop their suffering is to reach my own enlightenment as quickly as possible. Because then I will know directly, I will be experiencing directly what it is they need to give up and take up. And my emanations will be there, doing that for them, whether they see it that way or not. 

So we're feeding, both Bodhichittas are feeding each other.

So are they two different Bodhichittas? Are they one, right? Different conversation. But they feed each other, and Tonglen practice is a method of feeding that feeding, growing that sequence into this upward spiral that will take us to the ripening of the seeds of those realizations that put us onto the conveyor belt to the end of all suffering for everybody. Long conveyor belt, but still once you're on it, there isn't much you can do to fall off. It is still theoretically possible, but not likely  once we're there with Bodhichitta, a mind imbued with Bodhichitta. 

There are two ways to get Bodhichitta, to grow our Bodhichitta.

The Bodhichitta being that deep, deep sense of personal responsibility for getting enlightened so that I can help anybody, including myself in that ultimate way.

So it's not just about loving somebody, wanting their happiness. It's, I want them to reach Nirvana or buddhahood. Whatever they feel is their highest possibility, I want to help them do it.

That's beyond Bodhichitta, I want you to be happy. I want you to be ultimately happy. Which means forever, ultimately happy. 

The kindnesses that we do with our worldly ways are important to do. We can't just say, well, they don't work, they fall short, so I don't need to do any of them.

We use them. We use those kindnesses to help us get onto that conveyor belt.

Traditionally there are two methods for growing our Bodhichitta.

One method is called

The 7 Step Cause and Effect Method

of which there are eight steps. The first being the preliminary of bringing our heart to a state of equanimity towards all beings so that we won't leave a single one out as we are growing our Bodhichitta towards others. The equanimity meaning, I want your happiness whether I like you or not, whether you are pleasant or not. I want you to be happy and I'm willing to do what I can to help you be happy, whether I like you or not.

Do you see how hard it is? Like it gets pretty easy to grow our Bodhichitta for those people that we love. Then the struggle is sometimes the people that we love still do mean things. And then we have to struggle, struggle, struggle to still love them enough to keep up our goodness.

But what about to that mean neighbor who's never been nice to anybody? Do they deserve the same of care and concern that you show to your favorite uncle Mac, or to the caring concern that you show for your own self? It's not easy to really do this.

We start in little pieces, of course, but ultimately what we're saying when we say, I want to reach Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is like every worm, every rattlesnake, every mosquito, every–think of the ugliest, awfulest, meanest thing you could come across,them too. Like I want to have the heart that just reaches out and hugs them whether they like it or not.

That's what it means to want to become Buddha, regardless.

So then that seven step cause and effect, once we have this, I mean ‘everybody’ state of mind, that's when we start the seven steps of how to think about those others in a stepwise fashion that leads us through these different states of heart where we end up with the realization of the personal responsibility. Not just the emotional realization of the personal responsibility, but the intellectual understanding of the personal responsibility for the end of all their suffering. Any suffering I can see in my world is my seeds.

Yes, they have their own seeds too, but until I'm omniscient, I don't know what their seeds are. I think I do because I see what suffering they're having, but anything I perceive is coming from me.

So ultimately, we really are personally responsible,. But you don't lay that on brand new student. I hope you are not a brand new student. Because if you do, please reach out to me because that's too big a message at first.

But in the end, if there's any suffering that we can't change, what's the use of trying to change any of it? And if there is sufferings that we can change, well, then let's do it. Let's be willing to take it on from everybody, every being. Nice.

So seven step cause and effect, you know it, we go to all those beings, they are all my mother from the past. My mother took care of me. I owe them. I want to repay them. And then we do the love thing and the compassion thing. Then we recognize, oh my gosh, nothing I do out of my love or my compassion really works until I'm omniscient. 

And that's the personal responsibility to the actual Bodhichitta, is when it's like, I've got to be Buddha in order to really help anybody. Growing our Bodhichitta.

Exchange Yourself with Others

(71:17) The second method of growing our Bodhichitta is the method called DAKSHEN NYAM JE. Again, you probably all heard this already, but try not to let your mind go, Yeah, I know it. Try to let yourself hear it again, beginner's mind, right? Let's hear it again for the first time. Can't do that, but we can pretend.

Tonglen DAKSHEN NYAM JE

DAKSHEN, DAK = self, SHEN = other

NYAM JE = compassion

We're going to see, but it's a contracted form for we usually say exchanging self and others, growing our Bodhichitta through this method of exchanging self and others. 

Tonglen is a subset of that practice of exchanging self and others.

Anybody here take the Death Meditation Practice Module? I know Joana has. Claire, you've done it too. It's so beautiful. Yeah, Mike's done it too. It's so beautiful. It has this secret twist at the end. I'm not going to spoil it for those who haven't taken it.

But it has to do with this practice that when you reach that place of deep realization of the three truths about our own impermanence, we can skip grades and go right into growing our Bodhichitta by way of this practice. So hopefully someday you get to do your Death Meditation Module. It's so exquisite.

Of the three principle paths, renunciation comes first.

Because of our renunciation, we go looking for a teacher.

We find a teacher. They tell us, Get the essence of your life. We try to do that.

Part of that essence is recognizing our impermanence. Egads, I'm not sure how long I have. Then what happens next? I don't know. That's scary.

Who can help me? Refuge.

All of that is in the renunciation part.

Then at some point, our renunciation turns on to other beings. It's like, whoa, I'm in this predicament. Gosh, I realize everybody is. At least I've met teachings that can explain it and tell me what to do about it. It doesn't look like they have. Oh, my heart goes out to them. I wish I could help them. I wish they could know what I know. I wish.

That's turning on the Bodhichitta.

Then as our sense of urgency for ourselves and others grows and our wisdom grows, that we're starting to really see how suffering is really a big mistake. It's so unnecessary that our wisdom is growing. We're using the power of our renunciation, our Bodhichitta to grow our wisdom. And we're using our wisdom to reinforce our renunciation to grow our Bodhichitta. We get this threefold. What would you call it? Like feeding each other to deepen our practice.

Tonglen is part of growing the heart opening Bodhichitta, and requires a certain amount of the wisdom Bodhichitta for it to be as effective as we want it to be.

To really even consider doing a Tonglen practice. We need to understand something about emptiness and karma, or it would be crazy to want to take somebody's pain or sickness and give them happiness.

If we didn't understand karma and emptiness at all, and somebody said, here, sit down, let's do this practice. You suck their cancer out of them into you. And then you give them all your happiness and all your money and your health.

What's somebody going to say to you? See you, you do it. I'm out of here.

There's no reason to do Tonglen until we understand the empty nature of the suffering and the happiness, and of ourselves as well.

Technically, doing Tonglen is a big time emptiness experiment, and gives us a window of going into that direct perception if you think about it. When you take that black ball and you take all the ignorance and you like blast it into light and it disappears and gone. Theoretically, if our mind is at the level, the platform where it could go into the direct perception, it could happen. Don't sell yourself short. Give yourself time for it to get triggered before you turn and send out the goodness once we get there. 

DAKSHEN  NYAM JE practice has three levels.

1. Observing the other and give them what they want

The first level is traditionally taught to the very young monks when they first get to the monastery. They're seven years old when they first go.

What they get taught is that when a visitor comes to the monastery, they are probably a sponsor or a potential sponsor. So everybody's job is to treat them really nicely. Sounds self-serving, right? Of course we want to treat them nicely because maybe they'll become a sponsor, or maybe they'll give us more.

But what they teach these young youngsters is that what you do is watch that visitor really carefully, and watch where their eyes go. Because where our eyes go indicates what we're interested in, what we want.

Geshe-la describes, you go visit the temple, you go into the kitchen. I guess that's where everybody goes first. And whoever is there helping you, they're going to watch your eyes. Do your eyes keep going to the fruit bowl, or do they go to the teapot, or do they go to the plate of cookies, or do they go to the cat?

And the one who's watching, (making observing movements) next thing you know, they've got an apple cut up and they're offering it to you. And you think, well, they must be psychic. When no, they're just trained to pay attention and to deduce.

Maybe they're wrong. Maybe what you really wanted was the orange. Or maybe you really did want the cat. Maybe they're not always a hundred percent.

But imagine what it would feel like as you, the visitor, if they are just chatting with them and all of a sudden they hand you what you wanted, and you didn't even say, and you weren't going to say, right? Because it would be impolite. Hey, can I have an apple? 

They just offer it to you.

Or suppose they offer you a cup of tea and then maybe they go further. Do you like milk in your tea? Yes. Suppose you come back a couple of months later and the same kids in the kitchen, he'll serve you tea with milk in it, because they're trained to care enough, to remember what you liked the time before. Now maybe you say, oh, I wasn't in the mood for milk this time. But the fact that they remembered and tried is the point here. 

Growing Bodhichitta is about caring enough to pay enough attention to want, to try to make their life a little easier, a little bit happier, give them a little bit of, legal, moral pleasure at the moment without even asking them necessarily. 

Now, of course it's fine to ask. But imagine what it's like, to be the one who's watching and then get it right. How astounded it's like, wow, thank you so much. Thank you so much. It is planting seeds for us to be what anyone is going to need, not just provide it for them, but to become that.

So even without knowing anything about all of that, the little kids are trained in caring enough to pay close attention. Why not? It can be really, really helpful.

So that's step number one.

I have a story about, sort of about that. I was one of five kids and mom knew what each of us kids' favorite dinner was. So when we were in college, David and I would go back to my home, it was an hour or two's drive, one weekend a month. We'd just go visit my parents. We'd get there Friday afternoon in time for dinner, and we'd always have pot roast and vegetables. After three or four cycles of that, David asked my mom, Mrs. Pocock, do you have a recipe rotation that you always do that we end up landing on pot roast and vegetables? You know, I like it. Don't get me wrong. But…

And she said, no, no. Like I serve that because that's Sue's favorite. I was Sue back then. That's Sue's favorite. And I thought to myself, actually, that's not my favorite. I do like it, but it's not my favorite. But it was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that she was doing that on purpose. Trying to please me, even though it wasn't my favorite. She had some… But the point is, like we can do that kind of thing. She didn't call me up on Thursday night, What would you like for dinner? I'll fix it for you. She just tried to make it my fave.

I didn't tell her it wasn't my fave. But like that.

2. Put yourself into the other

So second version, in this one, the way Master Shantideva describes it is that you are with another person. And for this level of DAKSHIN NYAM JE, you imagine that you can be inside them experiencing you. And so you're able to know how they want to experience you. And then, when you're back in you, you try to do that.

You put yourself in them, and you try to assess what does Joana want Sarahni to say or do right now?

We just ask the question and listen for what comes.

Then when you get this answer, you come back out, you be you, and you go, wow, Joana, I'm so impressed. You're up so early in the morning for this class. I'm so grateful to you. And it turns out that for some reason, Joana needed that little pat on the back. And she feels like, wow, Sarahni really knows me, and it gives her a little heart pop, we call it. Which, like Sarahni doesn't want to do that, so that Joana likes Sarahni better, although I hope that she does. We're doing it to give Joana a little moment of somebody cared enough to try and give what might be a little bit of pleasure right now.

And we did it without asking, what is it you'd like me to say? I mean, does anybody ever really say that?

Yet we tend to think, oh, I think I know what she wants me to say. But it's not from trying to assess how will I impact her? Can I know what she really wants right now?

Can we know?

No, not until we're omniscient. But do you see the seeds we're planting by trying the ability to know? 

Geshela says you'll be surprised at how accurate your intuition becomes as you try to do this practice. Be aware of how they would want you…, I'm in the other person, my me is out here. Get some sense of awareness of how can this me benefit, and then come out and try it on for size. We will be wrong sometimes. But we'll be surprised at how spontaneously we can end up being for them exactly what they needed at the moment.

Maybe you're aware, they just need a hug right now.

It's the second one, putting yourself in them, trying to be aware of your impact on them, with the motivation to do it in a way that is exactly what they want or need at that moment, legal, moral, right within our vows.

Is it limited to how we interact with them verbally? But you know, what radio station you put on? My favorite is jazz, there's rock and roll. I'll just find some jazz they might like, right?

No, put on their rock and roll. Whether you like it or not, right? Dedicating to being what will make them happy. Same thing with what movie to watch. Oh boy, I bump up against that one. What restaurant to go to. Then you get two people doing this practice together, and it's like, no, let's go to Chinese. No, let's go to Mexican. Somebody's got to make the decision. I suppose you flip a coin then.

Putting the others wants and needs ahead of our own. Because that's where our own happiness actually comes from. We do that enough... That's not right.

We do that, and before too long, when we asked the other person, where would you like to go to dinner? They say Chinese. Not because they're necessarily Tonglen-ing you or Bodichitting you, but it just so happens that they're in the mood for Chinese, and that's your favorite, right? And it just happens because of karmic seeds, from having intentionally planted the seeds for somebody else's favorite.

Pretty soon you can't get away from always somebody else's choice is what your favorite is. And that's fine. You don't have to say you don't really want Chinese. Do you? You really want Mexican food? You're not doing that just for me. Are you? Just like, okay, great, fine. It does happen eventually. Soon. Soon. 

3. Dissolve the boundary between me and other

Third level of exchanging self and others. This one has to do with not so much exchanging our wants and needs for somebody else's wants and needs in order to plant the seeds for everybody's wants and needs to be taken care of.

This third level has to do with rethinking the boundary of between me and the other.

We think we end at the edge of our body, and they end at the edge of their body. And I'm me and they're them. And yes, it's sweet when we can interact in a way that makes us both happy. It's sweet when I put them first in what my choices are, genuinely wanting their happiness.

But those both other levels watching for what they want, caring enough, and putting myself in them and deciding, they're still based on you are you, I'm me. I'm just trying hard to care more about you than I did before.

This one is about planting the seeds for dissolving the boundaries between self and other. Ultimately, the seeds for this version of growing our Bodhichitta are subtle and powerful, hugely powerful for building your Buddha you in Buddha paradise emanating, even for planting our ability to understand more deeply what those words are trying to convey.

This exchanging self and others, which really isn't exchanging, it's expanding self to include others practice.

Geshe-la calls it, you take this rope, that's usually between us. You take that rope, and you put it around both of you, and you tie it. So that now your identity is me that has two heads, four arms, two legs, two mouths. This new me naturally takes care of both mouths, all the feet, all the arms.

Our ignorance, and subsequent selfishness box at that. Don't feel bad. Don't think you're lesser if you're go, wait, that's not possible. I mean, maybe I can do it with one person for the first 18 or 20 years of their life, right moms?

You do do this when you have your tiny infant. Then true to form, infant grows, they separate, they get more and more separate. Mom's love never diminishes, but they go their way. And you're not responsible for their shoes and their meals anymore at some point. But wow, you were. It's incredible seeds, actually, to plant that version of expanding self to include other for the time that it lasts.

Not all of us get the opportunity to do that. It's not the only way to do it. And we already expand ourselves to include other in the sense of some of our material things even.

You finally get that brand new car, and you park it at the mall parking lot. When you come out, you see every car that you pass has been vandalized. And you think, Oh, man, that's really too bad. But then you think they better not have done that to my car. 

It's like suddenly, my car is an extension of me, and I'm already upset about my car from seeing everybody else's car hit. I don't even know if my car has been hit yet. But because it's an extension of me, I'm already insulted.

We do it. We do it with our stuff.

Master Shantideva points that out, and he says, and so see, we can do it with our people, even when they are adult people. Because we showed ourselves that we could do it when they were baby people. We do it with our pets. We do it with our material things. So, to say, no, no, I can't be personally responsible for my neighbor's shoes and my neighbor's meals. Like I will never get anything done. I've got, I don't know, 10 neighbors close enough. Does that mean every dinner, every breakfast, I should be out there feeding them? Like it's not possible.

In our self-existent world, it's not possible. In a world of emptiness and karma, there's nothing that's not possible.

Does that mean we have to make the seeds by feeding everybody to make it happen? 

No, we learn how to expand our sense of self to include others in any way, shape or form that we can wrap our mind around.

It's different than saying, I'll put me inside you and care how I interact with you.

It's like, wow, I really want to be for you what you need right now.

Until I'm total Buddha, I don't know what that is. But I'm going to be available to help out.

We've all had those experiences where we call it synchronicity, right? You just happen to be there when the person gets the phone call that somebody they've loved has, worst case scenario, has died. And you and you happen to be the one there, and you just envelop them in this big hug and this big burst of love and wisdom and let them cry on your shoulder. And you have time.

It's like, anybody else would have been, Oh, we're so sorry, bye. But you could hold that space for them, that terminology.

Or you happen to be in our community, everybody has those little golf carts. There are some days that I'm out, it's extra hot, I'm extra tired. And along comes some friend and they stop and say, Sarahni, you want to ride? It's like, Oh, my gosh, I like made dropped from heaven. A ride. Yes, thank you so much.

Those kinds of things, just you meet the need of somebody else or somebody else meets your need, without planning it out without figuring it out.

These exchanging self and other state of mind helps grow those experiences.

Geshe-la is saying those are all Diamond Way experiences. Those are angel experiences, either you're being the angel for somebody else, or they're being it for you in that moment. They're all goodnesses.

So this idea of I'm going to put the rope around whoever I'm with, whenever I'm with them, and feel personally responsible for them at that moment, is growing these seeds to help us reach that HLAKSAM NAMDAK, the personal responsibility that leads to…well in order to take that personal responsibility, I need to become Buddha. 

Those two steps are like dominoes going.

We can want to take personal responsibility, but we can't actually do it until we are omniscient. We can't get omniscient without wanting to take personal responsibility. 

Because our kindness won't go big enough without the understanding the emptiness side of things that makes the personal responsibility possible, not just possible, but actual. When we first learn it, it's like, Oh, possible. But as our wisdom grows, it's like, Oh, no, necessary.

(101:08) Again, Master Shantideva, he gives us various examples, the car one, he doesn't use the car, but something similar.

The other one, he says, we can redefine our me, because if you think about it, if you ever got gangrene of your foot, you might decide to have it amputated to save your life. Then you've redefined yourself as a me with one foot. And if our definition of myself included two feet, then when I had one amputated, then I would stop being myself. And that's ridiculous.

He says, see? That's proof that we can redefine ourselves when we need to, when we want to. That we just reject that idea of being personally responsible for the one we're with, or the 10 we're with, or the thousands that we're with, because we don't want to do it. 

Why we wouldn't want to do it. Lots of reasons. Lots of seeds inside there:

Well, I can't possibly do it. So I'm going to fail. All right, check it off. I won't even try.

Oh, it's too big. I don't have enough money. Okay, check that one off.

I've been stingy that I don't have it see myself with enough money, or I have enough money, but I don't want to use it that way. Okay, pride and stinginess.

We'll find all of those mental afflictions that we hear are your 10 predominant mental afflictions with the 10 secondaries and etc. We'll meet them as we are investigating what blocks me from doing this, this level of exchanging self and others, of expanding myself to include others.

So in this Tonglen practice, Tonglen is not about expanding yourself to include others–yet. It's about being separate, seeing their distress, being willing to use the breath to hook into their pain and distress.

Pretend we can pull it out. Pretend we can use it to destroy our own ignorance.

And all that pretending is planting seeds, and those seeds grow.

When we get to Diamond Way, the first half of Diamond Way is about pretending. And all that pretending makes the goodness for the shift to the completion stage practices, that if all the pretending doesn't ripen as the goal, you use the completion stage practices to forcefully bring on the goal.

Those forceful methods have to do with using the winds and the drops and the channels, which is what Tonglen practice we've been using since Sutra.

So we're planting seeds with Tonglen practice for our Diamond Way practice to come sooner, to be more successful because we already have the seeds for both the creation stage, the imaginations level. If that doesn't do it, the completion stage level by using Tonglen practice.

It's so sneaky, because it's an open practice and we can benefit from the subtle body work even without knowing the subtle body stuff. But as we understand the subtle body work, it just helps inform our Tonglen practice a little bit better.

Two Kinds of Love

We're using Tonglen to grow our Bodhichitta.

Growing Bodhichitta requires two necessary precursor states of mind, the JAMPA and NYINGJE.

Geshe-la says JAMPA and NYINGJE are two kinds of love.

Usually we say love is love and compassion is compassion.

Compassion wants to take suffering away and love wants to give happiness.

We make this distinction. But technically, even compassion is a form of love.

I want your suffering to end. I want you to have happiness.

They're both powerful ‘I wants’.

‘I want’ is ignorant version of love. I love.

You flip ‘I want’ around and it becomes like I give, it becomes outflow. And outflow is what's meant by love, right? I want to give. I want to help. I want to serve. I want to do for you. That's love.

So there's these two versions, the JAMPA, which in Sanskrit is Maitri, which is Maitreya, his name is love.

Then NYINGJE in Tibetan, which is Karuna in Sanskrit.

Years ago, when I was studying theosophy, I had a dear friend, dear friend. She was amazing. Her name was Grace. She was probably 15 or 20 years older than me. She had a niece who they called Carrie. Carrie, the niece. And then one day, she's called Carrie. She said Karuna. Carrie's name was Karuna. And it's like, wait a minute. Like, why does some American couple, this lady's son, name their baby girl Sanskrit for compassion?

The son heard the mom use the term because she was a theosophist from way back. He just liked the sound of it. So here she raises this boy into a young man who names his daughter compassion. And it's like, wow, that was really cool.

Like once I met Karuna, the word, was like, she was dead and gone. And I don't even know Carrie anymore. It's like, Karuna, wait a minute. Anyway, life's like that.

Karuna means compassion, wanting to end someone's suffering. It is a kind of love, NYINGJE.

If you had a child who's, I don't know, they've got their nasty strep throat. Every time they swallow, it's so painful. They've got that 104 fever that goes with it. Child is so upset. They can't really understand what's going on and that they're feel better soon. 

Does mom buy them a new toy to make them happy?

No. Mom gets them the Tylenol and the antibiotics, and the ice cream or something to soothe their sore throat, right? She tries to take their suffering away first. And then, maybe, buys the new toy, or whatever.

There's this argument, does love come first or compassion come first?

And it's like, well, wait a minute. If you didn't care one wig about that child, would you bother to give them something to take their pain away?

You have to love first in order to have compassion, in order to be able to give them happiness. Don't you?

So on one level, love comes first.

But then in action, compassion comes first, and then love.

Which is why ultimately they say, really they're both forms of love.

In the seven step cause and effect method, they say compassion comes first. But it's not that the feeling of compassion comes first. The action of compassion comes before the action of love when there's suffering, and there's always suffering–is the thing.

For us to grow our NYINGJE, our compassion, we still need to care enough to pay close enough attention to notice somebody's suffering.

Typically we grow up being taught that if somebody has some distress and you can help within your criteria of being able to help, then of course you help. But if you can't help, then we're sort of trained to just look away. Because it's too painful to be aware of someone's suffering and not be able to do anything about it, and so we hold it at arm's length and just avoid. Then we tend to get busy as adults and it's easier to look away and avoid than it is to even stop and see whether we can engage. So we tend to get into the habit of just not noticing, not being willing to notice somebody's distress.

And then we're able to walk past the homeless guy, and we blind ourselves. We protect ourselves. Because suffering is so huge. It's everywhere.

You know, if we walk around with those open hearts, noticing everybody's suffering and not able to do anything about it, like we would break. It's really hard.

Beauty of Tonglen, we can always Tonglen.

But it means recognizing that somebody's there, somebody's in pain. And that means willing to look.

Doesn't mean you have to stop and give them everything in your wallet? Maybe you'll be urged, maybe you'll be inspired to do that. But that's not what Tonglen is saying to do.

In growing our Bodhichitta, one of the first steps is being willing to witness somebody else's distress, care enough to pay close attention. And then maybe just a smile is all that person needs. Just the recognition that they're a person there who's in pain. If they don't need you to do anything more than that, right? Just a hello. Maybe.

So compassion comes first. Notice and care about their suffering. Then comes the love, which is the loving kindness. Some kind of gesture that reveals you care about them. Small, small or big.

So LEN comes before TONG in Tonglen practice. We take their suffering before we give them happiness. All of it as an act of both love and compassion.

But first we do the compassion by taking on the breath, because we're always breathing. So we always can. And that breath has the harmonic resonance with our subtle body that influences our ability to be able to care enough to think to do Tonglen the next time around.

So every time we try, it gets a little more likely that we'll try again another time.

I'm going to ask you again, once a day between now and Thursday, Tonglen, spend a few minutes Tonglen-ing your future self, not too far ahead. But some real circumstance you anticipate happening and then make a note. Did it ever happen? When it happened, how did it go? Okay.

[Dedication]

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.

tonglen

tonglening

For the recording, welcome back. We are Tonglen Practice Group. This is November 13th, 2025. We'll do our opening prayers and learn a little more and then do the meditation in the second half of class.

So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening]

The Benefits of the Tonglen Practice

(7:25) All right, so the next thing to learn about Tonglen practice is about the benefits of doing the practice. And we get this from a couple of different sources you'll see in your reading.

In our lives, it seems that there are some people who seem to just naturally have this extraordinary compassion and love. I'm talking about figures like Mother Teresa, who's gone from our world now. But, you know, her love was so great. When somebody interviewed her and said, you know, how can you work so directly with those lepers? It's a physical condition that's terrifically unpleasant for someone to be with, not just for them. And she had this puzzled look on her face. She goes, I don't know what you mean. Like, I love them. I want to help them. It's like her love made it such that it was as if she couldn't even see this horrible state that everybody else says, oh, don't touch it because you'll get it. 

She was just like, I don't know what you're talking about. She didn't even understand the question, according to the write up. I didn't see a video of that, but it's like, oh, my gosh.

Then the other person that Geshe Michael thought of was Albert Schweitzer, this British physician back, I think, in the 1800s, early 1900s in Africa, and seeing so many people, with diseases, problems, conditions. And he set up medical clinics, you know, and he took care of them in the way he knew how, not to mean that was necessarily better. But he could have been a successful, wealthy guy in Britain. And it was like, no, like he loved these people enough to go to that much effort to try to help. 

It's like, are there people now, like modern people now that are that? Like who in our world? I'm embarrassed to say that I don't come up with very many right now. Even the ones that are extraordinarily giving, like the… can't remember her name, the ex wife of some really wealthy person who's now doing all kinds of big money generous generosity. It's beautiful to be generous with your money.

But Mother Teresa was in there, cleaning their wounds, and feeding them and taking them places. Like hands on, not just money for the program. But then the people who are running the program, they must have this incredible love. Maybe not to the extent of a Mother Teresa, but enough to keep them going, because nonprofit work is difficult. Those who do it know.

So, if you're in a class like this, then very likely deep down, we admire those folks. We naturally compare ourselves to them and find ourselves lacking, inadequate. 

Buddhism says, look, don't compare yourself in that way. Because nobody, Geshe-la said it, nobody's born with that kind of love. Meaning it's not inherent in them. Maybe Mother Teresa was born with it. But it means in previous lifetimes, she trained in it. She developed it. It's not something that a human being has inherently, this deep love.

Like we want to think so, that if I just remove, remove, remove, remove, I'd find this love. And we know, when we remove, remove, remove, remove, remove, we just find more to remove, don't we? Like it's the same idea as when we go looking for the thing that gets the label, we never find it. We find something more subtle.

Ultimately it means, our true nature isn't love. Our true nature is blank. So that our appearing nature can be love. And that will only happen by way of seeds ripening.

So this great, incredible love that we read about in the great Bodhisattvas and Lord Buddha's stories of his previous lifetimes are like, wow, that being sacrificed so much for the people. It's all results of training to grow that state of heart, that state of mind. One of the beautiful, easy, main ways to grow that state of heart is through Tonglen practice. Then it's just like learning a sport.

You apply the skills, you apply the skills, you apply the skills, and then you get good at it. Like learning to play a musical instrument, learn how to play the scales, do it over and over and over and over. And then pretty soon you can play a song. Same with dance, right? We've all done something where we wanted some goal and we were trained to learn pieces of that goal and do those over and over and over and over. Then, oh my gosh, when you put it all together, bing, you could do what the goal was. Whereas if we just sat down to try to play a concerto on the piano in front of other people, it's like, what are my fingers supposed to do? I don't know.

It takes training. Same with this love, compassion state of mind

If that's our goal, we want to learn the skills and then practice the skills again and again and again, whether we feel like it or not. And those seed planting as we do the skills, colors our perception of our abilities sometime in the future.

How long is it going to take? Until it happens.

It doesn't mean your practice is poor or it doesn't work or you're doing it wrong. It just means until we have enough seeds with enough power to manifest that goal, we keep doing it. You keep learning the skills until the skills translate into the ability. Same with Tonglen.

1. Tonglen decreases our selfishness

(16:03) When we first are learning our practice of Tonglen, we're doing it on our meditation cushion. We are taught to do this practice where we think of somebody else and their distress, and we intentionally grow the feeling that I wish I could stop that distress for them. I wish there was something that I could do that would really help them. We think of their problem with clarity and detail, including our understanding that it's mental seeds ripening theirs for them and mine for me, and wishing that I could take that problem and the seeds for more of it away from them. 

Just imagining to do it—whatever amount of time that we spend on that—is time when we are finally not focused on our own problem, our own distress.

We don't usually think of meditation for that purpose. We think of meditation, oh, a time to learn to focus my mind, a time to try to see emptiness directly, a time to learn to stress reduce and feel more calm if you're in a different tradition.

But we don't think of meditation as a time to finally get off focusing on myself. 

Yet, here this particular object of meditation, Tonglen, this is what it's for. This is the training that it is the skills that we're learning is the skill to get off of our own self-involvement and plant the seeds for other involvement, other concern.

The amount of time we spend less concerned on ourselves and more concerned on other all that time seeds are being planted. And so the skill factor is chipping away at the strength of our own selfishness.

It's like, gee, where does all of that distress and pain and suffering that I experience, and even that I see in my world, what's the propelling factor that planted the seeds that could be a result that's unpleasant?

It has to be selfishness, because out of selfishness, we do something that when some selfish person does that to me, it's going to be unpleasant. So we're not even specifically thinking ‚my own selfishness‘ until we get to the flame in our chest when we're doing Tonglen. But one of the big benefits of Tonglen is that by spending time focusing on the other, we are decreasing the power of our own seeds of focusing on ourselves. 

It's like, well, wait a minute, if I stop focusing on myself, why will I ever get out of bed? 

Well, we'll get out of bed in order to Tonglen somebody, right?

We'll get out of bed in order to do something for somebody else, instead of getting out of bed to get what I want next.

So I'm making the selfishness be really big so that we can recognize what's going on. 

Most of us at this level, our selfishness is not that big. But if we've not seen emptiness directly yet, or we are not feeling completely loving and joyful all the time, we still have powerful selfishness seeds ripening, even as we do our kindnesses for others. Right?

It's great to be kind. And even as we're holding the door open for somebody, we're probably not thinking, I'm doing this so that doors will be held open for me. But underneath, there are these subtle mental perceptions of, oh, they'll like me a little better. Oh, they'll think highly of me. Oh…

It's inherent in our seeds of selfishness to be thinking, I will do something for somebody because of some gain I will get from it. Not glaringly in the words all planned out, but subtly underneath. Because of our belief in the Me that everything is coming at.

Again, to get ourselves off of ourselves, and focus on someone else with this intention to try to help them in some way, even within a world where nothing we do can help them ultimately, and nothing we do can actually help them in the moment itself, that we still say, no matter, I'm going to focus on them and their problem. Because I really do want to be able to help them stop it.

As we do that on our cushion we're not impacting that other person, they don't even know we're doing it, very likely. Yet, the seeds that we're planting as we do it, are influencing our own mind. When those seeds ripen, they ripen as a change in how we perceive other.

Maybe it's not two weeks later, we see them and their cancer is miraculously gone. Although it's possible. But it won't be because of the Tonglen you did every day for two weeks,. It will be because of the seeds you planted in your mind by doing the Tonglen every day for two weeks, that you changed your own seeds sufficiently enough that you can't see them with cancer anymore. Right?

You see them telling you, ah, nobody knows why or how, but my cancer is gone.

But we need to understand how Tonglen works and how it doesn't work. So that when we Tonglen someone, we're not doing it with the expectation to get the result that we want. But we're doing it to plant the seeds to change the very experience of me and my world.

Well, wait, you just said, do Tonglen with no interest in personal gain.

Right. I did say that. But you won't be able to help getting personal gain, which is why you don't need to have it in mind at all as we're Tonglen-ing, because it will happen regardless. And thinking, I'm going to Tonglen so that I can get this benefit, because of the strength of our misunderstanding, we’ll actually make seeds by your Tonglen that will delay the shift that we're trying to make.

2. Tonglen changes our future to the better

So one of the skills included in the Tonglen-ing is to focus on the doing the practice, not without focusing on the apparent result.

You set up the person and their suffering and what kind they have, and the seeds for more, and we willingly suck it in and use it to destroy our ignorance, and use our ignorance and selfishness to destroy it. Then it's like you kiss them and say, I'll be back tomorrow. Hope your day goes well. And you don't watch their day to see how it goes. You just Tonglen again, or somebody else.

The results of your Tonglen-ing, that person may show up over here with somebody else.

The effect it has on our mind is that some event that we were going to, it's hard to say, that we were going to experience, we don't experience. Because we've changed our seeds so much that we haven't just diminished that experience. We've shifted, and so different set of seeds are ripening.

Now, we wouldn't know that. We won't be able to know that unless we are omniscient. And then we'd be able to say, well, if I hadn't Tonglen-ed, I would have been in that car accident, because I would have been in traffic at 9am instead of 9:15. Then I wasn't in the accident because of Tonglen. It's not quite like that. But as an example, the Tonglen does change us, and so it changes our future. That without Tonglen-ing, we wouldn't have changed the future in that way, for the better, because we were still spending all that time in our own belief, in our own self need, even as we're meditating on emptiness.

So one of the benefits of Tonglen is that it has this deep wish to take away somebody's suffering and the willingness to do something to help them, knowing that it may or may not help, which is how it can help. And then further to use that to intentionally imagine that we're destroying our very selfishness and ignorance it comes from, gives it a double power the Tonglen. It's like getting double hours for you're doing your scales. Mom, I practiced for 30 minutes, but I did it with a state of mind that gives me an hour's worth of credit. Like that, because of the both factors of Tonglen, taking and using it to destroy. Eventually we're going to also give them goodness, which we'll see how that impacts as well, when we get there.

Geshela says, typically, we really don't think much about others' problems, except by way of how their problems are causing me problems. Right? So we might care about the upset boss and whether they're having a bad day, just because the upset boss is making me upset. Otherwise, we wouldn't pay too much attention. Ordinarily, right?

Again, we're probably at a level of practice that we are paying attention. It's our good seeds. To be able to use that good impulse in a way that will perpetuate it is part of the beauty of Tonglen practice, an easy way to do that.

3. Tonglen helps us develop our sense of equanimity

(29:20) As we're Tonglen-ing someone on our cushion, we are growing our love for them, even without necessarily interacting with them at all, because of what we're doing on our cushion. So this person that we Tonglen, we'll learn, start with someone you love, because it starts… You already have the love, and now we can grow it bigger.

But we're going to go on to growing the ability to Tonglen people that are neutral to us, and then even Tonglen people we downright don't like—with the same state of heart, right? The same concern for their suffering, and so the same amount of love, we're going for that equanimity. It isn't likely to come straight away.

The effort to try grows the seeds to be able to do so, even without interacting with them directly. So your Tonglen practice does not mean you're going to go to that person you've been Tonglen-ing that you really don't like, or maybe they're even dangerous to you, and to have to go and check to see whether your Tonglen is working. You won't have to do that.

Very likely, if they are in your life, even at a periphery, you may find someday, it's like, wow, I haven't thought about them. I haven't been upset by them, and then you come across them in some way, and you just feel differently towards them. You never actually had to settle it between you and them. It's the beauty of Tonglen practice. 

Okay, so at first, our Tonglen practice is only on the cushion, and then as it grows in its power to diminish our selfishness, we'll find ourselves wanting to behave more kindly, more helpfully to others in bigger ways. Not because we're thinking, oh, my Tonglen on the cushion says, off the cushion I need to work harder at being kind. But because the seeds of doing Tonglen on the cushion are shifting all of our seeds, and we want to be that loving being out in our world.

So they say, don't leave Tonglen on the cushion, be the Tonglener off the cushion. 

They mean that literally. We'll learn we can Tonglen as we're at the grocery store. But what they mean is, let it color your behavior. Let yourself, let your behaviors change. Because sometimes we think, I don't know, I'm a pretty kind person, I can stay at this kindness level, and I'll do okay. Then that state of mind would say to our own state of mind, yeah, I'll Tonglen on the cushion and get more loving, but off the cushion, I'll stay the same.

So give yourself permission to grow and to change. You'll be surprised how it'll occur to you to jump up in that meeting and, I don't know, pick up the flyers that are going around, because somebody has to do it, might as well be me. Whereas before it would have been, whoever's in charge will take care of this. Right?

No wrong morality in that, just spying a way to be a little helpful to somebody.

Who cares if nobody notices or nobody says anything? It'll be this influence of our Tonglen on our behavior. The subtlety of our kindness will grow when we allow ourselves to change habits, to grow our habits.

Geshela says, don't be vague in the distress that you see yourself taking from someone else. Like our Mahayana Buddhist motto is for all suffering beings, for all living beings, because it's the biggest wish and it makes the biggest seeds and the most power, but it leaves people suffering at arm's length. So, if we have a specific person in mind and we know even a little bit about them, we can say, all right, this person I want to help, they've shared with me that they're depressed. And I understand that this part about them, and I understand a little bit of that. I don't understand the whole story. But I understand about seeds for depression and how it really, how people really suffer from that. I understand that probably they have seeds for more similar situation of depression and whatever it was that led them to having depression as the result, whatever those seeds were. That's all the black stuff that we're going to see ourselves gather into their heart.

We don't want to just say, oh, I see them sad. I'll take their sadness. It's just too broad, too big. It works. It'll be fine. But the more specifically identify the distress that we see in them, the more specific are the seeds that we are damaging within ourselves.

So you want to take a little bit of time to try to identify as clearly as you can, given the circumstances. So that kind of says, it behooves us to get to know people a little bit. If we're going to someday Tonglen somebody, it would help if I know them. If I know they love cats, right? That's going to help my Tonglen-ing, because I'm going to send them cats. If I know that they get headaches and I see them really, really upset, it's like probably they have a headache as well. But our Tonglen-ing can be more effective the more we know. But on the other hand, don't butt yourself into their business. You don't have to know what they're experiencing. You just have to bear witness to their being upset in some way. However you perceive that, work on that. Because what you are perceiving is what's valid for you, and that's what we take away from them. Probably more will be revealed as we do it openheartedly.

We say, but it's all just imagination. How can it really do anything? If what I do worldly can't help anybody, well then for sure what I do in my imagination can't help anybody. 

But as we'll learn how it works and how it doesn't work, we understand about karmic seeds. We'll see that it's the more powerful way to help someone, to help in our imagination, than to help in worldly ways.

And when we help in our imagination, there's a greater likelihood that though when we help in worldly ways, we have the goodness to actually see it have some positive effect.

It won't necessarily yet be the thing that triggers for them the end of all their suffering. But it could at any moment. Just as it could for us at any moment.

(38:45) Geshela says, we shape our reality by doing Tonglen on our cushion. It's not unreal. It's not actually imaginary. It just doesn't work in the way that we think, which is why it can work. It works by way of the seeds that we're planting. He says, this is actually how to get to heaven, how to create paradise. 

He said, other practices are great, but this one contributes to the seeds for those others to work. So interesting, the power of Tonglen.

This practice will lead to our own being able to teach people how to stop their suffering, stop their death, stop their illness, stop their forced rebirth forever someday. Just Tonglen.

So why do we do anything but Tonglen?

Why didn't they teach us that at the get-go, right at the beginning?

They did me. That's the first thing I learned, was Tonglen, in this tradition, Tibetan Mahayana tradition. I didn't think it was doing any miracles. But here I am, teaching people how to stop their distress forever. Like, oh my gosh, it really did do it. It really does do. Okay.

So it does not work by visualizing. It does not work by breathing. It works by planting seeds, which we do by perceiving ourselves, imagine and breathe, and then be more kind as a result. That's why to do it.

It becomes included in our motivation. I'm doing Tonglen to plant the seeds in my mind to stop seeing them have any distress forever and ever.

I don't know, my own mind still says, yeah, great for you, but what about for them? And we're not going to follow that train of thought now. But that train of thought would take us through the different levels of what emptiness, independent origination mean. The extent to which we believe that there is an other person with their own suffering that exists independent of the one I'm perceiving, the one I'm projecting, is determined by the level of emptiness and karma I can understand.

At the highest level, there's no me, there's no them, there's no pain, there's no suffering other than what's unique to my experience, which is how I can change their pain, and their suffering, and their ignorance, and their ordinariness by changing my own seeds, and it's the only way to do it.

Then, what are they when I reached that?

For me, they are Buddha. For them, they are whatever they are. And it's not contradictory and it's not a conundrum, but it seems like it is.

We Tonglen from the level that we're at, which is at least the Mahayana level where we're wanting our Bodhichitta to grow into, I want to reach Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings as my permanent address. Like my mind is always in that state identifying with like, that's my purpose. That's who I am.

Tonglen grows that, but it does all this other benefit at the same time. So beautiful.

4. Tonglen is making powerful mental karma

(43:55) They go on to say, as if that's not enough, Tonglen's main benefit is that it's working at the level of karma of the mind, mental karma, instead of karma of the body.

So when we say go out and do kindnesses for other, we're holding the door open, we're bringing them food, we're taking them to Dharma class. Those are all great goodnesses, and they are karmas of body and speech. Now they're motivated by karma of mind, because we have to have the conscious impulse to go do them. 

So it's not like body and mind karmas don't have any mental aspect to them, they do. But not all mental karmas translate into physical and speech. We can have a thought to do something and not ever do it. We would think that a mental karma that's not acted on would be a lesser karma. But they actually say, mental karmas, meaning just the movement of the mind, having the conception and then the next thought of that, whatever that next thought is, that mental karma is the most powerful karma—the planting, because it colors the whole flow that goes on.

If the first movement of the mind is, ick, thumbs down, I don't like, I don't want, that let flows into what am I going to do to avoid it. If we don't have that, I don't like I don't want, you're not going to flow into some kind of avoidance behavior.

Having the thumbs down, I don't want impulse has already replanted the misunderstanding of self misunderstanding of other misunderstanding of the thumbs up, thumbs down, and misunderstanding of the reaction to that. And so it just took the shift of the mind to replant all of those misunderstandings from that little bit of movement of the mind. That's said to be powerful karma, more powerful than the action done. Now it's not like adding the action makes the mental karma have a physical or speech result. Whereas a mental karma never acted on will only bring a mental karma result. Right?

So you could say by acting on the mental karma, you strengthen that karmic seed, but it isn't the same karmic seed because the mental karma has already done its thing now we add the physical karma. Those are related but different seeds.

Tonglen is a mental practice, where we have the mental motivation, somebody's in pain, and that's unacceptable. I wish I could stop it. I will pretend I can, like I will stop it by using my own breath and my imagination, my seems like imagination, to suck it out of them and use it to destroy all the seeds for the ignorance and selfishness that created in the first place.

That's all mental karma, movement of the mind. We're not saying, doing anything. It is happening in a stream. There's a whole story. So it's a story's worth of mental karma, all the better. Because 64 per instant being planted, right?

One of the powers of tonglen is the fact that it's mental karma.

When we tag it on the breath, that resonates with the subtle body that adds further power to the mental karma aspect of Tonglen-ing. It doesn't require going to the person, it doesn't require taking the medicine, it doesn't require solving their problem. 

It just requires caring about them enough to spend your precious meditation time on their problem, instead of our own.

That's the first step, like the first powerful mental karma, is I've only got 15 minutes to do my meditation. I've got this upset with my whoever, and I'm so upset with them and I need to solve this problem. Yes, you can Tonglen you. But we might want to think, wow, who has some similar problem?

Think of how painful it must be for them because we know how painful it is for me. And I know about karma and emptiness, and as far as I know, they don't, so they don't have any tool to work with it. So oh my gosh, they must really be like feeling stuck. Ha, there. I'm going to spend my precious 15 minutes in meditation on them, solving their distress, solving their problem.

It's not natural. It's like no, no, I'll get to them later. I'll fix them by fixing my own—is our usual human seed pushed attitude. So exquisite, Tonglen gives us a tool for overriding that.

King of Concentration Sutra, it says, one moment of true love for another is more powerful than any external activity.

One moment of true love for another is more powerful than any external activity.

True love for another is wanting them to be happy, willing to try to help no matter what we'll see. Now, when we talk about mental karmas, generally speaking, we're talking about those last three of the 10 main mental affliction karmas that humans make:

• Coveting is the word, we say jealousy. It means being upset when we see somebody else's success or happiness,

• Malice, we call it ill will, meaning at one level not caring about someone having distress on a deeper level, actually wishing someone to have problems, because we don't like them for some reason. And then it can even go so far as to being happy that somebody's having trouble. Ill will.

• Wrong view, just not believing that our actions have karmic consequences, that our actions create our future experiences. There's more to it than that. But the basis of that wrong view then is that we go to all kinds of things as sources for happiness that are actually sources of more pain. And so that wrong view just colors our mind in terms of what's pleasurable, what's not, what's important and what's not, and we misjudge everything as a result.

These three are the main mental afflictions that underlies any other mental movement, karma, that we can experience and then react to.

I guess there are other mental karmas, right? Love, joy, anticipation, right? All those, they are all mental karmas. Also nice ones, good ones.

But when we go looking for the ones that are causing all the distressors, if we keep getting down, down, down, down, we'll find some story that has evolved out of one of these three.

Now, technically, the two, jealous and ill will, they come out of number three—wrong view. If we did not have wrong view, we would not let a moment of jealousy or a moment of ill even get to the surface of our mind, because we know so clearly that that would just perpetuate suffering for everybody.

Technically, wrong view is underneath all of them. But the thing with wrong view, when we're trying to clean it out, purify it, we can't do a power of restraint yet. So even with our Tonglen, if we were to say, okay, I'm going to just suck out of them their wrong view, we don't understand wrong view well enough, because of all of our seeds are still colored with seeds for its belief in it, that we can't get clear enough on the wrong view seeds to actually have the powerful impact that Tonglen is having when we can say, I know what their anger feels like, because I get angry like that too. 

Then we don't have to remember it, we don't have to feel it. The fact that we have similar seeds in that way, and we've had the experience helps our Tonglen be more effective in what it's doing for us. Because it is doing a kind of purification. Not by bringing the seeds up and out and accept. That's what we're seeing in the other person is ripening of our seeds and our willingness to suck it in and destroy it is an interesting response to what one might do next time the boss is yelling at it. But it's like, wait a minute, boss is yelling at me. And so what I should do is say, boss timeout, I'm going to Tonglen here.

It might be really effective. It might really make them angry.

The point is, we can understand their mental affliction, because we've been there done that with our ignorance, we should be able to understand their ignorance, too. But we're so steeped in it, we can't understand our own well enough to really Tonglen it. But we will be damaging it by deciding, I'm going to take their pain in on my breath and destroy my selfishness and wrong view with it. And so we will be chipping away at that wrong view, even without having to get it exactly clear in our mind.

So if we take being unhappy when others get something they want, and being happy when others have misfortune, and we turn them around, they become, I'm happy when somebody gets what they want. And I'm unhappy when someone has misfortune. And that's what Tonglen-ing is doing.

We see somebody's misfortune, we say, Oh, I don't want them to have that. I'm going to do something to try to help them. I'm going to Tonglen. I'm going to try to take it away from them. And then I'm going to give them some happiness.

So the Tonglen is this direct antidote to our mental afflictions of jealousy and ill will.

It's not mentioned in the six traditional antidotes in our four powers, doing Tonglen. But we can see how it is a negator of the seeds that are causing us to be upset when anybody else is happy, and to have that wish that someone we don't like has problems. There are two really non-Bodhisattva states of mind. If we're trying to grow our Bodhichitta, and so trigger our Bodhisattvahood, this practice is perfect. Because by doing so, we're damaging those jealousy seeds and ill will seeds. Because we understand a little bit about karma and emptiness, we'll get there. 

Geshe-la says, people who have already overcome their jealousy and ill will, maybe not a hundred percent, but mostly, they'll be those kinds of people that all they can see is the goodness in others, the goodness in situations. All they can talk about is pointing out the goodness in things. And even if the person they're talking to is saying, yeah, but it's like this, but it's like this, they just still are going, well, yeah, but what about this?

I have a friend like that. My friend, Mary Nelson, just everything is exquisite and beautiful. But you know, she's still, she can't, she's almost blind. She has all kinds of bad things happen. But her response is always to see how it's helpful, to see how it's beautiful. She really is happy when she sees other people get what they want. She hardly ever sees anybody in a way that makes her see them in a bad light. She does see people who are suffering. And she goes, wow, I'm so sorry they're having that, I'm going to try and help them in some way. She's not Buddhist. She doesn't know Tonglen. She's just extraordinary.

So her seeds are fabulous.

People like that are really lovely to be around. Because it rubs off.

It's a ripening of this love, whether she calls it that or not. That's what we would call it. 

If it's nice to be around people like that, it's probably nice to be a person like that. Right? And then you've got this double effect. You are one of them, and your goodness shines out into your world and you find yourself around a lot more of them. Then everybody together is perpetuating more of it, and that's how Buddha Paradise starts. Not everybody being more and more loving. There'll still be bad days, rough days, but as a baseline, people more loving than selfish.

(70:22) Geshe-la says worldview begets worldview. Meaning mental karma begets mental karma. Physical karma begets physical results.

We steal, the karmic result of stealing is later we don't have enough to live on.

We kill, later we get killed.

Mental karma though is we continue to have that view, and we continue to see that view in our outer world. So as our correct view grows, our correct view grows. Just by starting the process, our correct view will help itself grow, and we'll see more, in our world, people growing a more correct view. For them, correct. May not necessarily be the same as our correct view until we get further along the way.

So if we could say that deep down really all conscious beings, all suffering beings, just want to love and be loved. Probably be loved and love, in that order would be more accurate. All we want is to be loved and love unconditionally.

If that's the case, then how would we make that as a result? We would need to see ourselves behaving that way for someone else. And it's like, but I can't love unconditionally yet when I'm out and amongst. Probably I can't even really imagine it completely. But I can sit on my cushion and I can think of somebody else and I can recognize all they want is to be loved for who and what they are right now.

And on my meditation cushion, can I grow the feeling, Why can't it be me, the one who loves them like that? I'll try. I just want them to be happy.

Just sit on your cushion and think of how much love you can pour into them. Just make it up. All right. I am this infinitely loving being and I see their suffering is coming from seeds and it's so unnecessary. And if I could just touch them in just the right way, their heart would explode in love, and they'd feel and be what they're dreaming of. Even if what they think they want is a raise. What they really want is to love and be loved. Can I give that to them? Can I take away what's blocking them from that ability to love?

Just to sit on our cushion and imagine loving people suffering away from them. That's Tonglen.

It's not worded like that until we get into the details, but it's what it means. It's the feeling that we want to grow as we're doing our Tonglen. Not just the mechanics of Tonglen, but I'm doing the mechanics out of love, in order to love, in order for me to grow my unconditional love of others.

Results of Doing Tonglen According to Arya Nagarjuna

Arya Nagarjuna, he gives us a list of things that will happen just by spending time on our cushion, recognizing someone's difficulty and problems and fantasizing about loving them so much we could help them.

He says, 

1. you'll get happy. You'll get happy all the time. Not because you see your Tonglen-ing making them suddenly happy, but because of the seeds of trying ripening as this feeling of love, being loved.

2. Secondly, he says, spirits will be attracted to us. And it's like, I'm not exactly sure what he means like that. I know people for whom spirits are attracted to them and it is not pleasant. But on the other hand, maybe that's an opportunity to access and help beings that someone who's not sensitive can't help. I don't know. So I'm not so sure about that one. But Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are attracted to us in order to help us. It's like, wait, Buddhas are omniscient. They know me already all the time. It's like, yeah, I'm one face in a crowd until something makes me special for that one Buddha so that they recognize me in the crowd. We've heard it before in ACI. Once we get Bodhichitta, we're like the Buddha's child, etc. Same idea.

3. Arya Nagarjuna says, we won't have health problems. It's like, maybe we don't suffer from the health problems we get until we reach the Tonglen level of not having health problems at all. But my own experience is, still get health problems.

4. Our environment will be safe. When I first started Tonglen-ing, you could not find organic food. There was no such thing as whole foods yet, I don't think. It was so expensive, even if you could find it, someplace in California. I was like, I'm not going to spend that much for an apple, my seeds. Then, now, my regular old grocery store has organic stuff. It's like, whoa, it's just so much easier now than it was before. Just an example. Results of the change in me and my mind. Yeah, it took a long time. I've been Tonglen-ing since 1989. But I'm a slow study. It doesn't mean everybody's going to take that long to see the results that I told you earlier, don't bother looking for them. Because you don't want to limit yourself in your results. But now, looking back, it's like, oh, well, I do see that these changes that I can attribute to Tonglen. Does that mean absolutely, those are the seeds that makes organic vegetables in Tucson easier to get? I don't know. I won't know till I'm omniscient. But it's close enough, because it's a pleasant result. And Tonglen-ing is about the most pleasant thing I can do for anybody. But nobody knows I'm doing it. Right. Exactly. It's hard. It's hard to quite grasp. It's like, no, no, don't they have to know?

Any pleasant result has to be coming from some kindness as the cause.

Kindness manifests as caring for others, whether you see yourself doing it through your physical action, through your speech action, or through your mind action. It's still creating the karmic seeds, the results of which will be pleasant.

Again, Tonglen is the method of growing our Bodhichitta. Our Bodhichitta is the state of mind of if somebody walks up to you and says, I need an eyeball, can I have yours? And you go, oh, yeah, here.

It's like, come on, that's not ever going to happen. I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But the sense of nah, right? Versus wow, I can't wait, is where we have to go is what tonglen will help us grow. Growing our Bodhichitta, which grows the state of mind through which our seeds grow into moving along our Bodhisattva bhumis towards our total enlightenment.

Okay, that's a good place to stop. Although I still didn't finish class. I'm going to put my mark, we're going to meditate. We will do that next class.

Alright, the last two sessions, we Tonglen-ed ourself. Then theoretically, you've been working on that at home. So that you're familiar with how to do it. Yeah. I hope you're already feeling different or better. But don't be disappointed if you're not. Yeah. It is working. The seeds have been planted. They are growing. Yay. Maybe we don't want to be in such a big hurry to get them to ripen because the longer they grow, the bigger they're going to be. So it doesn't mean avoid good things, but not such a bad thing for good seeds to take some time to ripen.

Meditation: Tonglen-ing Another Person (only Taking/LEN)

So in this one, we'll go swiftly through our meditation preliminaries, and then we'll do a meditation on another person. This other person, it can be the one that you set up at the beginning of class. If that person is someone who you're very fond of, because we want that already, just to think of them, we want a little bit of love to arise. And then we're going to feed on that with our tonglen. So think before we even start, decide if you're going to use the usual person, like the beginning of class person, or if hearing about this, there's somebody else you want to choose. So pick somebody that you're really fond of, who's having some kind of difficulty.So think about their difficulty too, so it can come right to mind as I get there. Then we'll take a little bit of time to fine tune it once we get there.

Okay, everybody got somebody? All right.

Preliminaries

(83:03) So settle your body into meditation. Push those sit bones down, raise the energy up, scan down the periphery, inviting all of those areas to relax, so the body can settle in, and we can just forget it.

Then turn your mind to come back up. Bring it to focus on the breath as it exits nostrils, enters nostrils.

Turn the microscope mind lens onto that, those sensations.

Turn up the light on the microscope, so the mind's bright.

And then turn on the intensity, call it eagerness or curiosity, something that brings everything to the fore, all focused on the breath.

If you lose focus, bring back.

Intentionally leave the object of the breath and turn your mind to that precious holy being before you, your own personal guide.

Recall that they show us a fully enlightened being, a being made of zillions of virtues, born of wisdom and love. And so just by seeing them, we recall our refuge in them as the three jewels, emptiness of their mind, their omniscience and emanations, the perceiving emptiness directly for the first time that they must have done, and they're teaching others how to do it.

And so we rely upon them to help us as well.

We take our refuge in them and the understanding of karma and emptiness, they are helping us to achieve.

We grow our wish. Tell them of your aspiration to become totally enlightened so that you really can help others reach that state too.

Tell them in a way that helps your own mind, your own heart know more deeply what you mean by that. So you feel it, not just say it.

And you recall that this being before you knows what you need to know, what you need to do yet, what you need to learn yet.

And so make your mental prostration to them.

Ask them to please teach and see them say, yes, of course, yes.

Our gratitude grows. We want to offer them something. And we know that what they like best is for us to hear ourselves telling them of something from our practice, something that you thought or said or did because of something they have taught you. Tell them.

And we feel so safe with them that we can open our heart to show them some negativity, something we said or did or even just thought that we understand is a seed that when it ripens, it will hurt us and others. It will be unpleasant.

Be willing to tell them.

They know already. So very briefly, what seed got planted? Why?

Recall the karma and emptiness of the situation. And so feel your regret and tell them.

Establish your power of restraint, specific.

Tell them that too, and establish an antidote power, which can be this Tonglen session on behalf of that other.

And then fill this open space in our hearts with rejoicing.

Tell them of another kindness that you've done.

Another one you saw someone else do.

Another one you saw or heard of done by someone you have trouble with.

Ask your precious holy being to please stay close to you, even maybe to come to you in forms that look different.

Ask them to continue to teach you, help you, inspire you, and dedicate what we've done just so far to your Tonglen practice, helping your Bodhihitta grow into a shining light from your heart, from which you see the face of every existing being someday, and love them.

Then check in with your body. See if it needs adjusting or some kind of attention.

If so, do it now.

Tonglen Meditation

(97:51) Then settle back in. Bring your attention to your breath, telling your awareness we're going back in.

Once you're in, shift your object to that person that you love who's having that problem. Picture them wherever they are right now, in their home, hospital, wherever. 

Imagine you are there with them. They can't see you.

Get the picture as clear as you can so that you have the sense that you are actually there with them, just invisible.

Now identify their current difficulty as if you can look into them, knowing what their feeling, what their response is, what their misunderstanding is.

Try to identify it specifically.

And as you do, you come to see these strands or clouds of black yuck inside their body. And you know that represents the suffering, the seeds for more similar suffering, the seeds for the kinds of reactions that make the cause for more suffering. And as you focus your concentration within them, it causes all that black yuck to turn towards the middle of their chest.

Continue to focus with the thought, I'm going to take this pain and suffering from them, pulling it all together into that tight little ball in the middle of their chest.

You can be thinking, I know your pain. I know your suffering. I know where it comes from. I want to help you. I will help you.

And when it's all gathered in that tight little ball, start your exhale, moving towards them, each exhale going a little further out. And then pausing as you inhale further more till it reaches their nostrils. Their in-breath helps draw it in. Your out-breath helps send it.

It goes in and down their throat, their chest, hooking into that black ball of goo, of the suffering situation, the suffering itself, seeds for anything like it in the future.

Again, feel your love for them. This black ball is preventing their happiness. Feel your willingness, eagerness to take it from them so they are available to be new and whole and happy.

So then shift your focus to your inhales. With those inhales, the breath is pulling that black ball of goo up through their chest, through their throat, out their nose, coming towards you.

Your love determining that we'll take it. I will take it. Pulling it closer and closer until that black ball is hovering just below your own nose, your invisible nose.

Then leave it there and look inside your own chest.

Doggone it, there's that little flame of my selfishness and my ignorance burning again, the cause of all the suffering seeds that I've ever made. And I can use this black goo of their suffering and this flame of my ignorance to destroy both. And I'm going to do so out of my love.

And so you set yourself with a nice, long, slow exhale. Followed by that inhale. You know how to do it. And so go.

And when the wisp of smoke disappears, rest in that clear space, breathing normally. The black ball gone, the flame gone.

Then invisible you gazes upon that loved one again and see them suddenly surprised with the relief that they feel, the understanding of the situation that they have, the knowing that no matter what happens, it's going to be okay.

See them happy. See them feeling loved.

They don't know where it's coming from, and it feels so good.

So we'll stay one more minute. Enjoying their happiness, enjoying our love for them, and bringing invisible you back to visible you here in your room.

Dedicate the goodness of what we've done, that clearing out your heart, the antidote is complete. Your love has grown bigger and dedicate it to your Bodhichitta, opening your heart.

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

(110:50) It takes me longer to talk you through Tonglen than it does for you to do Tonglen. Do you see that? Like once you know the sequence, give yourself permission to start the movie with your preliminary phrase, and then run the movie yourself.

Instead of relying on an audio talking you through it as a guided visualization, learn to do it. There are these different aspects to it that you want to include, but your Tonglen will become unique to you. Just don't miss the important pieces. But please don't forever rely on guided meditations, because it won't get us where we want to go.

Q&A

Are there questions or comments, or you need help with the Tonglen so far? We've got eight minutes yet.

(student: I have a question, Lama. What is the reason, like in the past I used to, or I understood that we normally see a rose and a diamond in the heart, and then that when the black thingy comes in, then it explodes in white light. But it was always more like from the wisdom point of view. And now we use the ignorance flame. Why?)

Because when Geshe-la was teaching this in DCI his own practice has evolved. And so he's teaching people who don't have a deep understanding, something that will help their seeds, but it's not exactly the way that tradition starts us out. So the flame is what the traditional method is used. In it is the ignorance and selfishness that it's hard to really say, well, the rose and the diamond is the result we're trying to get, love born of wisdom. And it's attractive, that vision is attractive. So he's using skillful means to get us to play when we aren't as well prepared and trained as we are in the ACI.

(student: And the other question that I had is, I also heard, I think it was John Brady in one session saying that when we are imagining the exhale and the inhale, like when we are exhaling, then it should go through the right nostril. And when we are inhaling the black part, it should go through the left because it creates something in the winds. There is some energy that I cannot explain exactly what was what he said, but some effect in our subtle body.)

It will happen whether we do that or not. But when we are familiar with our Tonglen practice and we can fine tune it, we can do that. But we don't teach that as a beginning practice. Because we're getting good at just playing Tonglen before we're sending it up through my right nostril for this and my left nostril for that. But that is a more sophisticated version.

Anything else?

Is it is the visualization clear about this black whatever inside their body and gathering it all into a tight little ball? You can get an idea of that? 

(student: Yeah, it's yeah, I think like that is easier. Before I used to do like, like a loose smoke. But then when you are trying to pull it from the other person, it kind of extended. So I run out of air when I'm inhaling. Because it's and sometimes it happened that it kind of get or got more, more and more like it doesn't it didn't matter how much I was inhaling it didn't end. So that was a bit destructive. So to condense it in a little ball, I imagine more like a bullet shape. Then it can go easier through the nose.)

Yeah, good. Good idea. You know, I have to admit, it occurred to me. It's like, how come they're not choking is that things going up their throat? Just forget on that they don't choke. They're not really even aware that it's happening.

(student: Yeah, I am too literal as you know, so I had to put it in the shape of like a more enlarged form so it can go through the nostril. It's not gonna get blocked. Like with a ball going through a nostril.)

Yeah, I agree. And it is like, well, what does it split into two if it's coming out both nostrils, which is where the left or right you kind of do have to specify one or the other, but I don't, I don't visualize it that closely. It's just coming out of their nose. I don't care how it gets out there.

(student: What for me is difficult is when I am, but it has been in any meditation when I have to imagine myself. If I imagine myself outside of my body as another entity, like as another person, and I see myself outside of me, or if I am in the meditation, me now here sitting in the, in the chair, that's very hard for me like to, for example, if I have to move to the place where a person is living, let's say the hospital, but I'm sitting now here in my home, in my real body. And then when I imagine myself being there, then somehow it doesn't work because the position of how I am sitting now doesn't match with the where the person is, might be sitting. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, but I get too caught in these details.)

So how have you adjusted that? How have you worked with that?

(student: No, I don't, I struggle during the meditation kind of turning my body, but then I start to turn my real body. I mean, then it distracts me because I really try to adjust my position to how I am imagining in the other person, house or hospital.)

So can you imagine your current body being invisible to somebody who was sitting in front of you?)

(student: Yeah, I guess, I guess so.)

I would suggest that rather than you going to them, imagine that they are here with you in front of you, but they can't see you. Put them in your room.

(student: Yeah. It's that the instruction has been always imagining the real place or like where they most likely will be, even with the last days when we were doing with ourselves, right? So I am sitting in my meditation room or where I have my altar, but then what I see to work is in another place. And then to imagine myself at the desktop, but I'm sitting at the altar. It is very difficult for me. I get it too literal. And then I need to position my body. It's a distraction, but yeah, I will do what you recommend.)

Yeah. Try that. 

[Dedication]

Welcome back. We are Tonglen Practice Group. This is November 16th, 2025. I think this is our 4th session, is that right? I'm only a little bit behind. So I thought we would do our meditation first this time. So we'll do our usual opening prayers and then preliminaries swiftly. Then we'll again use someone we love. So maybe when you're deciding on the person at the beginning of class, you can use the same one that you're going to Tonglen.

Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening]

Meditation: Tonglen-ing Another Person (only Taking/LEN)

Preliminaries

(8:15) Now turn your mind to your body to settle it in for meditation.

Go through your usual routine.

Come to rest your mind on those sensations of breath at the nostrils, using those sensations to fine-tune your focus, your clarity, your intensity.

Now intentionally shift your focus again to that holy being.

Recall what they have taught you about the nature of our experiences, the nature of ourselves, the nature of others, and grow your feeling of refuge in them.

You just set it in words.

Try to pinpoint how they actually can and do protect you, how they don't and how they do.

Think of how that refuge has helped you so far and grow the wish that everyone could know.

And think of that precious holy being again.

Think of just one of their many amazing qualities.

Feel your admiration and your aspiration to grow that quality in yourself.

Tell them of your willingness to try.

Ask them to help you try.

And again, of course, they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something wonderful out of gratitude and out of request that they show you something deeper, something more.

And so think of something you might offer. Of course, what they like best is to be aware of you being aware of telling them something from your behavior that you did, especially because they taught you something.

Feel a little healthy pride and see how happy they are with you.

We feel so safe with them that we're ready to tell them of some negativity that we're holding in our heart, something recent where you know those seeds when they ripen will be unpleasant for you and very likely to influence you in such a way to perpetuate that negativity.

Tell them about that situation.

Again, review your refuge, your regret.

Establish an antidote power and empower restraint.

We'll sit two minutes to give us time to do that.

Now fill that space with rejoicing.

Tell them of some kindness you saw someone else do.

Tell them of another kindness you did.

And even tell them something good about somebody you don't care for so much.

Recognize all this goodness that we see and that we're able to do is because this precious being has taught us and guided us and encouraged us.

So we ask them, please, please stay close.

Please come to help me even in the form of beings that look ordinary.

Please continue to guide me and teach me.

Then dedicate just what we've done so far to growing the Bodhichitta, both kinds that our Tonglen practice is helping us grow.

And you can turn your attention to your physical body.

Check to see if it needs some adjusting.

Get it reset and settle back in. Bringing your attention back to the breath.

Tonglen

(22:38) Checking your clarity, turning up the fascination.

Intentionally shift from the breath as the object to the Tonglen practice in which you turn your mind to that being that you love, that you care for so much, who's having some kind of difficult time.

Bring them to mind clearly.

Picture them wherever you believe they are right now, and imagine you can be there with them invisibly.

Recognize their current distress. Identify it as best you can.

The surface level and some of the deeper levels that you might perceive through other subtleties of their body language, or ways in which you have known their behavior.

Think of what they might be thinking about how to react to this situation just based on if you were in their shoes ignorantly, you might be considering how to react. 

Recognizing that that will probably just plant more negative seeds for some other suffering.

And so as you focus your growing compassion and love on them, your wish to help them influences that flowing negativity within them such that it turns and gathers towards the center of their chest.

See those specific mental afflictions, and thought patterns, and belief systems, and the seeds for more of them like black yucky strands or movements gathering, gathering by the power of your concentrated wish to help them be free of this suffering.

Find all of it within them…

…until you see it as this tight little ball of black yuck there in the middle of their chest. 

Identify it again and then make your determination to use your breath to take it from them.

Shift your focus then to your outbreath as it flows out your nostrils.

It pauses as you inhale and it goes out a little further with the next exhale…

…until it reaches close enough to their nostrils that their inhale helps draw it in.

Your exhales continue to send it forth as it goes in and around and down, down to hook into that black ball of goo.

When you have it well hooked, you shift your focus of attention from the exhale to the inhale.

And again, identify what that black ball of goo is and as you inhale, your love, your compassion is pulling that black goo up—through their chest, through their throat, up around and out their nostrils, drawing it towards yourself slowly, remembering what it's made of.

Feeling your love for them, your compassion, until you have that black ball of their suffering hovering beneath your own nostrils.

Then you leave it there and look into your own chest where we see that tiny little flame of our own misunderstanding, our belief in our self-existent me and the selfishness that comes out of it.

We think there's a connection between my ignorance and my selfishness and that black ball of goo that is their suffering.

And so I determine that I will use the black ball of their suffering to destroy my ignorance and selfishness driven by my loving compassion for them.

And so we prepare. Don't do it yet, but you'll prepare with that nice, long, smooth, easy exhale.

And then on its inhale, we slowly pull that black ball of goo in, down, in slow motion, watching where the edge of the black goo touches the tip of the flame.

You'll see the brilliant flash.

It'll go out.

There'll be a wisp of smoke.

The smoke will disappear and you'll breathe normally as you enjoy the absence of that suffering and that flame.

So get your picture back, the black ball of their suffering at your nostrils.

And then with the next nice, long exhale, you do your taking.

You're resting in that absence, that freedom.

And then stir forth out of that to become again aware of your friend across from you. 

You see them being so relieved, so confident that they can handle this situation in a different way, a new way, occurs to them.

They're even eager to handle it.

They feel so happy.

And so let yourself feel happy for them feeling happy.

And then bring your invisible self back to this room and this class.

Dedicate what we've done to the power of your growing Bodhichitta so that it can color your mind as you interact with others.

Then become aware of your body in your chair and in your room.

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

(39:03) It's a pretty simple practice, isn't it? Not a lot of complicated visualizations.

We enrich it with the more we think about the mental affliction and like all the correlations we know about mental afflictions. But we don't wanna get sidetracked with identifying all the black goo. Keep it simple. Same with what's the flame. Clearly identify it. But don't get distracted. And then really see the two touch and boom, and then gone. It's an important little teeny piece to let it be gone. It's an opportunity for something special to happen.

So, so far we've only been doing the taking part. We're getting ready to add the giving. It's coming soon. But it's almost like, really? Isn't the taking enough? And you know, you could make a case for that's really all they need. But how much fun it'll be to give them all kinds of wonderful things. Which, we'll see, it's gonna include wisdom. Which, why are we gonna do that? I'll give you a clue. It's why we're doing Tonglen. Because we are planting seeds by Tonglen.

Which means that's how it works. Not, oh, it doesn't work. All we're doing is planting seeds. It's like, no, no. That's how it works. That's how anything works. Nothing works in any other way than that. Yeah? But we think, oh no, I should be doing something for them. I should be giving them Tylenol to take their fever away. And it's like, fine, give them Tylenol. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Because it'll depend on their seeds and my seeds. So, if I'm aware that as I give them the Tylenol, I am planting seeds, and that that's why I'm giving them Tylenol, it helps future giving Tylenol to work better.

The source of Tonglen—The Offering to Lamas (Lama Chupa)

(42:30) Okay, so this version of Tonglen comes to us from the Lama Chupa prayer, the offering to the lamas prayer that was written by His Holiness, the first Panchen Lama Lopsang Chukyi Gyeltsen. I think I remember describing that to us before. To say this version of Tonglen implies that there are other versions of Tonglen, and there are.

Lord Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha teaches us a Tonglen. I haven't learned it, so I don't know how it's all that different.

Master Shantideva teaches a Tonglen, in the sense of the practices of exchanging self and other.

Then in Diamond Way, there's Tonglen practices as well.

But this one, the one that's brought to us in the Lama Chupa is apparently the one that's most well-known, most used in the Tibetan tradition. Well, Tibetan Gelugpa, as far as I know.

In our direct lineage in particular, it's felt to be such an important prayer, set of verses, that it is often used as the practice to celebrate the angel in those two special moon days a month, which is really saying something extraordinary. On the most sacred days, where you're to do the most sacred thing, you use this prayer, the Lama Chupa. Because it's a prayer about Lama devotion, in which the verses take us through these beautiful, making offerings to the holy being, going through our confession, and then requesting blessings. And the blessings, when we learn that practice, are requesting each of the blessings of the different Lam Rims, Lams, of the Lam Rim, from meeting our Lama and having a good relationship with them all the way up to the final stages of the transformation. So it's all in this one beautiful prayer.

Within this prayer, there are a series of verses that are about the stages of us growing our mind from Hinayana to Mahayana, about growing that wishing Bodhichitta into acting Bodhichitta, into experiential Bodhichitta. 

The tool that he gives us for growing that experiential Bodhichitta is this practice of Tonglen, that he then finally calls, use the machine of the breath to practice this taking and giving.

I'm gonna read the series of verses that build up our Tonglen practice. 

Actually, before I do, I'm supposed to share the lineage.

Sumati and I received the oral transmission of this prayer from Geshe Lothar, who is Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Tharchin's nephew. Khen Rinpoche is Geshe Michael's root Lama. So the nephew of Geshe-la's root Lama is who came and gave us the oral transmission, in Tibetan of course.

A few years later, we reached our Diamond Way Course 18 culmination, of our six, seven years of training, and it's Geshe-la's commentary on this text, Lama Chupa. So it's like the final teaching we get.

Since then, he's offered it as part of the Jorchu, of people's daily practice, that you're welcome to use it. But if you've noticed, he's never actually taught it. He gave an oral transmission, no doubt. We didn't get his because we were in retreat. But people have it available, but without any actual commentary on it.

Anyway, here in the Tonglen module that he gave in, I don't know, 1998 or 1999, he's using that prayer before it's known. Before anybody knows it's this secret practice that's available open, or an open practice that's used secretly, I'm not sure which. He's using it, he's planting these seeds when he's teaching Tonglen, for people to have the seeds of connection to the Lama Chupa, which came about eight years later, close to 10 years later for some. So anyway, here we are.

We're in the section requesting blessings. We're partway in. We're in the place where we're requesting the blessings to be able to shift from our Hinayana aspiration. I recognize my suffering. I recognize how I perpetuate it. I'm sick to death of it. I want to stop it all. I want to reach Nirvana. We're not saying those words, but that's what the verses are talking about.

Then he shifts, like we culminate in that one. And then you'll see the shift. So here's the culmination of, I am sick and tired of my own suffering. I'll do anything I can to make it stop. So we're talking to the Holy Lama. 

Lama Chupa Verses

(50:12)

[82] Bless me to relinquish the vision 

Of the unbearable prison of this cycle 

As a garden of earthly delights; 

Bless me to find the treasure 

Of the jewels of the realized, 

All three of the higher trainings; 

Bless me to take up the banner 

Of highest victory, 

The victory of freedom.

[83] Bless me to contemplate 

How each of these tortured beings 

Has been my very own mother, 

And paid me every form of kindness, 

Over and over again. 

Bless me to develop sincere 

Compassion for each of them—

A love like that of a mother 

For a cherished child in pain. 

One verse about those seven cause and effect method of growing our Bodhichitta.

[84] Bless me to develop joy

In the happiness of others, 

Recognizing that both myself 

And others are in no way different: 

None of us wants even the slightest 

Form of suffering— 

None of us ever feels as if 

We have enough happiness.

[85] Bless me to see that this chronic disease 

Of taking care of myself

Is the road to all the misery 

This very act seeks to avoid. 

Bless me to put the blame

Where it really lies, 

And reach a bitter hatred 

For it; bless me 

To destroy the mighty 

Devil of my tendency 

To watch out only for myself.

[86] Bless me to see that cherishing 

All these Mother beings 

And the wish to see them all 

Reach every form of happiness 

Is the door that leads to

Infinite numbers

Of perfect personal qualities. 

Bless me then to love them all 

More than my own life, 

Even if every one of them 

Should suddenly think me their enemy.

[88] Bless me then to reach the ability 

To see myself and others as equal,

And to exchange them for myself 

In a state of mind, to sum it all up,

Where I finally grasp the difference: 

The problems that come from acting

As infants do, thinking only of themselves; 

And the good that comes from acting

As the Lords of the Able do,

Thinking only of what others need.

[88] Cherishing myself

Is the door to every

Trouble that there is;

Cherishing my Mothers

Is the foundation 

Of every quality I could have; 

Bless me then that this deep practice

Of exchanging others for myself

Might become the very heart

Of my daily practice [originally ‘path’].

[89] And so bless me my Holy Lama, 

Bless me, Lama of Compassion,

That every living being there is

May find every kind of happiness:

Let all the evil deeds and obstacles,

Let all the pain that ever comes

To every living being,

Every one of them my Mother,

Come and ripen upon myself,

Ripen upon me now,

And let any goodness I ever do,

And all my happiness,

Be sent away to others.

So that's the actual Tonglen verse.

[90] This world and every being

Who lives upon this world

Are filled with the results

Of every wrong ever done—

Let a shower of suffering fall,

Of things I never wanted.

Bless me to see it all as a way

That all the fruits of my own bad deeds

Might finally be exhausted—

Bless me to learn to turn every problem

That ever comes to me

Into a path that takes me further.

[92] In brief, bless me that I learn to change

Everything that appears to me,

Whether it be good or bad,

Into a path for increasing

The two forms of the Wish

For enlightenment,

Through practicing the five powers,

Essence of all the Dharma there is,

And experience then only joy.

[92] Bless me that I may learn the

Skillful means of all four practices,

Where I turn everything

That I ever encounter

From hour to hour Into something for me

To meditate upon.

Bless me that I bring great meaning

To this life of leisure and fortune

Using the teachings to practice

Developing the good heart,

All the various commitments,

And the different kinds of trainings.

[93] Bless me to use the mystic machine

Of giving and taking

Riding on the breath—

Love, and compassion,

And the willingness

To free all beings myself—

To practice that one thought,

The Wish for enlightenment,

To free every living being

From this vast sea of suffering.

Overcoming Selfishness

(55:52) It goes on. I'm gonna stop there and go back and look at some of these verses just to clarify how they build into our Tonglen practice.

The verse about pointing out that nobody has enough happiness and everybody has suffering. Everybody doesn't want suffering and everybody wants more happiness. We recognize that in ourselves. That's what put us onto the path to wanting Nirvana, right? I wanna free my suffering. I wanna be happy. When we recognize that that's true of everybody, not just every human, but every being, if we've recognized there's a way that I can stop my suffering and we care about somebody else, then we're asking, Holy Lama, please bless me so that I can turn this drive to stop my own suffering to include others in it.

When we're able to turn our mind in that way, our habit of begrudging other people's successes or happiness, it becomes glaring that we do it to begin with. Then we recognize what a mistake that is because we're aware of how that's just perpetuating our own seeing ourselves as not having the happiness that we want.

One of the verse calls it this chronic disease of taking care of myself and how that's the cause of all the pain I personally feel and all the pain that I even see in my world. 

At our early level of that, we may think, well, my suffering causes the pain I experience and their suffering causes the pain they experience and that's true.

But my selfishness causes the pain that I see them experiencing as well, right?

As our wisdom is growing, we're understanding better and better that there's nothing we can experience that's not coming out of our seeds, even the mental afflictions and the seeds for more that we perceive or think we perceive that another person is having.

We can't perceive another person's mind but we can very well perceive their suffering as our own seeds ripening.

Geshela calls it watching out for number one. Watching out for number one first, technically at all but let's just say first is the cause of every distress that we've ever had. A human nature would say, no, no, if I don't look out for number one, nobody else is, I won't survive. It's a mistaken view.

It may be true that if we quit cold turkey, looking after number one and we think that that means, okay, so I go live out under a bridge in the dead of winter in Wisconsin, I'm probably not gonna survive that. And so, that me might think, I think I made a mistake there, and we would have because we would have wasted an opportunity. But that does not say then, see? I have to continue to look out for number one in order to protect my own life. Because when I look out for number one first, then I'm willing to harm somebody else to protect this one. And that would be what would make the seeds that would force me to experience the dead of a Wisconsin winter as dangerous because there are beings for which that is not the least bit dangerous.

I don't know, snow rabbits, hedgehogs, they all survive very well those awful Wisconsin winters and they don't have warm houses, heated houses. Maybe they do.

Anyway, you get my point.

So, when we recognize that my own dungs and self grasping, self cherishing—self grasping means I believe I have a me in me independent of anything else. It's like, no, I don't. The me dependent upon my parents giving me this body, I depend on a lot of things. Right. I, this existing thing, depend on other stuff. We're still thinking that there's a me that's independent of the things we depend upon so that we can depend upon them, which is misunderstanding what it means to depend upon something.

So, this ‚self existent me‘ we call it, that with highest view says a me that exists independent of the seed ripening happening moment by moment. There is no me who's doing the projection. There is a me with every projection ripening. But then every projection ripening is a little bit different, right? So, will the real me please stand up? There isn't one.

It doesn't make subject side me disappear. It makes the one I thought I needed to protect and hold on to and take care of, that one disappears. But the one that's there in every seed continues. Hopefully a little wiser.

Taking care of others, the series of verses reminds us that taking care of others is what brings about every good thing that can happen to us.

Again, we kind of argue, wait a minute, I've taken care of others and they've been nasty to me. That can't be, right? You can't be telling me the truth, your holiness, because it doesn't always work like that. His answer would be, yes, it does actually, because if somebody can be nasty to you after you've done something kind for them, it's a ripening result of you having been nasty to somebody after they were kind to you. Have you ever done that? Oops, right?

So, he'll say your argument just proves my point. Which is always fun when they do that, because you've got to go back and go, wait, what? I thought I had a good argument there. And they go, it was good, in the wrong way.

He goes on to say, when we shift that thinking from, it doesn't always make me happy to take care of others, to recognizing, no, no, that is the source of happiness, there's just that time delay. Then we recognize that, oh my gosh, others and our interaction with them is the door to all happiness that we could ever, ever experience.

How we interact with them now creates the imprint in our mind that creates our future experience with others. So, even if it does seem like I can be kind to them and they can be nasty back, there will be a finite number of instances when that can happen, if and when we stop being nasty to anybody else for any other reason.

We use up, burn off, damage our seeds for someone being nasty to us, then it cannot happen. Even if the other person sets out to be nasty to us from their side, they're trying so hard and they just, they can't upset you. Because you don't have the seeds to see that what they're doing is something not right.

The demons send arrows at Lord Buddha and he sees flowers. You know, I don't know what the demons saw, arrows going right through him or I don't know.

There is some movie, what movie is that? Stardust, Stardust is a great Dharma movie. It's old now, but it's got some great images that I found helpful in my Diamond Way visualization and there's one scene where the witch lady, she's trying so hard to hit somebody and the other witch lady has cast a spell on her and she just, she can't touch the other one, even though the other one's standing right there and it's this scene where she's just going…(making grasping gestures), but she never contacts the person and she's getting madder and madder. But you know, it's not the example I want because it's not out of the other witch's goodness that she did that. But it would be the result of her past goodness that she's not able to get hit because she casts a spell on this other lady.

Anyway, it's the image I'm getting at. I can see it in my mind, trying so hard to do something and you just, it's ineffective. Same, when our seeds are such that we cannot experience being harmed, it doesn't matter what's going on around us. Can't be perceived as harmfulness.

How do we make those seeds? Take care of our mothers, right? All beings as mother, how can I help? How can I be kind? How can I help you have just a little squeeze of happiness, more happiness than you have now, even worldly happiness?

The Process Will Stir up Old Negative Seeds

(68:50) Geshe-la shared that as we do our purification work, do our gathering goodness work, do our growing our Bodhichitta work, use our Tonglen regularly, that our goodness will be growing. And it's very likely that the other beings in our world will notice, and some of them very well might take some kind of offense at your growing happiness.

People can get jealous, people can misunderstand and they can have apparently bad reactions to what seems to us, it's like, I'm just getting more and more kind. How can they be upset with me? And it could even manifest not so much by people's bad reaction or unpleasant reaction to us.That could ripen in some way that we ourselves have like some event that sort of pops our bubble in the sense that our goodness is growing, growing, growing and we reach some kind of level in which it's like the goo at the bottom of the pot, we thought we had it all stirred out, but there is still the burnt on stuff. And now our goodness has even stirred that up and up can bubble up something really nasty. It's tough, because if we don't recognize that, oh my gosh, I must have been on the cusp of something extraordinary, that this blow up has happened, and to react to the blow up wisely, knowing that when it all settles, we will have made more progress than we would have if the blow up didn't happen.

It's similar to what we learned about in Diamond Cutter Sutra. Study this sutra, you're gonna suffer because the virtue of doing it is purifying, yuck. As we're making progress in our Bodhichitta, we can reach a point where something similar can happen.

Geshe-la tells us to help us so that when we find ourselves in that position, the tendency would be doubt. Oh, these practices aren't working, or I'm not good enough after all, or if people are gonna be like that, right? I'm not gonna do it.

There are any number of ordinary me reactions that could take this situation that could launch me and instead I could lose something precious.

So he just warns us. Not in the sense that it absolutely has to happen to everybody, but in the sense that it's very common that it seems like we're on a roll and everything's going really well and then all of a sudden, our best friend explodes on us in some way. Don't lose where we were at when the explosion happened, because it's not that it's a test, it's just a stirring forth of old selfishness and it's an opportunity to purify and make merit.

Panchen Lama is pointing that out too. As we're growing our wish and our wish is getting bigger and bigger and I'm loving everybody, even if they all turn on me, and suddenly call me the enemy, may my reaction to them be, How can I help you?

Hard, it's gonna be hard, probably.

He then talks specifically about exchanging self and others and he had that verse about the babies versus the enlightened beings. Remember that one?

Come and see the difference, I love that phrase, where he's pointing out how chi-wa, meaning immature ones, infants, think only of themselves and how the Buddhas, like they don't even seem to have a self to think of, like they certainly don't have an ignorant self to think of, they do have a subject side, but they're constantly engaged in helping. Their emanations are serving all of us constantly.

Do we wanna stay the two-year-old version or do we wanna become the Buddha version of this thing, of your this thing (pointing to her body)? The two-year-old isn't capable of thinking of anybody else first, they are in survival mode. A Buddha has completely overcome that, as we know.

Bodhichitta is the doorway to that shift from two-year-old me to Buddha me.

As we're learning, Tonglen practice is the key to opening that Bodhichitta door.

Panchen Lama talks about exchanging self and others as the method for Tonglening. 

And it's like, we don't actually do that in the Tonglen visualization. We don't think, oh, I'm gonna put myself in their body. We don't do that.

But the result of this high level care and concern and the focusing on their pain and suffering, and really trying to identify, what is that emotion that they're having? What is it based on? Where did it come from? Where do I think?

It really does involve a certain amount of applying their distress to myself to figure out how would I be reacting in that way to have a sense of what it is I'm gonna take from them. So we are using the distress that we see in them to help clarify our own mental afflictions. So in a way, we really are expanding ourselves to include them and then wanting to take their suffering away based on how it really is my own suffering.

To see suffering in another is painful. To see happiness in another helps us be happy. 

That's what we're trying to get to that mindset.

So although we don't specifically say, now exchange yourself or expand yourself to include them, the Tonglen practice is an expanding self to include others type of practice. It's like the ability to expand ourselves to include others grows as we Tonglen without having to expressly do it because our care and consideration for them grows because of the seeds we're planting by doing our Tonglen. Not by the Tonglen, but by the seeds we're planting by doing the Tonglen.

Then that's an important piece. Oh, I'm gonna use my breath to take away somebody's suffering. No, that doesn't work.

But I'm gonna use my breath to take away their suffering to plant seeds so that I cannot see suffering in them ever again. That works.

Does it work in the moment? No, neither one works in the moment.

You'll see in your reading the verse that is that, Geshe-la calls it the Tonglen Mantra. It's that verse that said, and 

So bless me, my holy Lama

Bless me, Lama of compassion,

That every living being there is

May find every kind of happiness.

Let all the evil deeds and obstacles,

Let all the pain that ever comes to every living being,

Every one of them, my mother,

Come and ripen upon myself,

Ripen upon me now.

Do we mean it? We'll talk about it.

And let any goodness I ever do

And all my happiness

Be sent away to others.

Geshe-la suggested that we memorize this verse and mutter it throughout our day, because the saying these words is a vibration that harmonic resonances with our subtle body winds upon which rides our mind.

So these words will vibrate in our subtle body in such a way that will direct you towards Diamond Way, towards direct use of the subtle body someday for something similar but faster.

Is there anything in the words that can do that? No.

Could you mutter abracadabra all day long and get the same result? Theoretically. 

But these words have been used by others. They have been used by others to trigger the Bodhichitta that triggers the Bodhichitta wisdom that triggers the path to Buddhahood because it triggers our love. It grows our love. It grows our willingness to stop others' pain.

We haven't yet talked exactly about how that works and how it doesn't work, but we're all well-trained enough in karma and emptiness to understand that we cannot take anybody's karma. We cannot give them happiness.

The wish to do so, however, is so radical compared to our ordinary state of mind that the vibration of that wish, that intention is so different than all of our ordinarily planted seeds that it removes some power from our selfishness and ignorance that's in all the seeds that we have in our storehouse consciousness that we don't really have, but we have.

So just to say, and to try to mean, yes, I wanna take everybody's pain. Yes, I wanna give them all happiness is a powerful, powerful goodness. And then as we understand that any pain I can see in my world is my ripening seeds, I don't know exactly how they're experiencing it, but what I witness is my seeds ripening. So I really can stop the suffering I see in my world if I can change my seeds. If I have no more see-of-suffering-in-other seeds, I won't be able to see suffering in others. There won't be suffering in others.

And you know what? Our minds go, right, for you, but what about for them?

But what them is there other than my seeds ripening?

It pushes the bar of our understanding of emptiness and dependent origination. 

When there's anything that exists that our projection lands onto that has its own nature so that my projection can land onto it, we are not Highest Middle Way, right? 

Doesn't mean we can't get there from there.

But because nothing and no one, including myself, has any nature of its own, anything I witness in my world is my seeds ripening. And so I am personally responsible, which means the only way I can stop it all is to come to know directly what needs to be stopped and what needs to be taken up. That's the personal responsibility that flops over into I've got to reach Buddhahood to really do this. And so, technically, even as we're doing Tonglen, we can Tonglen everything and anything. And eventually we're going to go, yeah, but I'm never going to be done Tonglen-ing until I reach Buddhahood, until I'm omniscient.

And then they say, like it's the punchline three classes later, but it seems to come up now, as Buddha me in Buddha paradise, I will still be Tonglen-ing. Buddha's Tonglen, like that's what they are. That's what they do.

All of a sudden Tonglen practice became a whole lot more powerful. Wait a minute, I'm starting my career now. It's probably experience different for a Buddha, no doubt. But they still Tonglen, we're never going to stop Tonglen-ing. Beautiful, isn't it? Really. Okay.

So I'll say it again.

And so bless me, my holy Lama,

Bless me, Lama of compassion,

That every living being there is

May find every kind of happiness.

So that's love.

Let all the evil deeds and obstacles,

Let all the pain that ever comes to every living being,

Every one of them, my mother,

Come and ripen upon me now.

That's compassion.

Let any goodness I ever do

And all my happiness be sent away to others.

That's love again.

It seems like because we love, we're willing to take and by taking away, we then, they're like more available for us to give them. The love can give them the benefit. Love can give them the happiness we wanted to give them at the beginning. That as long as they still have suffering, they are not going to be able to enjoy what it is that we're trying to give them.

The scripture makes that promise. Arya Nagarjuna said the benefits of doing Tonglen, it says, using our air to say this verse changes our inner body and then our health changes and then our world changes.

Like it starts subtle, it vibrates out, it vibrates out further.

How long is it gonna take? As long as it takes, right?

We are purifying and making merit as we do Tonglen.

When that verse says,

May all the pain and evil deeds and obstacles

May it all ripen on me now.

And even though I think I understand what's happening with Tonglen, when I hear myself say that, a part of my heart goes eek, like eek, right? What am I really asking for? And if we can push through that and Tonglen anyway, it's a huge goodness.

Actually probably more powerful than if we go, oh yeah, no sweat. I mean, that's powerful too, to be in that position. But don't be hard on yourself if you're thinking, I'm not sure I really wanna do this. It's okay. It's recognizing that we have this self-cherishing, self-grasping flame still burning inside. To be able to recognize that and say, that's okay. It's the big mistake. I'm after it now. Rather than, oh man, I'm such an awful person. I'll never do this right. But rather take it as a challenge. Okay, I still have that inside that fear that by wishing something bad to happen on myself, something bad could, right?

By wishing I could take somebody's suffering away, can anything bad happen to me as a result of that? No, absolutely not.

Do you see why? Because it's such a goodness to want to take pain from somebody. 

Even if I can't do it, to want to do it is such a goodness you cannot get a bad result. 

Even if it seems like you get a bad result, you didn't get a bad result.

Even if the more I Tonglen, the worse my health got. It's not because you're Tonglen-ing. Well, maybe it is, but you're purifying. So it's not a bad thing, right?

It starts to touch on that idea. Can unpleasant things happen and it be a good thing? 

Yeah, it starts to get really slippery.

What's that phrase? Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

That's true, but we're taking it a little bit further. We're saying if when something unpleasant happens, I've burnt off negative seeds and by responding to it in a wise way, I've planted positive seeds, even if still negative seeds are ripening, then the negative seeds ripening are in fact a good thing.

When I can get that connection, even as it's unpleasant, will I be suffering from it? 

Can we have pain and think, good, great, let's get rid of this.

Do you remember King of Kalinka's story? He's getting his hands and fingers cut off and he's just loving the king more and more. Thank you, thank you. Like maybe he saw this was the last of his purification ever and he was gonna make some great leap as soon as it's all done.

Do you remember the end of that story? We didn't get it in course six, we got it in Lam Rim later, that the king finally says to the yogi, if your name is Mr. Patience and it's been that for 500 lifetimes, prove it. And the guy goes, well, if it's true, he does this act of truth, it's coming if I ever get on.

He says, if it's true that the more pain I have, the more I love the king, then may my limbs all reattach. And his fingers and toes and hands, they all jump up and run and go right back onto the guy.

Imagine the king, oh my gosh, I've made a big mistake. He becomes this great disciple. Yeah, because sometimes the worst ones make the greatest progress.

Why did I tell that story? What was I saying? Our growing Bodhichitta isn't, our doing Tonglen, taking suffering from everybody and giving them all our happiness is promising for us to get healthier, happier, our world to get better.

The seeds of our Tonglen, when they ripen will be that.

But while we're waiting for those to ripen, all kinds of other stuff will be ripening, because of the goodness of doing the Tonglen stirs it forth.

So it may be, I took on that Tonglen practice and then man, everything just got really, really hard. So I don't know about that Tonglen practice.

When in fact, if we understood it would be like, wow, my Tonglen practice was doggone potent. It looked like I really was taking on the suffering of other beings, but you know what? Yikers, it hurt. It was hard. It was painful.

But we could be at the level where it's like, as those hard things come up, we go, great. We know we're not really getting their pain into us. We know that we're stirring forth our own seeds, getting a chance to purify them, and we can be happy about it, right?

Lojong takes us there. Be happy with the purifications, being happy with the unpleasantness. It's hard. It's not something we can do by willpower. I'm going to decide to be really happy with my next migraine, right? You can't do it. But, right, we can be Tonglen-ing, Tonglen-ing, Tonglen-ing, giving, giving, giving. And then as we ourselves are experiencing these difficult situations, we can Tonglen ourselves too. 

Trying to take suffering, visualizing taking suffering can only give a good result.

How long before it ripens? I don't know. Has so many other factors.

You want it to ripen faster? Rejoice that we did it to water the seeds. Do it regularly in a stream. Do it towards powerful karmic objects, but not your Lama, right? That being who is your holy being manifesting to you looking ordinary, if we Tonglen them because they're manifesting kidney disease, it says to our own mind, I don't really believe that they are a fully enlightened being manifesting something for my benefit. We try to justify it. We can Tonglen our future me seeing them in that situation, but don't Tonglen that being who for you we're saying is a fully enlightened being, seeing them having a problem that needs Tonglen-ing.

How else can we make powerful karmic objects out of our Tonglen object person? 

Recognize that that being was once upon a time, our mother. Mothers are powerful karmic objects. So yes, Tonglen your mother in this lifetime, but anyone who needs Tonglen established somewhere along the way. Oh, that being, that mindstream being was my mother at some point. And it's still the same mindstream that was my mother then, so it's still the mind stream that is my mother. She is my mother—makes that nasty neighbor a powerful karmic object just by thinking of them in this way.

That would make our Tonglen maybe the seeds be planted more powerfully. So maybe they'll ripen a little sooner. All these different tricks that we learned through our training, how to apply ourselves.

(97:56) Again, can we take somebody else's karma? No.

Can we do Tonglen practice on someone with cancer and we ourselves end up getting a same kind of cancer that they now don't have anymore? Like suppose we really do stop their cancer and we get it. Can that be because of our Tonglen?

No. Even though it may really look like it, like it's never happened to anybody I know who's Tonglen-ed, that somebody's cancer has gone from there into them. But is it possible that we could be doing Tonglen as our regular daily practice and end up with cancer? Yes, of course.

But it wouldn't be because we managed to heal all those cancer patients. Suppose that we did, but we wouldn't have, right? Even our Tonglen's not gonna cure their cancer if their cancer gets better.

What did it? Our seeds shifted.

How do we shift our seeds? By doing Tonglen.

How'd their cancer end? By my seed shifting.

You don't then say, oh, see Tonglen cures. It doesn't, it changes seeds.

Important piece. We'll go into it in greater detail.

(99:47) Last section of this part is that one of those verses said something like, and 

Please bless me, my holy Lama,

So that in this practice, I'm able to use problems as the path

May everything that happened to me,

Both good and bad,

May I use it to grow my practice further.

He shared a story where apparently one time, he inadvertently bought a million dollars worth of diamonds that were the wrong thing for the order he was supposed to make. Then they turned out to be diamonds that were brown. So he got in big, big trouble. I don't know, it took him a few days, he said, and he figured out that in the Arab market, they like brown diamonds to use in their dog collars. So he just took that million dollars worth of diamonds and made dog collars and put them on the market and made more money from that than they had anticipated making from the original order they were now delayed.

But anyway, he said he would often get accused of orchestrating a problem so that he could look like the master who solved it. He says, I swear, I did not do that. That's how life works. Problems happen.

But because of this state of heart where it's like, yeah, I'll just use problems as the path, the goodness allows a solution to arise that at least is a solution, maybe even a better one than could happen even without the mistake being made. I don't know, I think you get it.

The last verse that has to do with this part of growing our Bodhichitta was that verse about,

Bless me to use the mystic machine of the Tonglen

Riding on the breath.

Those are code words for things that we use when we reach completion stage practice that now because of the Yoga Institute, everybody knows about it. So it's using the mind and the breath riding in tandem to work with our subtle body, to draw those winds from the two side channels into the central channel and use that to push our minds into the direct perception of emptiness.

Again, we're making a case for Tonglen practice as a foundational practice for the future practices. It also is seed planting for those highest practices that will come sooner or later.

In the next section of the Tonglen training—we're moving out of the Lama Chupa text and back to the explanations again.

They ask, which should come first, the giving or the taking?

We already said Tonglen, the words mean giving—taking, but we pointed out that Tibetan syntax is backwards. So maybe they really are thinking or relating to Tonglen as meaning take and then give. But then there still is this, a bit of a conundrum because it's like, don't we have to care about somebody enough to recognize that they're even suffering, and isn't caring about somebody on some level, a version of love. So don't we have to love them before we'll have compassion for them?

And then once our compassion acts, then we can actually give them something that our initial love wanted to give, but couldn't give them because they were suffering so bad.

It is worth looking at in the sense of, how does it even occur to us to Tonglen somebody? If we're not Tonglening everybody we come across, there's some we Tonglen and some we don't.

Pabongka Rinpoche's Liberation Thrust in the Palm of your Hand, he addresses that. He says, love is wanting to give happiness, wanting someone to be happy. He says, but you can't give somebody something in hopes that it will help them be happy if they're suffering in some way. If they're upset about something, if they're sick, if they're hurting. You wouldn't buy a new toy for your child who's burning up with fever. You know, it just, it wouldn't help them at all. First, you try to do something to relieve their distress. Once we managed to do that, then give them something that would help them be a little happier than they were before.

He says, no, compassion has to happen first. Like the action of compassion needs to happen first before anything that we do to give them happiness is gonna be able to give any happiness.

Then somebody else said, as I said before, it's like, yeah, but if you don't care enough about them to even notice that they're suffering, you're not gonna wanna take their suffering away. So you have to love them first on some level.

He doesn't argue with that. He says, right, if you love somebody, you want them to be happy and you see that their suffering is in the way of their happiness. So you act to help their suffering, and then help them with their happiness.

So he, in the end, agrees.

In the reading, Geshe-la picked out various references to Tonglen-ing. There is a kind of Tonglen that we do on a single breath. When we Tonglen on a single breath, we actually send forth happiness on the exhale and suck in unhappiness on the inhale. In that case, you give before you take because we always wanna end on the inhale. We wanna start things on an exhale and end on an inhale to plant the seeds in our minds to do this subtle body thing that we were alluding to before.

Single breath Tonglen, you give and then take.

But in terms of extended practice, which the benefit of an extended practice is like every instant you're taking, to do this long exhale going towards them, like 64 per instant of, I'm gonna take their suffering away. I'm gonna give them great happiness. You don't want it. You want as many seeds as you can make. So you don't wanna rush it. You don't wanna take so long that you get distracted, so you find that sweet spot, 10 minutes, maybe five, 10 minutes to identify their distress. Five, 10 minutes to go in and hook it. Then to destroy it, that only takes a minute. Then, when we get to the giving, again, it'll be kind of long and drawn out because we wanna be making all those seeds for our Tonglen practice. So don't rush it when you have time. When you don't have time and you're whizzing by them in your car, just blow it out, suck it in.

(110:03) There's a section in your reading by someone named Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra. He's a Lama of our lineage, before Pabongka Rinpoche. He's describing how that verse,

Bless me, my holy Lama, bless me Lama of compassion,

that verse that Geshe-la said, memorize and use as a mantra. Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra is making the case that those words, although written by First Panchen Lama and added to by his students. So the part that says, bless me, my high holy Lama, bless me of Lama of compassion, First Panchen Lama didn't write those lines. And the reason they say they know is because he's been using a certain meter in his verses, and this one's got too many syllables, too many lines in the meter. So they know it's been added to, and Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra is saying, there are conditions where Buddha said, it's okay to add words to my words and they can still be considered the words of a Buddha. So when we see a sutra and it says, Once I heard this teaching, as in the Heart Sutra, it's like Buddha says, the one who writes that, it's as if it's words of the Buddha.

If we recall in the Heart Sutra, all Buddha ever says is Lekso, Lekso, Lekso, well said, well said, well said. Everything else is propelled through Avalokiteshvara and Shariputra, Yet the whole thing's called a sutra, the words of a Buddha.

So they're making this case that this particular section of the Lama Chupa can be considered words of a Buddha. Like the words are so powerful that we can consider them the words of a Buddha. I'm not saying that Buddha ever said them directly, but there's this argument that in this same way that Buddha gave permission to use the words, the tradition has come to say that these words by His Holiness Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen are as if Lord Buddha gave them to us, which makes them qualify as mantra, that's the point. Mantra needs to be have given by a holy being and be being used by someone with great virtue.

Then Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra, he says, and that the Tonglen practice doesn't work in the way we think, we've already talked about that. That understanding, that it is an exchanging self and others, growing exchanging self and others practice is how it helps us grow our Bodhichitta.

Geshe-la had explained that, as our Tonglen gets more sophisticated, we can think of it as here's this other person who's suffering and we can do our expand our self to include them, put the rope around them and be thinking, okay, there's a part of me and here's a part of me. This part of me sees that part suffering. And this part wants to do something to help that part in the same way that when you have a sticker in your foot, you take your hand and go help the foot.

In that same way, this me wants to help that me. Even though we feel physically limited, physically separate, we can use the mental intention of thinking of their pain as our pain and decide we are going to take it on for that part of me, and give them happiness and pleasure.

Again, then it's like, well, how does karma work then? Because you don't make karma towards yourself. And it's like, I don't have an answer for that. We'll stop there. Actually, you can cook that one. The point being the willingness to take away suffering is the power of this practice because we cannot actually do it. The willingness changes our seeds so that in the end, we do actually do it. Got it?

[Dedication]

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Welcome back. We are Tonglen group. This is November 20th, 2025. I'm not sure what class it is. We're just carrying on from where we left off.

So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening]

Act of Truth

(7:54) We'll do class first and then the Tonglen at the end this time.

We were looking at Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen's series of verses in the section where we're asking the Lama for blessings and we're asking them to bless our mind to help us grow our Bodhichitta.

It's a series of verses because growing our Bodhichitta takes a series of steps to be able to plant the seeds for that result. So as in the process of that explanation, Geshe Michael wanted to explain to us this thing called an Act of Truth.

He goes to Ngulchu Dharma Bhadra's teachings and I'm not sure which one it's from. I'm guessing it's still this question and answer that he's looking at.

He talks about this thing called an Act of Truth. I'm sure you've all heard of it already. So it's not new, but let's talk about it a little bit more.

DENPAY TOK

DENPAY = truth

TOK, I guess here means the Act of Truth somehow. I don't know quite how the words play out because I don't know what this Y does to DANPA which means truth.

But overall, it means an Act of Truth. 

An Act of Truth, we're talking about the topic, because the power of an action done because of the truth of it, which I'll get back to in a minute, is a separate power, like a separate karmic influence that's in addition to the act we actually do.

So the act makes its own imprints, but when we do it as an Act of Truth, then that's an additional power. It's another way to increase the power of the seeds that we're planting. The idea being when we plant seeds in a powerful way, they ripen sooner, which is always like a little bit debate. Do I really want them to ripen sooner? Because the longer they're in there, the bigger they're going to get?

So maybe I can do an Act of Truth and get something to ripen that ripens in a really great worldly way, and then it's like, yeah, but big deal. It ends up going away anyway. Whereas maybe my Act of Truth could have asked for something bigger. It seems to take longer. Anyway, I think you get where I'm going with that.

Not to say, do an Act of Truth in order for something to happen, six million lifetimes from now, not like that.

Geshela's example of an Act of Truth, he uses Ghandi's method of getting British rule out of India. He seemed to have known that no worldly method of fighting the British would get them out, that it was going to take some wisdom method.

And that he saw that, or knew that if they did the right thing, they would have to get the right result. Right meaning good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant, ethical, unethical, that kind of right.

He was saying, in order to rid our country of the British, we need to resist their rule, but we need to be kind to them in the process. So we will do our resistance in a totally nonviolent way. And of course, everybody was fighting him on that. No, no, we have to fight. They're aggressive. They don't want to go. They're going to fight with us whether we're nonviolent or not. We're just going to get hurt.

He kept saying, no, no. It must be nonviolent resistance.

Then apparently there was a story where the guard is saying, you've got to carry your ID card with you at all times. One of the acts of resistance was to refuse to carry that British imposed ID card.

He told the guard, I'm not going to carry this ID card.

And the guard says, if you don't, I'll break your arm.

Gandhi takes the card and he throws it in the fire, and the guard breaks his arm.

And his people are saying, what'd you do that for? You could have done that in a different way, but did his arm get broken because he threw the card in the fire?

No, his arm got broken because he hurt somebody in the past. And he knew that, and he was being an example of that for leading his people.

How long did it take him for his Act of Truth—We will be nonviolent no matter what—to work? 20 years. And in the end he gets assassinated. What's up with that?

Did he get assassinated because he was nonviolent in creating the result?

No. He got assassinated because he had the seeds of having killed.

When? Some long time ago, because he'd been protecting life for a really long time.

It seems like, wait, this can't work if that could happen to somebody who's so amazingly devoted to nonviolence. How could he end in a violent way?

But we don't really know what he experienced. And that's a hard one too.

It's like, come on, he experienced himself dying.

Did he?

He experienced himself getting shot.

Did he?

We don't really know. But that's dangerous, because we could take that and say, well, I can kill that gnat. I don't know what they're really experiencing. Maybe when I kill the gnat, they're gonna see themselves in the clear light. That's great. I'll kill three gnats.

Like wrong result. Because the result of those seeds is gonna be somebody saying, hey, maybe if I kill you, you'll get enlightened instead. Jjustifying harming me because I justified harming somebody else, even if it was just a gnat.

So these ideas of truth at all costs are a little bit slippery. When we think we have the truth, but we're sort of fooling ourselves and choosing an action that we actually want to do. And so we somehow twist our emptiness and karma understanding to justify doing it when deep down when it comes back to us, somebody doing that to us, we're not gonna like it. In which case, it wasn't a wisely done act, was it?

An Act of Truth is this mental state that we put onto our choice of our action, but also as we do the action. It becomes like our dedication prayer that adds to the action, not just the actions goodness, but this additional power of, I'm hearing myself say and know that the reason I'm choosing this action to do is because I understand karma and emptiness well enough that I understand that by doing this action, I must bring about a positive result regardless of what looks like happens from what I just do.

When we make this determination, it adds this additional factor to that series of seeds we planted as we are doing this deed.

Geshehla says, anytime we have a problem in life, we have a conflict, we have a clash of worldview. Once we know worldview and we have a problem in life, we have a clash of worldview, because there's a worldly reaction that we wanna do.

Then, with worldview, we're taught, is that really the thing to do to bring about the result that I want given what I know about karma and emptiness?

And when we do that, we realize that there's nothing I can do in my moment that's gonna bring about what's gonna happen in the next moment and may not even bring about what happens two weeks from now or six months from now.

But we're still operating in this idea, I'm gonna choose my action according to the result I wanna get. And that's how we are functional adults in a human world is to think and act like that.

Highest worldview says that doesn't work. It doesn't work to bring about the happiness that we want. It doesn't even work to bring about the job promotion we want.

An example of this would be, suppose we're in line for a promotion at work, there is a promotion available. We make our application, we think we're the best one for the job. And we know Bob makes his application too because he thinks he's the best one for the job.

Old worldview says, okay, we're both in competition for this job. I'm gonna like be the best I can while they're watching so that I can show that I am the best for the job. Or, our highest worldview, maybe even our Act of Truth would be, I'm going to take every opportunity I can to sing Bob's praises to anyone who will listen. I'm gonna point out how great he is for that job.

It's like suicide, right? Job promotion suicide to put in your application and then sing the praises of your competition.

We can do it as this Act of Truth: If it's true that in my application for this promotion, I am doing my best to point out how Bob is great for the job, then, and here's the kicker. Our Act of Truth could be, then may I get the job. One way to say it.

Another would be, if I'm doing this da-da-da because I understand karma and emptiness, then may the highest and best happen for everyone concerned.

We keep doing that until they decide who gets the job.

Suppose Bob gets the job. When we're still in worldview, we'll be thinking, wow, great, I helped Bob get that job. He wanted it so bad. His wife's gonna be so proud of him. That's so great for Bob.

My ordinary worldview is, darn, I should have gotten that job. I'm not so sure Bob really is right for that job, so I'm not really sure how well I'm gonna work with him. There's all this stuff that could come up.

At one scenario, Bob gets the job, and we go, great, I helped him.

Second scenario, we get the job. If, with our high worldview, we'd understand, wow, I did get the job, and I do see how this different kind of behavior, me singing Bob's praises, that that could have helped me get the job. Then that means that as I'm now Bob's supervisor, I'm gonna wanna do everything I can to help Bob shine and thrive and be happy working for me. I'm wanting the result of this job promotion to be the highest and best for everybody, not just me, because I understand worldview, because I did this whole thing as an Act of Truth.

Then I could also not get the job and think, wow, now I'm available for this Act of Truth seeds to ripen in an even bigger way. Maybe something else, bigger, better is forming up. So then rather than thinking, oh, my Act of Truth didn't work, my wisdom must not be good enough, or this Act of Truth thing doesn't work, we have this understanding. It's like, well, I just don't see the results yet.

It kind of depends on the words that we use in our Act of Truth.

We tend to want to use an Act of Truth in a really specific way and a really fast way.

If I do my dishes with karma and emptiness in mind, then may, I see emptiness directly on Monday morning.

Then Monday morning comes along and it's like, didn't happen, I'm gonna doubt. So it's like, did our Act of Truth fail, or did I put a limitation on it by giving it this deadline?

Is my saying, don't put a deadline on your acts of truth a way of apologizing for acts of truth that don't work? We could see it that way. There is no reason why it could not be that an Act of Truth could bring its result sometime later.

Can it bring its result in the next moment? No, nothing can. Seeds have to ripen. They take time to ripen, even acts of truth seeds. The only time that seeds are not taking time to open seems to be when we are omniscient. But I'm not so sure it's not still the case. It's just that we're perceiving all of them meanwhile, somehow, I don't know quite.

Acts of truth are powerful and they're a bit tricky to get them worded in such a way that we don't limit their power, but don't dilute them so much that their ripening is too big to recognize that we're using them in a high way, a powerful way.

In my example, May my Act of Truth bring me the result I want. Do you see why it's limiting? Versus, My Act of Truth bring what's gonna be the best for everybody.

If I really am the best one for that job, I will get the job. And if I'm not the best, I'm not gonna get the job. Maybe Bob won't either because of my prayer, because maybe somebody else is best for that job. And then we need to hold to our worldview of our Act of Truth when the fallout comes. Because human nature is gonna kick back in. What? They didn't choose me and they didn't choose Bob and who the heck is this third person and what do they know? Our mind's gonna do that instead of go, wow. Whoever this is, is perfect for the job. How can I help them shine?

Worldview. It seems crazy, crazy powerful.

(27:26) Geshehla says about acts of truth, if we keep it up over time, this extraordinary power becomes so liberating because you know that you are always acting from the highest level of behavior you can act.

Like you're doing the right thing regardless of what could be the apparent next outcome. Like you're acting separated from the need to create this result in the moment. It really seems like we'd become ineffective human beings, but in fact, we come much more effective in dealing with life.

Geshehla uses the term fearless, we become fearless. Because regardless of whether pleasure or displeasure is ripening, we know we're doing the highest thing in response, which means we're burning off the negative, even the suffering of change of the positive. And we're planting seeds that are gonna ripen as a better world for everybody when they ripen.

If we really knew that we were planting seeds for a paradise for everybody, would there ever be like any doubt or any self-guessing or any upset or it's like, doesn't matter what's happening. We're just planting paradise seeds. It would be a really cool state of being, wouldn't it? Kind of like Nirvana maybe.

So until we get there, we are going to have misperceptions about what is the right thing to do, because we can't see the direct cause and effect. But we have a carefully born understanding and guidelines about what behavior to avoid. And when we take those and flip them into the positive, that tells us what behaviors to train in.

So we have our 10 non-virtues and their opposites.

We have our Pratimoksha vows, whichever ones you have and their opposites.

We have our Bodhisattva vows.

We have the six perfections.

When we get higher, we have Diamond Way vows.

We have behavior guidelines.

So we're not left on our own to try and figure it out. Thank you so much, right? Because it would take three times 10 to the 60th countless eons if we didn't have guidance. All right.

Doing the right thing karmically can only bring a pleasant result. Even if it seems like in the next moment, it brings an unpleasant result, that what we did the moment before is not the cause of that unpleasant result.

Really, whether what we did the moment before was kind or unkind, it still is not the cause of what happens next. We understand that, but it's hard to divorce the two.

So an Act of Truth is that when we do a right thing, according to karma and emptiness, to swear by doing it. Like I swear that I did that thing about Bob and the job because I understood karma and emptiness and I understood planting those good seeds was a higher good than doing worldly things to get the job. I swear that I'm gonna hold that highest worldview. It adds something. It's like taking a vow so that every moment you're not doing the thing, you're keeping the vow, same kind of thing with an Act of Truth. Making this extra imprint in our mind.

So we can Tonglen as an Act of Truth, because there's no other reason to tonglen except because of what we understand about karma and emptiness. We are Tonglen-ing to plant seeds in our mind for a better future for the person that we're tonglening. And for that better future for them to happen, we ourselves are creating a better future for us.

Tonglen doesn't work by doing the imagining and doing the breathing. It works by way of the seeds it plants. And we're only doing it because we know that. Otherwise there's no reason to do it. So just to do Tonglen as an Act of Truth so we can add this prayer at the end of our session—that I say this and then I forget to do it.

But if 

I Tonglen because I understand karma and emptiness and I understand that's how I end the suffering of my world and bring everyone to happiness, then may all that I prayed for in my Tonglen come true.

You don't say when, you don't say how. What we Tonglen-ed was may that person's suffering end and may they have all kinds of happiness. And we did it as an Act of Truth.

Then it's like, great, done, have at it, and let it occur—Act of Truth.

Lama Chupa Verses

(34:08) Let's go back to oh, the Lama Chupa prayer.

For the interest in time, I just wanna start here to remind us where we were.

I'm gonna read these verses and then stop on the one I wanna talk to you about, okay?

So Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen is instructing us to ask the Lama for the blessings, to grow the series of steps that will cultivate our Bodhichitta—I must become totally enlightened in order to help all those beings, my mothers that I wanna repay because they were so kind to me, and they are suffering so badly out of ignorance, technically my ignorance. We're trying to grow that state of mind.

One of his verses, he's leading us up, he says,

[86] Bless me to see that cherishing 

All these Mother beings 

And the wish to see them all 

Reach every form of happiness 

Is the door that leads to

Infinite numbers

Of perfect personal qualities. 

Bless me then to love them all 

More than my own life, 

Even if every one of them 

Should suddenly think me their enemy.

It could happen that as you're getting kinder and kinder and kinder, you see the people around you getting meaner and meaner and meaner. It's like, how could that be? If we just think worldly, if you had a friend you've known for a long time, for example, and you always knew them to behave in a certain way, and you love them dearly anyway, and then they start to work on themselves and they're starting to get kinder and they're making different choices of behavior and they don't so much wanna do the things we used to do together.

Like, I'm likely to have my feelings hurt or feel left behind or something, I'm gonna have some kind of negative reaction to them just because I'm seeing them grow and I'm not. And so maybe like, I'm gonna start being nasty to them.

Geshehla says, actually that what happens in cases where we're like our goodness is growing, growing, growing, growing, it stirs in our own pool of seeds, the sludge at the bottom. We've cleaned out the stuff that's floating around but there's the sludge at the bottom. And as our practice gets more and more subtle, the sludge at the bottom starts to stir up as well. And just as we're about to make some kind of big breakthrough in our growth, some like wickedness seems to come out of us trying to hold us back. They call it demons, they call it the devil angel, all kinds of different ways of explaining this unfortunate but apparently common thing where it's like, it seems like your mind's so pure but it's got this one ugliness that it keeps throwing out. 

Geshehla had this experience when like everything was just expanding so fast with amazing goodness. And there was one person that was involved in on the periphery with the Diamond Mountain at the beginning, and they just took issue to the way Geshehla taught and deep down it was his success growing. And this person made it their like life purpose to criticize him, point out faults, get him in trouble in whatever way he could. It was just at the time when the internet and social media was starting to expand, and Geshehla just kept ignoring it, and then loving the guy, and Tonglen-ing the guy. And finally it got so interfering that Geshehla had to call that person's teacher, he knew who it was and say, look, this guy's killing himself in what he's doing towards me.

So for me, I don't care, but man…, right? I need you to know what he's doing. Then all of a sudden it stopped. I don't know what happened to the guy. I don't know what his teacher did. But Geshehla got to the end of his rope, given the guy every kind of opportunity to self-correct because he was a Buddhist student of another teacher.

But it's like Geshehla when he tells the story, he's telling it because he sees that it was this big obstacle that got stirred up because he was on this cusp of this explosion that has since exploded into now teaching so many students. Whereas before like to have a hundred students at a teaching was extraordinary.

So it's like, don't be surprised if it can happen to  aGeshehland others, it can happen to us. And it's a sign that we're making progress.

(47:17) He says like, even if they should think me their enemy, that like, may I just love them all the more because whose negativity are they reflecting?

Mine. So they give me an opportunity to dredge out stuff that I wouldn't otherwise know is in there. So yay.

[87] Bless me then to reach the ability 

To see myself and others as equal,

And to exchange them for myself 

In a state of mind, to sum it all up,

Where I finally grasp the difference: 

The problems that come from acting

As infants do, thinking only of themselves; 

And the good that comes from acting

As the Lords of the Able do,

Thinking only of what others need.

I love this verse, especially that last line,

The good that comes from acting

As the Lord of the able do,

Thinking only what others need.

It's just so visceral to think of me the infant. What do I need? My knees hurt, my arms hurt. Like I was at exercise class. I'm there as in my four steps intention. Once a week I go, I help lead an exercise class. I'm supposed to be paying attention to everybody else. And my mind's going, my knees hurt, my arms hurt. I don't want to do this, I don't want to be here. Will you shut up in there? I was doing it, but it's like two steps forward, one step back, or maybe three steps back. Because it's just like, what about me? What about me? It's so disgusting. Infant.

Bless me to ditch that infant, please, Lamas.

[88] Cherishing myself

Is the door to every

Trouble that there is;

Cherishing my Mothers

Is the foundation 

Of every quality I could have; 

Bless me then that this deep practice

Of exchanging others for myself

Might become the very heart

Of my daily practice [originally ‘path’].

So Tonglen isn't the only way to exchange self and others, but it's a beautiful way of acting on our idea that those other beings are really another part of me. Exchanging self and others, deeper meaning is expanding what I call me to include others. And so now that other that I'm going to Tonglen, it's just that other part of me. And so naturally, I want to take away their knee pain just as much as I want to take away my knee pain because their pain is my pain. I just experience it in a different way, right? 

The knee pain in this part is in that location and that kind of sensation.

The knee pain in that part is limping, or wincing on their face.

I experience it differently, but it's still my pain.

And it's hard because our mind goes, no, it's not, it's their pain. But if we can see pain in another, whose seeds are those?

Mine.

We don't know what they're experiencing.

Well, they say they're experiencing pain. Okay, those are my seeds too. So I'll do something. I'll try to do something to help them. But until we're omniscient, we don't really know what they are experiencing.

So whatever we perceive them experiencing, we do want to try to help.

If what we're perceiving is something unpleasant, we want to try to help.

If what we're perceiving is something pleasant and we see them as an ordinary being, then we know the pleasantness is going to end. So we know they're still have a suffering there. Either way, they're in that pervasive suffering if they are the ordinary being that we think they are, and so there's always something that we can say, gosh, I wish they didn't have to have that.

I wish I didn't have to see them having it. Could be one way of saying it, but the imprint we make when we say that is a little limiting because it's saying, well, I just don't want to see their pain. That means I could go blind and I won't see their pain.

Or it means they could leave my life, right? I'm still a suffering being, they just go out of it so I don't see their pain.

But when I say, no, no, I want to stop their pain. That's bigger than just not ever seeing them again and not knowing whether they ever stop their pain or not.

I don't want to do it for myself. I want my action to help them in that highest way. And when my wish is for them, I'm planting seeds to see them that way someday versus just to see me seeing them, or even not seeing them. We want our seeds to be planted to include them.

And when we do, it's natural to want to stop their suffering and give them happiness because that's what we do for our me all the time. We are already habituated.

Every time I hurt, I want it to stop.

Every time it feels good, I want it to stop.

I want it to go on.

It's so automatic that when you think of that other me over there that I just experienced differently than this me, I want the same thing for them, don't I?

It's a beautiful, extraordinary practice—exchanging self and others, expanding self to include others.

[89] And so bless me my Holy Lama, 

Bless me, Lama of Compassion,

That every living being there is

May find every kind of happiness:

Let all the evil deeds and obstacles,

Let all the pain that ever comes

To every living being,

Every one of them my Mother,

Come and ripen upon myself,

Ripen upon me now,

And let any goodness I ever do,

And all my happiness,

Be sent away to others.

We learned last class, this is the Tonglen verse. It's the one that we say that sets us up to do the practice with the breath, et cetera. It's not describing the breath, but it's saying the state of mind, the state of heart from which we Tonglen.

[90] This world and every being

Who lives upon this world

Are filled with the results

Of every wrong ever done—

Let a shower of suffering fall,

Of things I never wanted.

Bless me to see it all as a way

That all the fruits of my own bad deeds

Might finally be exhausted—

Bless me to learn to turn every problem

That ever comes to me

Into a path that takes me further.

We'll talk about this more when we learn Lojong in course 14. When our wisdom is keen, we understand that every pleasant thing is a result of some kindness and so we want to share it, offer it. And every unpleasantness is a result of some past unkindness, and so we're happy to burn it off and use it as an opportunity to act differently than the worldly way would usually act.

And so the unpleasant things are these great opportunities actually, burning off and planting new. It becomes such that we are not avoiding the unpleasantnesses like we ordinarily do. Ordinary human mind goes out of their way to avoid unpleasant things. They happen anyway of course, but we try so hard to avoid.

Whereas when we have this level of wisdom, you can let go of all that effort.

If yuck's gonna happen, it's gonna happen no matter what. And I'm gonna use it as my path.

So good things happen? Great, I'll share them.

Bad things happen? Great, I'll burn them off, I'll use them.

Great, great, great, great. Happy all the time, they say. You know, even with the next migraine, even with the knee pain, right? Happy all the time.

Just to imagine that we could get there, it's a great, great goodness. So just imagine, wow, someday, if you're not already and I don't know, cause I don't know your mind. 

But to like hear that and go, yeah, I see how that could work, is really a rejoicable. 

Because mostly people go, what are you not? Ask for a shower of suffering to fall, you've gotta be crazy.

Give all my happiness away to somebody else? I worked so hard to get that happiness. I'm not about to give it away.

[91] In brief, bless me that I learn to change

Everything that appears to me,

Whether it be good or bad,

Into a path for increasing

The two forms of the Wish

For enlightenment,

Through practicing the five powers,

Essence of all the Dharma there is,

And experience then only joy.

Again, that'll come, specific teachings come in Lojong and Lama Chupa commentary. 

This one too,

[92] Bless me that I may learn the

Skillful means of all four practices,

Where I turn everything

That I ever encounter

From hour to hour Into something for me

To meditate upon.

The four practices are those four close recollections. They're called the four close recollections. We don't learn them much in the ACI. But when we learned the Heart Sutra with Kedrup Je’s meditation, that series of four steps, that's really similar.

Well, when we did it in retreat, who was there? Katja, you were there. When we did it during the days of the retreat, we looked at this aspect and this aspect. We were doing the four close recollections. Anyway, nevermind, we'll learn it later.

Bless me that I bring great meaning

To this life of leisure and fortune

Using the teachings to practice

Developing the good heart,

All the various commitments,

And the different kinds of trainings.

So again, all these verses have been, let me develop my Bodhichitta, my wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings' Bodhichitta—the deceptive wish, it's not deceptive, it's just happening and appearing reality.

Here's the important verse.

[93] Bless me to use the mystic machine

Of giving and taking

Riding on the breath—

Love, and compassion,

And the willingness

To free all beings myself—

To practice that one thought,

The Wish for enlightenment,

To free every living being

From this vast sea of suffering.

So we have two verses that are specific to Tonglen practice.

That one that says, bless me Lama, bless me, Lama Compassion.

And this one, bless me to use the mystic machine of giving and taking, Tonglen, riding on the breath, where what I'm doing with that breath is acting from my compassion, trying to take away their suffering, and acting on my love, trying to give them everything that they want, with this willingness to do so until all suffering in all beings is gone, and I see them with every kind of happiness.

Is that possible, to reach a point where we see no more suffering in our world?

Yeah, Marina's lips said, during the direct perception of emptiness, ah, true, right, is that what you said? And, right, as Buddha, we would say, we're, but wait, we're still seeing others see themselves suffer. We don't suffer, but we still see suffering in the world, don't we? It would make a good debate. Because you would have to say, depends on what part of your Buddha being you're talking about.

Buddha in paradise? No, suffering.

Yeah, but what about me? I'm not in Buddha paradise. Yeah, but you are for Buddha. 

Wait, like how can I…, wait…, right?

It's like we wanna hit those, because it makes us think, oh yeah, there's how I perceive myself, and there's how they perceive me, and there's how they perceive themselves, and there's how me perceives them, and those are all different. Aren't they?

But wait, they perceive me perceiving me in the wrong way. Right.

And they perceive me perceiving me in the right way. Right.

So maybe someday I can perceive me in the right way too. Right.

And they know how to help me get there. All right.

But they'll only teach me if I ask. Because if they teach me before I ask, I'll just fight with them about it. When they teach me after I ask, I still probably fight with them about it. But at least they'll teach me once I've asked. But until we ask, they can't. Even if they do try. Right? It won't work.

And then if we reject something that we're receiving, right, those seeds for rejecting it blocks our own mind from receiving more even when we ask. To hear a teaching and reject it is such a strong blocker karma from getting more teachings that ripe early in the beginning. They say, don't ever reject a teaching, really from anybody. Don't flat out reject. Use logic, right, check it carefully. If we can't relate, put it on the shelf. But don't just flat out reject, which is, I don't know, what we tend to do. It's serious, serious delay in reaching our goal, what we want.

Tonglen as the Crane Machine

YIONG JAMPA pretty love, the love of a mother for her only child

HLAKSAM NAMDAK personal responsibility

JANGCHUB SEMKYE

All right, let me make sure I haven't missed something important here.

So this first, the mystic machine, in the Tonglen reading, Geshehla translated as the crane machine. Crane as in equipment, an equipment crane, which is this big piece of equipment that has a bucket. Then it has these arms that have different segments to it, and the guy in the box, he can make that crane go down to the ground and you can put stuff in it. He can make that crane go up, up, up until it's so high, because the crane's at the top. And then the crew at the top unload the thing. And they just lifted tons of material up 20 stories that otherwise they would have had to carry up the stairs.

A crane machine is this tool that makes really heavy, hard work easier, a whole lot easier. This is what the mystic machine is talking about.

How miraculous, like suppose we were the beings who built the pyramids, right?

The story is they put those really heavy blocks on logs and they pushed them and they'd move the log and push and move a log and push. Once they got them to the site, they had to hoist it with ropes.

I mean, imagine somebody drives up with one of these crane machines. It's like, excuse me guys here, I'll help you. Put that block here up to the top, put it here. They'd all be going, wow, miracle, mysticism. You must be from God or something, right? Because it would be so miraculous. Tonglen.

Using our breath to Tongren is as miraculous as a crane showing up to lift the blocks onto the top of the pyramids in Egypt time, miraculous machine.

It's cool, because it‘s like, Tonglen? It's so simple. All you have to do is think to do it, and then if you're breathing already. Exactly, the simpler, the better, but it's incredibly powerful.

Why? First of all, because it's motivated by compassion. We've grown our compassion big enough to be willing to witness somebody's distress and have the thought, gosh, I wish they didn't have to have that. And then have the thought, gosh, I wish I could do something, and then have the thought, all the worldly ways I try, I'm willing to do those things, but I know they won't be ultimate. And I would really like to help their pain go away for good someday.

I know, I'll imagine it. I will imagine taking their pain away forever on my breath. We'll see why.

That thought, train of thought needs to happen somewhere along the line for us to buy into Tonglen practice. You don't have to be thinking it every time you see somebody and want to Tonglen. But you see somebody and want to Tonglen because you've run your mind through this train of thought and you realize, oh my gosh, it is true that I can actually help them by Tonglen-ing because of the seeds I change in my mind will ultimately help them in that deep and ultimate way someday. 

Will it take away their knee pain now? Maybe, maybe not, right? Worldly, probably not. But actually possibly, because maybe you've Tonglen-ed them before in some past life. And your Tonglen now is the ticket that your own heart needs to see them get a miracle. It's possible.

Hasn't happened to me. Well, not from Tonglen. But requires compassion and to want to act on the compassion. Then the love is the piece, it's like, well, just to have them free of suffering isn't quite enough. I'd really like to see them have everything that they could want, worldly things, and of course, ultimate things.

Ultimately our love is, I would love to see them reach their own Buddhahood, or whatever it is they call it in their tradition. I'd love to see them reach heaven at the feet of God, if that's their belief—whatever their belief of the highest thing that they can reach. It's okay to wish that for them because we're using the term Buddha them and Buddha paradise emanating for what we mean by what they say. Not meaning we're correct and they're wrong. But not imposing our belief onto them.

It really takes me to an aside when we're in a position where we might want to be trying to help somebody who's in the dying process and they're not Buddhist, but they do have some spiritual belief. We would want to know what their spiritual belief is and give them the guidance to their ultimate goal. Use the words that they're familiar with rather than the words we're familiar with, in order to help guide their mind to what we call the clear light. And then maybe after they're dead, you can go back to the words that you're familiar with because they'll understand. But anyway, again, for a different teaching.

(69:13) In this context, what the crane machine is doing is, it's helping us lift our mind up through those seven step cause and effect method to Bodhichitta.

In his verse, he's only mentioning love, compassion, the willingness to free all beings and to hold our mind on that one thought, the wish to reach total enlightenment.

The seven step cause and effect, if you recall, first, the eighth part or the first part is to grow our equanimity and then see all beings as our mother so that we wanna repay them, so that we wanna be kind to them. That's growing our love from which we're able to take the suffering away. 

Then we realize it's my responsibility to take their suffering away.

And then we realize, oh my gosh, I can't really do it until I have the state of mind of omniscience that knows directly what they need to give up and what they need to take up.

That sequence we see in the words, YIONG JAMPA, HLAKSAM NAMDAK, and JANGCHUB SEMKYE, which are the Tibetan words that are in that verse.

YIONG JAMPA is this pretty love. It's the love for the mother, but the sense, the YIONG JAMPA, the YIONG means pretty, pretty love, the kind of love one has for their only child.

We're saying that they are all our mothers, but the love for them that we have right now is the feeling as if they were my three-year-old child, and they just fell down and scratched their knee, and they think they're gonna die. And I realize, oh my dear. It's gonna pass, you're gonna be okay. That kind of sweet, amazing love where they can do no wrong.

Then HLAKSAM NAMDAK is that personal responsibility, which is a long story.

Well, you don't have time to go into it in depth now, but it's the sense that they're my mother that's hurting. If there's a group of people standing around and one person falls in the river, you don't look at everybody and go, okay, who's gonna go get her?

It's like, wait, my mom. You jump in, that personal responsibility.

But this goes way beyond that. This is the personal responsibility for any distress that we see in anybody. It's my seeds ripening.

Then this almost sense of desperation like I can't really help them in any lasting way until I'm Buddha. I've got to reach it. And I'm gonna use them, right? In a positive way of use them. I'm gonna open my heart to them so that I can become that Buddha for them. It's their pain that's making me wanna be Buddha, much more than my own pain.

This sequence is what the crane machine is taking us through.

We‘re not working on it step-by-step in our Tonglen practice, but this is the result it's gonna have by doing it.

Subtle Body Work

Let's switch back to the verse.

This actually is, this verse is from a text. It's not like quoting from it, but sort of a summary of an earlier text about the Lojong, it's called the Lojong in Seven Steps, LOJONG DUN DUNMA.

Again, we'll learn it in Tonglen, or in course 14. It's a practice that was taught very secretly in Tibet for some period of time. We can't really say exactly how long. It was held deeply secret because of this fear that people would hear a practice teaching that says, ‚Wish for all kinds of suffering to come upon you so that other people won't have it, and wish to give away every goodness that you have‘.

They were afraid that most people would hear that and say, you've gotta be nuts. I have so little, I struggle to take care of my family. It's nuts to say, I'll give that all away and take on pain and suffering.

Yet that wish coming from a state of wisdom that says, why I grow that wish is actually one of the highest methods of reaching our total enlightenment.

So to teach it to somebody only to have them go, no, that's nuts. It puts such a blocker in their mind that it's better that they don't know about it at all than to teach them before they're prepared.

So this kind of teaching was a one-on-one from teacher to student when they knew that this student's heart was just like breaking from all the suffering they're seeing in their world, and they're trapped in this inability to do anything significant. That's the time to teach that student Tonglen.

But finally, someone named Tokme Sangpo in the 13th century…

What does 13th century mean? 1200s? I always get confused. Is 13th century 1200s or 1400s? I think it's 1200s, it has to be 1200s because it was during Kadampa phase.

So Tokme Sangpo, he says, wait a minute, if we rely on this to be just teacher to student when a student's ready, there are students out there they're going to miss out. And it seems to me it's worse for one person to miss out on this teaching than it is for others to hear it and reject it.

Whoa, that's a trade-off, isn't it?

So he wrote it down. He didn't send it public. That didn't happen for a while yet, but he wrote it down so that it wouldn't get lost. Maybe his circumstance was he was getting close to withdrawing, and he knew that there were people that still could use it and I don't know.

Anyway, he finally wrote it down. It became the LOJONG DUN DUNMA.

In there, it talks about this using the mystic machine.

One of its verses, it says,

Alternate the two of giving and taking

Let these two ride on the wind.

That's all it says. But what it means is use your breath to Tonglen people as this really high secret practice. Interesting, because it has to be motivated by a high world view. There's no other reason to do it because it doesn't work by doing it, and it feels crazy to even wish that it can work because you're wishing to take on pain—I have enough all by myself, thank you very much. And you're wishing to give away all goodness. 

Wait, I worked so hard for the goodness I have.

It's like two wrong views that we're trying to overcome. And that's why we Tonglen.

(78:05) So now, the factor of using the breath to Tonglen, why not just think it, but to tag it to the breath, as I've already said, has this resonance to our subtle body.

That's what adds this additional power to tonglen practice is that we are inadvertently affecting our subtle body, even if we don't know anything about our subtle body.

As humans, we have this perception of this physical body that's got organs and skeleton and stuff inside. It also has these invisible to our ordinary senses structure of channels through which winds, subtle movement happens.

That subtle movement is what allows the mind to move from one place to the next.

So technically when we eat and we're chewing, a wind and a mind, not an intellect, not a thinking, but an awareness has to move up to be aware… It's not saying it right. The projection is happening.

The mind movement happening, rides on a wind that comes up and helps that movement experience be an experience of going down, and then it continues to go down. It requires a wind to move the mind, the awareness, and the mind movement affects the wind and the wind affects the mind. They both travel in these, they call them channels, but they're more like pathways, and for an ordinary being, those pathways are all messed up. They're twisted, they're knotted, they're kinked, they're even some of them broken.

And if the tube… If you have a straw that's all twisted and kinked and you try to (suck in) through it, it's a whole lot more work to suck the milk up through that straw because it's got to get around through the cracks and et cetera. Maybe even it's totally blocked, so you can't get it at all.

These subtle channels, we're born with them. The kinks and breaks and twists, those are all results of past negative, mentally afflicted movement of the mind. So mentally afflicted winds and mind movement affect these channels, plant the seeds for us to be born with channels that are all messed up.

As we go through life, they continue to be messed up and get more messed up because our misperceiving our world and our mental afflictions that arise because of it further mess up those channels and makes it harder for the winds and mind to move through.

So when we are doing intentional practices to increase and act upon our love and our compassion, those are positive states of mind, the opposite of the mentally afflicted states of mind. And the result on our channels is to loosen them up, to smooth them out, to open them up.

As those channels open up, the higher emotions are able to move easier. And the love that started the process can actually grow bigger because we feel loving, our channels are starting to open, our winds are moving towards a space of greater love, wisdom.

As they move towards that space, the same love that we had before now is bigger, it's deeper, it's more wise. So the more we have the feeling of compassion and love that makes us want to Tonglen, and then we intentionally use our outer breath as the tool to influence the subtle breath and mind, we grow this opening up of our channels that allows those winds to get to the place where our love and compassion become more and more wise.

The breath is not the wind in the channels, but the breath is a reflection of how smoothly or not smoothly the subtle winds and mind are moving inside the subtle body.

When we're angry or fearful, for instance, if we have the presence of mind to notice, our breath gets all stuck and shallow and gaspy, and we end up with this feeling in our chest that we're calling anger or fear.

If we have the mindfulness to be able to go, wait, let's calm our breathing, that emotions will calm down because of this resonance with the subtle body and the breath. It's not really a cause and effect, it's a vibrational resonance.

If you've been in the yoga tradition, that tradition uses the breath for meditation, that uses the breath as you're exercising. How many times do you say as you're teaching a class, Now breathe, inhale here, exhale here. Nice, long, slow inhales, exhales.

It's because it affects their subtle body, whether you're working on it or not.

So here's Tonglen where we're tagging these loving, compassionate, willing to take everything away from them, heart, onto this gross thing, our breath, in order to see or experience ourselves actually taking away this pain and giving them happiness. All of that is having this subtle effect on our subtle body in which these twists and knots and yucks are opening up and allowing this subtle body to start to gather into the place where it's automatic to feel love, compassion, and wisdom.

So this crane machine, just by Tonglen-ing beings, is moving us through these seven steps, not the seven LOJONG DUN DUNMAs, but the seven steps to our Bodhichitta. 

We'll find that our Bodhichitta grows as we Tonglen. And as our Bodhichitta grows, our impulse to Tonglen grows.

What Geshehla always says is, as your channels and winds smooth out, your mind smooths out, so your mental afflictions smooth out, and your skin will smooth out, your body will smooth out. Like you will start to feel younger, look younger. Aging is a reflection of these knots and kinks in our channels. Like every wrinkle is a knot kink in a subtle channel, because they get so subtle, they go all the way out.

Any illness, any symptom of any illness, it's these kinks and knots and blocks in our subtle body that block the wind and mind moving that trigger mental afflictions. Is that right to say trigger? Reflections of mental afflictions, maybe don't trigger them.

You want to work on all that? Tonglen.

You don't even have to know about it and you're working with it. Oh my gosh, that is a crane. That is a miracle, right? Just Tonglen, so beautiful.

At this point though, in the instructions on Tonglen, they say, given this understanding about the subtle body, there is now then an additional benefit to as we're using our breath on Tonglen, to do an intentional practice of bringing the outbreath and the inbreath to be the same length, on any given out breath to have the in breath be the same length. Now, every breath doesn't have to be the same length and with Tonglen it's not gonna be, right? Because first you send your exhale out that far, and then you send it, they're gonna get a little bit longer, longer, longer. But every time it gets longer for the purpose of the crane machine, subtle body influence, we want to use our inhale the same amount of time.

So if you're visualizing the breath going out, like a ribbon or a wisp of smoke or something, I had said before, leave it there as you inhale and then push it further.

At this point, they say, no, it goes out and it comes back in because now it's gonna be the same length. And the next one goes out a little bit further, comes back in, further, comes back in so that your exhale and inhale are always matched.

The reason is that it's planting seeds in the subtle body to have this balance happening and it will help promote reaching this balance that we need to get those winds into the central channel someday. So it's just an added piece in preparation for things to come, to add this inhale, exhale.

If you're not a visualizer, then you can do it counting your heartbeat, or just in the sense that I wanna match my exhale to my inhale.

Chinese medicine says, when you're young, your inhales will naturally be longer than your exhales. And when you're old, your exhales will naturally be longer than your inhale. So if you're ever not sure whether you're young or old, you could check that and see. It's like, well, some days I'm younger than others, but it's an interesting thought, right?

Technically, Tonglen is combining Sutra methods and Diamond Way methods for reaching Bodhichitta, the wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, which sets us up for Bodhichitta, the direct perception of emptiness, whether we reach it Sutra way or Diamond Way way.

Tonglen is a beautiful method to set that process to happening.

Meditation: Tonglen-ing Taking & Giving to a Person we Like 

(91:25) Alright, let's do our session, shall we?

We'll swiftly go through our preliminaries and then let's use a different person than before, maybe, you don't have to, still someone you're fond of, someone you love as our person to Tonglen.

We'll do the taking and then we'll add the giving in this session. So we'll do the taking a little bit faster than before, so that we can learn the giving part, okay?

So settle your body so that it's firm and upright, relaxed so that you can forget it.

When you've got it set, bring your focus of attention to the sensation of your breath at your nostrils.

Use the breath at the nostrils to tell your mind, okay, focus here, turn on your clarity, brightness of mind and turn on the intensity, fascination, curiosities, however you identify that quality of mind.

Keep adjusting until you find that sweet spot.

Then we'll begin our preliminaries. Leave the focus on the breath and instead bring to mind recollection of your reason for studying these things.

There's suffering in my world and I can't seem to do anything about it.

And it's just becoming more and more unacceptable. I need help.

When that feels strong, we again recall that precious holy being, knowing that they know what we need.

They love us. They want to help. They have been helping. Think of your refuge in them, your growing Bodhichitta. Tell them about it.

Think of their good qualities, and the emptiness of their good qualities.

And think of your own qualities and the emptiness of them, and recognize, of course we can aspire to become like them.

My emptiness is the promise that I can reach seeing myself like that. Please help me. 

Our gratitude and devotion arises. We want to offer them something exquisite.

What they like best is something from our practice. So tell them some kindness.

See how happy they are with you.

We feel so safe with them that we open our heart, admit some negativity, some seed we have, when it ripens, will hurt ourselves and others. Tell them about that one.

Feel your regret born of wisdom.

Establish your antidote and your power with strength and know that when you accomplish those two, those seeds will be damaged.

And so grow your rejoicing.

Tell them another kindness that you've seen or done.

Ask them to please stay close to continue to teach you, guide you, inspire you and dedicate just these preliminaries to that Bodhichitta opening your heart.

Then check your body to see if it needs adjustment.

If it does, now's the time. If it doesn't, you can stay put.

Once you're reset, come back to your breath.

Reset the focus, reset the brightness, reset the intensity and then bring to mind that person you wish to Tonglen.

Imagine that you know where they are and that invisible you can be there, right close to them.

Get a good idea of the problem they're having and how you perceive that they feel about it, how it's affecting them. Be as specific as you can.

You can think of them, they're another part of me, and if this part of me was having that kind of trouble, this part of me would kind of feel in this way. So maybe that's what that part of me is feeling too. Get some clear idea of their distress.

Once you have an idea of it, your invisible-you has x-ray eyes, you can look into their body. You see this black yuck flowing around in these streams and rivulets maybe. 

And you feel your compassion for them. You wish you could reach in there and take all of that black yuck away, and you think, oh, I can Tonglen.

Use the power of your concentration, focus into the middle of their chest and that causes all that black stuff that's flowing every which way to be attracted to that space in the middle of their chest, because of the power of your mind. It's like the magnet.

Use about five breaths to gather it all into that tight little ball of black.

You switch to the next step again. Feel your compassion that urges this exercise and start following your exhales, out a little further each one, matching the inhale if you can.

Use about five breaths to get that exhale into them, and hooked into the little ball of goo.

When you have it hooked. You make that determination. By the power of my compassion, I'm going to take this from them.

Switch your focus to the inhales. It starts to crank that black ball up.

Use about five breaths.

Once you have it there under your own nostrils, identify it again, all that upset stomach that they're having because of their jealousy, because of that person getting their rewards at work, because they misunderstand where it's really coming from.

I will take it from them.

Then leave the black ball there.

Look for the flame in the middle of your own chest.

Ah, there's the source of why I even see that kind of suffering in my world.

The flame of my own selfishness, my own past jealousy, my own…, driven by my own misunderstanding.

I will use that black ball of goo of their suffering to destroy my misunderstanding.

To set yourself up, you know what to do, a nice long exhale.

Then sit in that absence, breathing normally, enjoying that freedom.

Then your love stirs and so your mind again goes out to that other person.

We see them, such relief.

They don't know what happened, but that distress is gone.

They feel confident that they can deal with the situation.

They even look a little happy.

And our love grows more.

We want to give them things that would help them be happy, stay happy.

Whether they are material things that would make them happy temporarily or help their life be easier, or relationships or spiritual goals—anything, physical things, emotional things, mental things.

Be specific.

What are they longing for?

If we don't know them very well, we can't know their specifics.

If they're that other me, we can think based on their distress, what kinds of things might help them.

Come up with maybe three things that you'd like to give them through which they'd get a little happiness.

Even if we're mistaken, we're acting from our love.

Then to do so, we turn our mind to our own body.

We're invisible to that other person, but to us, we can see our body and we look inside. We see that inside there, there's this beautiful white light.

We're filled with white light.

And with our exhales, we're seeing a beam of this white light comes out on our breath, riding our breath.

And we say, wow, look what my love looks like.

And we send that breath of love out towards them, this white light going towards them.

And this time, the white light shines over all of them, and some of it goes into them with their inhale.

So get this picture in your mind. This white light from your breath spreads and pours down over all of them, but also goes inside.

So as you breathe it towards them, it goes out and pauses while you take the matching inhale.

Then you breathe it towards them again.

That white light going down, covering them, is giving them the outer things they wish for. It's as if, as they look at their life through this beautiful white light that you've surrounded them with, that they see this amazing change in their partner, or they see their car no longer breaking down on them, or they even see their favorite meal served to them.

And the inside white light is giving them the inner things they wish for.

Maybe it's a peaceful mind. Maybe it's some kind of forgiveness.

You decide, but see them feel that. Be specific.

It's like our breath of white light is Santa Claus, and it makes their wishes come true. 

See how happy they are, how amazed they are, and how much they want to share this good feeling with someone in their world.

Feel your own satisfaction with having helped them in this way.

Then bring your invisible you back to your this-you.

Feel your own happiness.

Turn your mind back to that precious holy being, your own guide.

See how happy they are with you. Think of the goodness we've done like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hand.

Feel your gratitude to that holy being.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you and inspire you.

Offer them this gemstone of goodness.

See them accept it and bless it, and they carry it with them right back into your heart. 

See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom.

It feels so good, we want to keep it forever, and so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. 

That's our usual dedication prayer. But it is also a version of an Act of Truth.

Another one says,

By the power of the blessings of The One Gone Thus,

By the power of the truth of karma and emptiness,

By the power of my pure willingness to free all beings myself,

May all that I have prayed for here

So purely come to pass.

So use those three long exhales now to share this goodness with that one person from the beginning of class, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere.

See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so.

Alright, well done. We are one step closer to perceiving our own body and mind as the body and mind of an enlightened being because of what we just did. So hooray, be happy.

Welcome back. We are the Tonglen Group. This is November 23rd, 2025.

On Thursday is United States Thanksgiving, the day you're supposed to eat so much you can't do anything else. However, if we skip this class, then we can't really get it finished properly in good time before the Kyoto teachings. So, since Mike and I are the only Thanksgiving partakers, sorry Mike, I'm having class. So join us if you want or thank goodness for the recordings. So we'll have class on Thursday regardless of Thanksgiving.

Then also, I just made my, what I hope will be the schedule for 2026 for this time slot and the morning time slot and the other things that I do. I've sent it to ACI, they'll have it, but I'll also put it as an attachment with the link for the recording of this class. So you can have a look at it if you like.

2026, do you remember your junior year in high school or college? It was like the most intense for me. Hardest classes, hardest emotional upset, hardest issues.

2026 ACI, I predict will be like our junior class. Challenging classes, hard classes, lots of classes. So I hope it doesn't scare you off, but we're going to try to pull off 11 through 13 and the Six Flavors of Emptiness Practice Module all next year. So as usual, you need to let me know that you want to do it, right? Because it needs to be requested. So just stay tuned.

So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

We'll do our opening prayers and then go into our meditation, which will be a Tonglen, very different than what we've been doing. Another version of Tonglen. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do.

[Class Opening]

Meditation: Tonglen for Beings in the Hell Realm

(10:10) So set your body further for a meditation.

And bring your attention to your breath.

Use 10 breaths to fine tune your focus, your clarity, your intensity.

Now shift your focus to thinking of our refuge in Bodhichitta, the protection that comes when our love is so big that we refuse to be unkind no matter what.

Feel how that would be protection from making the seeds that would bring about more suffering.

Then recall that precious holy being, your own personal guide there before you.

Think of their Bodhichitta, their big love that made them come to you when you thought of them.

Feel how wonderful that would be, to love so much that when someone needs you, there you are for them. And so feel your aspiration to become like this holy being.

Make them an offering. Offer your efforts to be kind to others, to love others just a little bit more each time. 

Confess to them the times when we couldn't love like that, when maybe we actually disliked someone, or was unkind to someone.

Recognize and admit to them how stupid that was. We're all just gonna die and all that will be left is the mental seeds we made through our interactions with others.

Why would I ever be unkind if I deeply understood that?

Decide on an antidote to those unkindnesses.

It could be this meditation and then decide upon a power of restraint, something you know you can achieve.

And then rejoice in the fact that we have heard about tonglen practice.

Rejoice in the fact that we have interest in trying it and that we have the circumstances to be able to do so. It's a great, great goodness.

And ask that holy being before you to bless you.

Ask them to channel the blessings from all the great Lamas into you. All the beings who have achieved Bodhichitta, both kinds, ask for the blessings that will help you help others.

And pray that the teachings and those who teach them stay in this world and spread to places where the teachings have yet to reach.

Check your body to see if it needs to shift and reposition, and return to your breath. 

Adjust focus. Adjust clarity. Adjust the intensity.

Then shift that focus, that clarity, that intensity onto my words, following the imagery, allowing it to arise in your own mind.

Imagine before you is a huge, barren plain that stretches to the horizons.

It's burning hot in a hot summer sunshine.

You are not in it. You are aware of it.

And as you focus in closer on this vast, barren plain, you see that its ground is actually made of iron.

And you see that that iron is getting hotter and hotter in that noon sun.

It's even getting red hot, glowing in its heat.

And as you gaze upon it, watching it, you see small bursts of flames shooting up here and there randomly.

Each one catches your attention.

And then more and more of them are popping up until there's more flames coming and going than bare red hot iron. 

Then you become aware of crowds of naked people running across this flaming red hot iron, somehow forced to run.

They're screaming, they're pushing against each other. Their feet and legs are burning. They're compelled to run, they get no relief.

Many, many beings. It's so horrible to witness.

And you find yourself flying above them. Your arms and legs spread wide. And your compassion becomes this huge cloud, blocking the sunshine from this entire plain.

And you, the cloud, begins to rain, cooling gentle rain down on all of the people on the plain, putting out the fire, cooling the heat, soothing their wounds.

Your rain calms them. They stop running.

Watch as the ground grows cool, green, soft grass.

You turn your body of compassion into silken clothing and flutter that clothing down upon these people, so that each one of this massive crowd has their own silken robe. 

Your compassion now turns into a huge, beautiful pavilion, protecting everyone from the sun.

They're all sitting on this cool grass together underneath this pavilion. They're so happy.

Now you come down and sit upon the grass in the middle of this massive crowd, and you see them circling around you.

They're so grateful.

And you are teaching them Tonglen, so that they can be happy forever.

Now do an Act of Truth.

If it is true that I had some small feeling that I could really do this sometime in the future, then may it come true. And I swear by this truth of what we just did, that I will someday be able to actually do it.

Then turn your mind to that precious holy being before you.

Feel your gratitude for them inspiring you, bringing you this session.

Dedicate our Act of Truth to seeing all beings reach their ultimate happiness by way of their own love and compassion and wisdom.

And then bring to your awareness yourself in this body, in this body in your room, in class.

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

(34:00) That's a very different version of Tonglen, isn't it?

But the components are still there in the sense of taking away suffering and giving happiness. We took away helping suffering by being the cloud and then the rain and then the grass, and then the silken clothing, and then the teacher, and then the what we taught them. Sweet.

How and Why Tonglen Works

This class and the next, I think, we want to talk further about how Tonglen works and how it doesn't work. We all know the punchline already. I gave it away in the first class, I think.

Doing Tonglen doesn't work. What works is the seeds planted by doing the Tonglen, and that's what works. That's why it works.

Which means it doesn't work in the moment you're doing it, but then neither does anything else.

Geshela took us through this logic, not in terms of the syllogism, but in the terms, in the way we tend to think about things, to point out again and again, how our ignorance shows up as we're trying to explain to ourselves why to do Tonglen, and what the results will be.

We can't help but impose our ignorance on that. And so the more we go through it, the more we remove that aspect of our thinking so that when we Tonglen, it can be done in a more informed or more wise way.

Seems to me for us to get into this discussion, we should start with our familiar, the pen. I know we all know it so well that we tend to think, nah, the pen again. But let's do it. You guys teach me. How's that? So everybody unmute, and somebody hold up a pen and start us off. I really mean it. Everybody unmute. I still see four people muted. There we go.

(student: What is this?)

Hold it up there.

(student: It's a pen.)

It looks like a pen, but I'm not actually sure. Can you prove to me that's a pen?

(student: Okay. This is fair. If a dog coming in my room and I like just a little bit, give him them. And what dog will do this pen? This thing?)

Speak up anybody.

(student: Bite.)

(student: Yes. And does the dog see this as pen?)

(student: No.)

I say yes.

(student: Yes? If yes, okay. Dog can write any letter to any different dog maybe.)

No, I didn't say that, because I can pick up that object and stick it in my mouth too. And it doesn't make me write with it. And it's still a pen, isn't it?

If it really is a pen, which I'm not convinced yet because I haven't seen it work. It's just a yellow stick for me.

(student: Okay. For you, maybe it's just a yellow stick, but you know you can write something by this stick.)

If it's a pen.

(student: Yes. This is a pen for you, but dog cannot do it. Dog can just chew. Chew toy.)

Why can't a dog write with it?

(student: Good question, but I never saw it before. What dog can write?)

Well, I didn't either, but I've never seen, I haven't seen every single dog with every single pen.

(student: Okay, let's go maybe next question. If we put this thing, yellow stick, on the desk and I go away, dog go away, what this thing will be?)

It's a pen, because that's what you left there.

(student: Okay, but I already not here, I don't perceive this yellow stick, and nobody in room, no dog, no people, no one in room, what is this?)

So, are you saying if there's nobody in the room, there is no pen there?

(student: I didn't say it. I just asked you, what is this?)

I'm saying when you leave a pen on the table and walk away, the pen is still there.

(student: In your memories, maybe, but actually, it's still the pen if nobody can see it?)

Why not? I saw it before, and we put it there, and then we turned around, and nobody's taken it away, and the world hasn't blown up. How come it was a pen before, and now you're saying it's not a pen, just because I've turned my back on it?

(student: Okay, if you turn back, maybe, but now, nobody in the room.)

So, are you saying when I turn my back on you, Marina, you will disappear?

(student: No, for right now, I exactly about this moment, but nobody in room, like this. If for dog, this is something what dog can display, this yellow stick. For me, I can something write down, but when everyone go away, and nobody in room, what is this will be?)

If it started out being a pen, it is still a pen. Are you trying to convince me? Convince me, convince me, right? Our own mind should be doing this.

(student: Okay, yes, in your mind, yes, sure, you will keep this thing in your mind, and you still keep, but maybe you can get back, and pen disappear, can disappear.)

So, you're saying I can make a pen appear out of thin air just by walking in the room that a pen is in?

(student: I don't know how it will be, maybe, just, but okay, but if nobody in room, it will be pen for you anyway. Okay, let's go on this point. If this is pen for you, and for dog, how you say, and you cannot, like, say, okay, every dog, you didn't see every dog, and don't know, maybe, any dog can write down something by this thing, okay. But please, take any dog, and please teach them to write down any letter by this thing.)

Well, I can't teach them to write a letter, because they don't know how to write letters, but I can teach them how to write with a pen. But all they'll be able to do is make dog things with a pen.

(student: But they're not able to do it, so this is not pen for them.)

But my baby brother couldn't write the alphabet either.

(student: Yes, it's true, maybe, for right now, they cannot do it, but you can teach them, you can show, you can do something for when after, when can write any letter and any alphabet, it's okay. But this is not the same for dog, right?)

Right, because dogs are different. But that doesn't make the pen any different. The pen's not the dog.

(student: Yes, pen not dog, it's true, but anyway, okay. So, let's think about this. So, dog not able to write down something by this yellow stick. Right? Right, okay. Any human, in theory, like, can do it, and child can, after does study to do it, and can able to write down any letters. Yes?)

Yeah.

(student: Okay, so, I have question for you. So, if I perceive, and you perceive, and any human is here can perceive this is like a yellow stick as pen, dog cannot write down any letters, and for them it just maybe any yellow stick for play. Yes?)

Yeah. So?

(student: This is thing coming from its own side, or from my or your side? This way or this way?)

Say that again. The whole, not just this way or that way. 

(student: Just from the beginning, if I perceive this is as pen and can write down any letter. So, dog cannot perceive this is the same way. Dog can just take it, maybe just chew it, or play with these things. So, these things coming from my side, or from this inside, like, own side?)

So, explain to me why, that if I can see it and use it as a pen, but the dog can't, that must mean that the writeability of the pen cannot be in it. That's not clear to me. Just because a dog can't write with it, doesn't mean the pen isn't a writing instrument.

(student: Yes, this is not writing instrument for dog. You already agreed with this.)

Right, that doesn't mean it's not a writing instrument for me.

(student: For you and for me, this is writing instrument, yes, but for dog, for example, you already agreed that it was not a writing instrument.)

Right, but I don't understand the ramification of that. Explain to me the ramification of that. If the object's identity is pen in it, from it, and what pens do is write, then what?

(student: Okay, but, yes, please, Mike, because I wanted to be brief to the same.)

You're doing great, Marina, you're doing great.

I'm insisting that that object is a pen, and that the dog chews on a pen. What's the big deal about that? They chew on sticks, they chew on dog food, they chew on all kinds of things. Right? But my mind is still insisting that that object is a pen, and it's declaring it establishes itself as a pen. My mind is seeing it and holding it in that way.

So, you know, we understand the punchline, but explain to me how it's not possible for the pen to establish itself as a pen, and me experience it one way, and the dog experience the other way. That's what I'm trying to get at. An if-then statement.

(student: If it was a pen from its own side, then it could never run out of ink, because it would always have to function as a pen.)

Right. If it was a pen from its own side, it'd be writing right now, wouldn't it?

(student: Yes, but... Okay.)

But it's not, Sarahni. There wouldn't be a pen in it like you think it is.

(student: Okay, I just thought we should first ask, and after already go to this, but I like take this way, right?)

You wouldn't do it like this for someone new, and you've only got five minutes to do the pen thing. But, you know, if we want to dig in deeper and find our own limit, where we go, yeah, I understand, but… that jerk yelling at me, right? The mind is still saying the dog chews on a pen, even though he just chews on it.

Anytime we blame anything, or anybody for anything, we are believing there's something in the pen that makes it pen. So, that's why we're going through this. 

(student: Thank you for teaching.)

Do you see?

So, now let's take it a step further, because that after we say, what if we leave it there, and nobody sees it, what's it there? And we're trained, our pavlov dog is trained to say, oh, we don't know.

And then somebody comes in the room. Who do you want to come in the room first?

I say a fly. What's there for the fly?

(student: Landing strip.)

Yeah.

What's there for the dog? Chew toy.

What's there for the human? Pen.

What if they all come in all at the same time exactly?

(student: No problem. The same thing for each person's perception.)

Exactly. The same thing for each being's perception.

How can one thing be three things at once?

(student: Because it's not coming from its own side. It's dependent on the perceiver's seeds.)

Right. So, one thing can be five things. No, only if there's five beings perceiving it.

So, one thing can be trillion things? Yeah, if trillion beings are perceiving it.

See?

So then, well, wait a minute. What makes me see it as pen, and dogs see it as chew toy? Why?

And again, our pavlov reaction is, oh, my seeds. But come on. Can you get there logically?

Help me get there logically. Why can we say your yellow stick is pen?

(student: We have some mental imprints of how we interacted with others, what we thought, what we spoke, and what we did to others. And those mental imprints, some ineffable energy, which is ripening in our mind, and as the chocolate sauce covers some object of perception. And then we are forced to perceive it the way that our mental seeds are forced us to perceive it.)

Why?

(student: Because nothing has any nature of its own, as we proved it already. And everything is dependent of the perceiver, as we proved it already. It means that interaction of subject, object, and interaction of it should be based on something, on some experience, which determines the current moment.)

So how come the dog's current moment experience can't impress upon me the same thing?

(student: Because a dog has its own mental stream of those mental seeds, of those energy, which forced him to perceive this object that way. And this perception exactly defines the subject, the holder of the object, because the subject perceives it as a pen, it defines it as a dog. And human being perceives it as a writing... Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Chew toy and human perceives it as a writing instrument, and it defines him as a human being.)

So you just said the pen makes me human.

(student: It defines you a human, yes.)

So I wasn't human until I saw the pen?

(student: Maybe some other interactions could define you as human as well.)

So some can, but some can't?

(student: No, all of them will define you, will define your kind of being the way that it is perceived by you.)

Okay, so if I understand correctly, you're saying, because I've seen myself no pens before, I will perceive myself knowing that object as a pen. Do I have that right?

(student: If you have mental seeds for perceiving that object as a pen.)

Which come from mental seeds of having perceived that object, objects like that as a pen before.

(student: You need to collect some similar experience. If this object brings you experience of writing something, like to collect some information, it means before you did something similar to others, you helped them to exchange or collect some kind of information. Then it will create some mental imprint to perceive that object in that way, if you gave it to others before.)

Well said. So you're not saying that a pen begets a pen, begets a pen, begets a pen, because otherwise there would always be pens, always will have been pens, and they would all be like pens. But I've never seen two pens the same. Have I?

Even this one is different every time I perceive it, right?

So I've come over to your side, you've taught me all this. Wow, both of you guys, all of you guys.

There's still a couple of words I want to hear come out of our mouths in the answer of how do we get from, Oh, everything is coming this way (from the object towards us). How do we get to that being the answer to everything from what's there on the table when we go away?

Claire's explanation was correct, but I'm going for two common worldly reasons for things happening, two words, to play charades. I'm not good at charades. I can't do it.

(student: Maybe if there is no perceiver in a room, we can't claim what this object is, because it's just some potential. It depends on the perceiver we can define this object, but without the perceiver, we can't tell exactly what it is over there. For each perceiver, it will be something different.)

Right. And so the experience of the perceiver…, I'll just cut to the chase.

Our experiences are results, is that right?

(student: Yes, that is ripening result.)

And every ripening result has to have a cause that came before and was similar and technically goes away when the result comes into being. Right?

So the ramification of, Oh, that object from the mind of the perceiver, the identity of that object comes into being, and we're trying to prove how we come to the conclusion that that has to be because of some way we interacted with another before. The way we can get there is by recognizing, well, that was a result. Every experience we have is a result of something.

Do we agree with that?

And does every result have to have a cause?

And the cause and the result can't arise at the same time, can they? No.

But the cause had to already be in there. And the cause has to be somehow similar. 

So if we're saying that this as a pen is my experience, my experience is a result.

Who has to make the cause for my result?

Only me. Me being the subject side of any interaction, as Claire pointed out.

So no matter what I'm experiencing in the moment that appears to be happening to me, can only be this result of some way in which this subject side created that for itself.

So this subject side (meaning herself) created this to be a pen.

Dog subject side created this to be their chew toy.

Fly subject side… Right?

Cause and effect is the underlying way that we prove to ourselves that what I thought, said, and did before made the imprint in my mind that now has come out and made this experience as the result. How else can an experience come about?

Do they come out of the blue? Do they come from something unrelated?

Can somebody else's cause bring me the result?

We go, no, but we blame others all the time.

That drunk driver, they drove into me. That jerk.

We don't say, Oh man, my seeds ripened the drunk driver driving into me. Right?

We blame the drunk driver as if they are both the cause and the result.

So, like to work out what we, what we really mean by the imprint.

Anyone have a pen? I do. Here. (Handing a pen)

And then I need pens. More pens that I know what to do with because those seeds are being added to and detracted from, right? They grow into more than what we just saw ourselves do.

But it's cause and effect. Worldly cause and effect? No.

Worldly cause and effect is, I know it's a pen cause my mother taught it was a pen, and I've used pens and they've always worked. And sometimes I'm wrong, but most of the time I'm right.

And when this one runs out of ink, I'll go buy another one.

(65:52) Old worldview believes all that.

New worldview, I don't need to do that. I just need to give pens away.

But wait, if I give all my pens away, when I need a pen, I'm not going to have any.

But isn't giving my pens away the ramification of, if this is true everything I have, I should give away.

But wait, I need pens for class. So what's happening in that case?

(student: There was a point where you were uncertain about giving resources to someone and now you're confused over whether you should give the pen away or use it for yourself.)

Very nice. Very nice. And could there really ever be a time period then theoretically, where you've given all your pens away, and then you need something to write with that you could be without it?

Technically not, right? Even if there's no pen within 20 feet of you and you needed to write something down, some miracle would happen and somebody would stick something in your hand, right?

Theoretically, if we've really given, given, given, given, and this is our mode—is share, share, share, share, share. It's coming back at us so fast that we would reach a place where no matter how fast you share, there would be more to share. And it won't always be pens for pens as Claire described. It might be writing opportunities or communicative opportunities that look like this now, but there'll be someday when we don't use these things at all. I don't know what it'll be like. Because we didn't know this (pen) 200 years ago, right? They were writing with some kind of thing they pressed into clay a thousand years ago. Our cause and effect relationships do shift, but their basic, what would we say, basic qualities and characteristics can't shift in the sense that you can't see yourself doing something unkind and not as a result experience something that you experience as unkind. The first law of karma. Karma is definite.

It's not a law. It's an explanation of this cause and effect as Claire described.

The ramification of everything we experience as a result of something we've perceived ourselves doing towards another.

One ramification is, any kindness has to come back as pleasant. Any unkindness has to come back as unpleasant.

Do you see why? Because of the imprint. That's the only place unkindness comes from is the result of some past unkindness. And there's all those ramifications of, what if I intended to be kind and it came out unkind from their side?

What if I intended to be unkind and it came out kind?

Because there's our side and there's their side happening at the same time.

You had something, Claire?

(student: Yeah, I had exactly this question. If we think that we are doing some kindness, but it hurts other person as they perceive it, what kind of seeds does it plant?)

Right. So think through what's going on. We are doing the kindness. We're planting our seeds. We are having the experience of doing the kindness that is a ripening result. But we are doing something towards another, we are recording that we are planting seeds. How we see them respond, how we see our effect upon them, that's results. That's our results.

Can what we did right now ripen into the result in the next moment?

No, it takes time. So whatever we see, what we've just done affecting them, what we're perceiving is a reflection of how we have reacted to somebody else's action towards us in the past.

Have we ever reacted badly to somebody who was trying to be kind in some way? 

Probably. If I can experience that, then not probably, absolutely—whether I can remember doing it or not. Because we don't really know the intention of the other person when they do stuff. But we do know, what I think is kindness and what I think is not kindness. We can kind of say, I think all humans would agree, somebody trying to kill me is unpleasant. Somebody trying to protect my life, but in the end, they can't hang on long enough and I fall anyway.

They got the goodness of trying and their experience that they couldn't, and I fall and I get hurt. They also have that ripening result. But their effort to try is what they get planted.

My seeds ripening to see myself try to help, but I can't and they fall. It's like, ah, shoot. It doesn't negate the goodness of trying. It reflects the fact that in the past kindness, but unkindness seem to be the result. But they can't be.

So a situation like that, we're being kind and they just stay nasty, would be, gosh, I want to be really, really more careful in my response to other people, because maybe even the ones that seem to be being nasty, so I'm nasty back, maybe in their minds, they're actually trying to be kind. Because maybe their usual nastiness is 10 times worse, and they're being really nice by being only this nasty. Do you see? We don't know.

So like what we perceive ourselves thinking, doing, saying is how we plant, how we make the causes. Whatever we are experiencing is results.

Whatever we see the other person seem to experience as a result of us is also our result. And whatever they're experiencing is their result.

We can't affect their result, but we use their result to interact with them further.

They get angrier. Okay. I tried to be kind. I'm out of here.

Or we try again. I'm so sorry. I upset you. How can I help you?

They get madder? Maybe try three times, and then say, thank you, I just burned off a lot of my unreasonableness. Time out. I'm going to go to the bathroom so we can stop it.

(81:00) So thank you for helping me understand the pen better, everyone. You did a good job. This understanding of cause and effect or causes and results, meaning karma and its consequences, instead of worldly causes and results, or let's say underneath worldly causes and results, is the worldview that is unique to Buddhism.

Through it, we can explain how and technically why the world exists, why things work in the way that they do, and why they don't work in the way that they don't sometimes, why things happen to us in the way that they do.

It will explain everything when we can devolve it back down, deconstruct, Lama Christie uses that word.

Down to results out of causes, causes that had to be made by this subject side. Because no other subject side perceives it the way I perceive it.

When we don't understand our Buddhist philosophy at this level, that Buddhist philosophy will help us be more kind. But in the end, it won't really help us get to that place where we are stopping perpetuating the mistake that is the karmic cause of all that suffering that we want to stop.

It really takes this deep understanding of the cause and effect at this level, and how that then shows us that each aspect of each of those three spheres of experience cannot have their identities and qualities in them, from them, the way we are forced to perceive them. That's the emptiness.

So we didn't ever get to the part of the pen thing to point out: And that's the no self nature of the pen. Marina, I didn't let you go there. But when we can conclude, yes, I see a pen, and yes, the dog sees chew toy, and that shows me the fact that the object itself cannot be declaring itself with an identity, or both me and the dog would have to see it exactly the same way, experience it exactly the same way, and we don't. That's the no self nature of the object of experience, the pen.

Same is true for the subject of the experience, the me, and the interaction between us. So the writing with the pen has its own fact that it has no nature of its own.

We've done that too. Does the ink ever touch the paper? Like no.

As we are wanting to investigate how Tonglen works and how it doesn't work, and so why to do it, we want to take this discussion that we just had, and apply it to this idea of, I see suffering in my world, I'm so limited in what I can do, but I'm breathing, so I can always Tonglen, and I'll pretend that I can suck their pain and all its seeds into me. I can pretend that I'll use it to damage my own ignorance and similar seeds to see more, and oh, that'll feel so great. And then I will pretend that I can give them any kind of happiness, worldly or whatever.

It's like, well, it's all pretend. Yes, it's nice. And it might be fun to do it. But come on. It can't really do anything, can it?

Well, wait a minute. Like we have to do that. What do you mean by can or can't? And what do you mean by do it? What do you mean by help them? What do you mean by take their suffering?

If we're thinking by doing Tonglen on their broken rib cage, I have a friend who's got multiple, multiple fractures in the ribs, not just one break, but two. So they've got these pieces of rib that are doing this. It's like it takes them so long to heal up, because they don't stay put. 

Can I just Tonglen my friend and expect that tomorrow he'll call up and say, wow, my ribs are healed. It's like, why not? Why can't I expect that?

Give me one reason why I can't expect that my Tonglen tonight should ripen as his healed ribs tomorrow. Or let's not even go there.

Say I do Tonglen at the end of class and I expect him to call me up 10 minutes later. Thank you so much. My ribs are healed.

How come? Could that happen?

Yes.

If it happened, did my Tonglen 10 minutes ago cause his healed ribs 10 minutes later?

Careful. You could say yes. Why could I say yes that my Tonglen in this moment brought about the result in the next moment?

(student: It's just because I haven't perceived my karma to ripen that quickly doesn't mean that you haven't perfected that method.)

Yeah, that's a good one. I would say, because probably I've Tonglen before, right? 

Maybe I've been working on that person's fractured ribs for, oh, maybe 12 weeks, and my final Tonglen pushed my seeds over the edge and wow, the last one did the job. But it was the accumulation of all of them that would have done it.

But then you're going to catch me and say, well, you know, in 12 weeks, rib cage heal, whether somebody Tonglen or not. So you can't say it was your Tonglen doing it, because they were going to heal anyway.

But again, it's like, that's what we see worldly. But do we know that for sure while we're in the waiting period for his ribs to heal? If anybody's ribs have healed in 10 weeks, then there's nothing special about 12 weeks. And if anybody's ribs have ever taken 15 weeks, then there's nothing special about 12 weeks, right?

So you can't say, oh, ribs just heal up in 12 weeks, so no need to do anything.

When I Tonglen, my friend and their seeds for broken ribs, and I suck them in and I destroy them—am I in fact, changing that person's pool of seeds in their own mind?

No. No? Well, then why should I bother? Because if I don't change their seeds, how are they going to experience a different result?

(student: You can perceive just your result.)

So I do Tonglen so that I change my seeds so I don't see him suffering anymore. But I can't change his seeds. So maybe I don't see him suffering anymore because I lose contact and they never call me again. And I just never know. Is that what my Tonglen‘s supposed to do? Make it so I lose contact with anybody?

Because that would mean my seeds are not ripening them having pain anymore.

No. If anything, I want my connection to be stronger, more.

If I could help them…, I lost my train of thought.

If my doing Tonglen is only so that I can affect my seeds, so that I can feel better about their pain in their ribcage, is that why I do Tonglen? Just to help me feel better? 

No, because technically that doesn't work either.

If we're doing Tonglen in the moment, and we feel better the next moment, is that a result of the Tonglen that we've done in the moment before?

No, right? There's not time for that seed that I just planted to ripen into this result. 

Well, then wait a minute. Why bother to Tonglen at all? You tell me.

(student: It can trigger other good seeds, which were planted before. So like if we have, it's like after the moment, those Tonglen seed could trigger those goodness in us to ripen faster.)

Yeah, yeah. So we really can feel better after Tonglen-ing, because other seeds are ripening because of the power that our current planting added to them. Nice.

With that logic, it could be the case where we could do Tonglen on somebody, and we hear from them very shortly thereafter that they're feeling better. Because we have the seeds of having tried to help give someone some relief of their pain. Those seeds are growing, and they ripen into the experience, oh my gosh, I'm feeling so much better.

Not the Tonglen in the moment, but the goodness from protecting life or helping others feel better, whatever it is the seeds are, that are ripening. Which we technically don't know until we're omniscient. We can't connect this actual, what I did to this experience, but we can use the correlations, and we can make these educated assumptions about this behavior, and that result, and that result, and this behavior. 

We can use it with enough educated self-interest, His Holiness calls it, to choose our interactions with others in ways that whatever seeds are planted, we know that there'll be a pleasant experience in the future in some similar way.

We can stop trying to create really specific this fellow I want to fall in love with. He needs to have blue eyes and blonde hair. If that's what we're trying to create, and we bump into the black haired guy, who's a little bit short and pudgy, we don't give ourselves the opportunity to fall in love, and then we just miss out, because we had this vision, it has to look just like this—as opposed to, plant the seeds, let them blossom, and then enjoy what blossoms.

It can be hard, because we know that the more specifically we envision what it is we want to plant, the more powerfully we plant. But when we envision clearly, we're envisioning clearly what it is we want to help somebody else get.

So you help your friend find the blonde, so that you can bump into anybody and fall in love with them. I don't mean just anybody, but they don't have to be what you set up. 

Do you get it?

It's like, yes, we start with a clear picture of what we want, so that we can plant seeds, sweetly, but then forget the clear picture. Because it's going to be bigger and better. If we hold on to the little picture, we're missing out.

Same sort of for Tonglen-ing. We might be saying, oh, my friend, they have a head cold, I'll Tonglen their head cold, may they never have head colds again.

But deeper down, they're not getting along with their spouse, and we don't Tonglen they're not getting along with their spouse. 

So although we help them not get head colds, they're still suffering worse from their spouse.

I'm just making a silly example that don't limit our Tonglen either.

We take from them some specific suffering that we can see, so that we can specifically do some damage. But think of it as ‚this and all similar seeds‘. And we give them this happiness and all kinds of wisdom behind it. So that our Tonglen seeds that we're planting in our mind, can grow into Bodhichitta—remember, that's why we're doing Tonglen, is to grow our Bodhichitta. That this one, and the direct perception of emptiness Bodhichitta.

We would want to include that in our Tonglen-ing, wouldn't we?

May I take all their current anger and seeds for more, and why not take their misunderstanding the world at the same time, and destroy mine.

Then, as I'm giving them peacefulness, and nice dreams at night, and their new car, I'm also going to give them the direct perception of emptiness and Bodhichitta in their heart. Why not?

As we do it, we think ‚I can't give them that‘.

Right. I can't give them healed ribs either.

Technically, I can't even give them a nice dinner. Except that their seeds ripen, receiving a nice dinner.

So, to say all Tonglen is just fantasy, so is thinking making them a nice dinner that I feed to them that they enjoy? That's fantasy too.

No, that's real.

No, it's no more real. It's seeds ripening projections as real, versus seeds ripening projections as fantasy. They're both the same stuff. Seeds ripening mental images, planting seeds in our mind in order to bring every being to loving compassion.

Which one's more limiting?

Mental seeds of a physical world interaction are more limiting than mental seeds that are mental. We call it imaginary. Call them mental seeds.

We've learned mental seeds are powerful seeds, because they motivate what we do and say in our physical world that's more limited.

So our Tonglen practice, we can get the sense that it's actually more effective than anything we can do in our physical world.

It does not mean don't help people in physical ways that we can when we can motivated by our Bodhichitta. But even as we're doing that, we can be Tonglen-ing.

I can only right now, check your blood pressure and give you more to drink with a little salt in it to help you feel better. But as I'm doing that, I can be taking the seeds for not protecting life that they're ripening by not feeling well, and give them some love, compassion, some care.

It helps what I'm doing, plant more powerful seeds in my own mind.

Might they respond even better to the water and salt I give them?

Maybe, maybe not. Right? Depends on how I guess how much Tonglen I've done before to make my Tonglen more powerful.

But you see, it's because we're dealing with seed planting as we are Tonglen-ing, not by what we're doing by Tonglen-ing. It's by what we're seed planting by doing Tonglen-ing. It's really an important distinction.

Because as we're understanding about seeds better and better, when we say to ourselves, I'm Tonglen-ing to plant the seeds in my mind to see this person get better, it will feel more real, more powerful than saying, I'm Tonglen-ing to do something for them.

What's the difference?

When I know that Tonglen doesn't…, you can't suck somebody's pain out of them, because that's their karma. I can't change their karma.

But the seeds that I plant by pretending I can, those are going to grow. They're going to grow into the perception of me able to help them in that deep and ultimate way. 

Does it grow into me Buddha able to take your karma away?

No, because we're still in the same subject side plants the seed, and even as Buddha, we don't become somebody else's subject side.

Nobody can become your subject side. You cannot become somebody else's subject side.

Your subject side is your subject side. It's never the same two moments in a row. But it's never not your subject side. That's what subject means. Awareness.

(104:08) To understand that physical actions don't work in the way we believe they do, and fantasy actions don't work. We think they don't work at all, but they don't work in the way we don't think they do. They don't work in the way we think they do.

Which is why both of them can seem to work.

It seems like you put your hand on the doorknob, turn it, pull, and the door opens.

It seems like do Tonglen on somebody, and they don't feel better right away.

It's actually showing us the same process.

What we do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next.

What we did in the past is ripening as our current experience.

How we respond to the current experience, plant seeds in our mind for a future current experience.

When we understand that, and we see any kind of distress in the world, what would we want to do?

To see distress is a ripening result. My karma.

The seeds I can plant maybe at least would be to wish that I could stop it. And maybe that's even actually the highest thought to have.

We can look at somebody and, oh, they're limping. Their back must hurt. I'm sorry about that.

Or we can say, oh, they're limping. Their back must hurt. Gosh, I wish I could do something.

Or we could say their back must hurt. I'm going to go say hello. Can I help you? Can I give you Tylenol? They're probably going to say, no thanks.

Or I can Tonglen.

Doesn't Tonglen seem like we're not doing anything?

But we heard earlier that to Tonglen someone is a more powerful way to help them than any worldly thing we could try to do. Because the reason we Tonglen is that we recognize, oh my gosh, these are my seeds ripening. I want to do something to plant seeds intentionally so that I can stop the perpetuation of the suffering in my world. And I'm going to use the pain I see in them as an opportunity to suck it out of the world, use it to burn off my own ignorance that caused it in the first place. And give them any happiness from any goodness I've ever done before. I'm going to see myself pouring that onto them.

All done in my mind and on my breath. Because it's going to have this subtle effect in our subtle body as well.

So to Tonglen someone that we see in distress means at some level we are understanding emptiness and dependent origination enough to want to act in a circumstance in which there's just nothing else we can really do.

We can always Tonglen.

If we can act in some way worldly, of course do so. 

(108:24) Geshela had gone into, why is it true that we cannot take anybody's karma away. And I know we've talked about that already.

The logic goes like this:

How do we know that nobody can take my karma?

We know it because I still have pain.

But why is that like the proof that nobody can take my karma?

(student: Because if so a Buddha already take out all our suffering.)

Why? What is it about Buddha?

(student: Buddha have great compassion and he wants to help every living being and he don't like what we have suffering and definitely he wants to take out all suffering of all living being.)

Yes. So if he could have, he would have. Right?

Does that leave us a little less enamored in Buddha and becoming Buddha? I want to stop all this suffering in the world. I'm going to become a Buddha and I still won't be able to do it.

(student: Buddha can help us through teaching. We should do it and help, different way.)

Exactly. Exactly. How does a Buddha help? By teaching. Right. Formal teachings—thank you for the opportunity. I'm not saying I'm Buddha. But Buddhas will teach formally, but they also teach by example, showing by example.

But wait, I don't see a Buddha in my world. How can a Buddha teach me by example?

Just because I don't see one, does that mean they're not here with me?

(student: They can emanate in some form that can help us to cultivate compassion, love and wisdom. And this form is an emanation and our seeds are allowing us to perceive it that way.)

Exactly. Exactly.

So maybe that person who's apparently having back pain, maybe that's Buddha appearing as a person with back pain. And so they have back pain in order to help me grow my compassion and my wisdom to Tonglen them.

Does that mean Buddha has back pain sometimes?

No, impossible.

So who is that guy with the back pain? Is it my friend, Lenny, or is it Buddha?

(student: Depending on your seeds, if you have seeds already to perceive as Buddha or just think maybe this is Buddha.)

Good. So if I go, oh, my friend Lenny, really, he's Buddha. Why would I bother to Tonglen? Buddha can't suffer.

(student: But you perceive pain, so you have seeds and you need to do Tonglen for future you.)

Exactly. And what if, oh, you know, they say, don't you don't Tonglen your Lama because it means you don't believe they're Buddha. But wait, now I'm stuck. I'm seeing my friend Lenny, really he's Buddha. Can I Tonglen my friend Lenny manifestation of Buddha and be Tonglen-ing a more powerful karmic object so my Tonglen seeds are stronger?

(student: I'm not sure what is good because you already prove yourself what this is Buddha. So if you do Tonglen, so you already prove what he's not Buddha.)

It seems that way. But then why wouldn't that be the same case for if I was giving flowers to my Aunt Mary or flowers to a Buddha? They say, giving flowers to a Buddha is more powerful than giving flowers to Aunt Mary. How's that any different than doing Tonglen on my friend manifesting back pain who I've decided is Buddha manifesting as a guy with back pain to give me an opportunity to Tonglen?

(student: Okay, you can give any flowers, you can give something good things. But if you perceive any pain, and you already know that this is Buddha, you should do for you, maybe this Tonglen for take out the seeds. Because if you do Tonglen and just take out pain from Buddha, it's impossible. You already prove yourself.)

There's no seeds to take away. Right. There's no pain to take away.

Yeah, good point.

So why do Tonglen?

To see ourselves using our breath to take away the pain and seeds for more pain in any circumstance where we see pain and use it to destroy our own misunderstanding of where pain comes from.

Then use the freedom from that misunderstanding, which will just be a glimmer to use our love, our compassion—our compassion, we already did. We use our love to give that other happiness, any kind of happiness, worldly all the way up to ultimate.

Who are we benefiting?

(student: Anyway, if we do it for… doesn't matter for whom we benefit to ourself.)

Right. We benefit ourself. Tonglen is the most selfish thing you could ever do.

(student: Most altruistic because it creates us as being who can help each and every living being.)

Right. If we're destroying our seeds to see suffering, aren't we making a world with less suffering?…that we see.

But to say that implies that there's a world out there beyond the world of my experience. Oh, we're pushing up against a worldview edge here.

Does that mean me and my world is the only world that really exists? And you're all just part of it. But ultimately, it'll just be me?

No, that‘s not right.

(student: …you can take your example and open their heart and grow and everyone they say the same way can take from different person. This is the same good example. And what can be better?)

Right. So we're all making these pure worlds that has all these beings in them, who have become beings of pure world. It like gets beyond language. But it's like we all all our pure worlds overlap, just as all our impure worlds overlap now. Right?

Our worlds are unique to each of us, including the us. And you are all in mine. And I appear to be in yours. There, I don't know, like, bubbles interacting or however, right? I come back to this because I just love that. Seems to convey the idea.

We really are all in this together. And so yes, it's only my seeds that I'm affecting with Tonglen. But I'm doing it for everybody's paradise.

If I were Tonglen-ing only for myself, I'm not Tonglen-ing. It won't plant the seeds for Bodhichitta—if I Tonglen so that I can reach Nirvana.

Or if we're thinking of our Buddhahood in some wrong way and we're saying, I'm Tonglen-ing to reach a Buddha, but we're thinking of our Buddha in this really selfish, like, I'm going to be all blissed out and don't have to do anything after that. Right?

It's like, no, Tonglen is not going to work. It's not going to work either way—worldly or ultimately.

The reason we Tonglen is because we see suffering in others.

How does it change the suffering in others? It changes our seeds.

So yes, it affects only us. But in life, that's all we ever do, is affect our own seeds.

So it's like, whoa, our own selfishness is the problem. But in the end, all we ever do is affect our own mind. We're just misunderstanding it so badly.

When we can clear away the self-existent me, there's nothing that actually disappears because there was no such thing since forever.

There was only the belief in it.

Good place to stop.

[Dedication]

Alrighty, thank you very much. Thanks for helping me with class. Yeah, that was fun.

Welcome back. We are Tonglen Group. It's November 27, 2025. I think this is our 7th class. Next class is our final one for this module, and then for this group until January. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening'

Meditation: Tonglen-ing a Neutral Person

(6:55) We'll start class with our Tonglen meditation this time.

This time we'll use a person who is neutral, towards whom we feel neutral. Meaning somebody that you see or know of in some way, but we really don't know enough about them to either like them or dislike them. So we're growing our Bodhichitta maybe we have the kind of heart that it's like, well, I don't really feel neutral towards anybody anymore. If I just think a little bit about my motivation, it's like I can't be neutral. But we can probably remember back when there was a certain bus driver that there's that same bus driver or the store clerk. Oh, that's that one again. So that we have a visual recognition of some kind, but haven't had any interaction with them other than the brief, whatever task at hand. So we really don't have either a—Wow, hi, how are you? Nice to see you again—fondness for them. Nor do we have a—Oh my gosh. I don't want to give them a chance to get at me.

So we want somebody neutral, but a little bit familiar.

Think of somebody if you can.

Got somebody? 

Then let's settle our bodies in as we usually do. Get your body parked so it will stay still and you can forget it.

Then bring your focus of attention to your breath at your nostrils. Watching those sensations with focus, clarity, intensity, use 10 breaths to fine tune that quality of attention as best you can.

Now we leave that object to start our preliminaries.

Recall your refuge, your refuge in understanding emptiness so that we choose our interactions with others more carefully.

Think of how that is protection.

Next revisit Bodhichitta. We can think, it seems like the people in my world, they take entertainment in things that aren't so wholesome.

It seems like divisiveness is getting stronger and worse.

It seems like misunderstanding where good things come from, where happiness comes from, is getting worse and worse.

And yet we understand that it's so sad, it's so unnecessary. It's simply a result of this big mistake of thinking things have their own natures.

And until we deeply understand, we keep trying to get the goodnesses and happiness we want by doing things that will only perpetuate not getting those, and we don't understand. 

Feel your glimpse into the understanding that shows what a mistake those beliefs are. And open your heart to those who aren't even aware that they're making any kind of mistake.

Then recall that beautiful holy being you brought to you before. See them there.

How beautiful, how happy, how radiant, how wise and knowing.

Think of their good qualities. Think of the kindnesses they must have seen themselves think, say, and do to develop those good qualities that they see in themselves.

Admire them. Aspire to become like them.

And feel your gratitude for how they've taught and shown us so far, shown us what's possible.

Make some sign of respect to them. Classically, it's a prostration. But anyway, you'd like to show what they mean to you to them. You do.

Next, make them an offering out of our gratitude for how they've helped. But also out of a request for them to continue to guide us.

Maybe today make them an offering of your growing Tonglen practice, your growing understanding of why and how it can work.

And see them so happy with you, eager to see you see yourself doing more Tonglen.

Then do a purification, some specific seeds that you wish to clean out to damage. 

Recall your refuge, your regret, your remedy and your restraint in whatever order works for you.

And fill that space with rejoicing.

Tell them of another of your own goodnesses and something another has done. Maybe even some positive shift in our greater outer world that we're seeing, recognizing kindness seeds we already have and watering them with enjoying the recall and offering them to this holy being.

Next, ask them to continue to inspire you, and teach you, and guide you—formally and even informally by way of helping you recognize their teachings through other beings and the way they interact with us.

Ask our holy one to please stay close.

Ask them to bless us with the long lives of our Dharma family, the flourishing of our Dharma centers, the spreading of the holy Dharma.

And then dedicate what we've done just so far to deepening realizations of Bodhichitta as a result of our Tonglen practices.

Then check on your body to see if it needs adjustment.

Settle it back in. Bring your attention back to your breath to trigger the going inside. 

Once turned to the meditating mind, bring to that mind this neutral person, think of the circumstance that you know them in.

And imagine that you can be there with them invisibly, and that all the other stuff that's going on for them in this time period, just they're in a little altered reality right now.

So if they're the store clerk, you're there with them, but suddenly there are no other customers. And you focus upon them, paying closer attention to them than we ordinarily would.

Trying to see, are they in some kind of difficulty or distress that I've just never noticed before?

Maybe that store clerk, she's at the end of her eight hour shift, she's been on her feet all day. Probably she's tired. Maybe she's getting a little short tempered as a result of being tired. And that's stressful.

Maybe we noticed some kind of habit they have that we recognize as a habit that they're doing, trying to relieve some kind of stress, but in fact, it's just harming them. Because it subtly or obviously harms someone else.

Pretend you're a little bit psychic.

When some kind of story becomes clear about some difficulty they are having, identify those details so that we can be clear in what we will take from them, what kind of karma they are ripening now, and the ones they probably have for similar future problems.

When you get it identified, and your x-ray vision looks inside, you see that black yuck swirling around inside them.

And by the power of your concentration, you draw all of that black yuck in towards the middle of their chest to form up that little black ball. It is that distress they're feeling.

It has within it the karmic seeds for more of that distress, more of the misunderstanding that makes the distress

Find all of that negativity within them.

When you have it in the tight little ball, make your determination to take it from them using your breath.

Use those 10 breaths for your exhale to reach in and hook into the black ball.

Then 10 more breaths to pull, 10 more inhales to pull that black ball towards yourself, keeping clear on what it is that you're taking from them, and drawing towards yourself.

So start your 10 out breaths now.

When you have it hooked, determine to pull it out of them, and inhale.

Remember what it is.

When you have the black ball hovering under your own nostrils, remind yourself, if I can see someone with this kind of distress, I have seeds for it too.

And the way I planted those seeds for it included my misunderstanding of where happiness comes from, my belief in self-existence that makes my belief in my own identity and qualities become selfishness.

I will use this taking their suffering away to destroy my very seeds for it, and my ignorance that made me create it.

So get a sense of eagerness.

See that little red flame in the middle of your own chest, the flame of our self-cherishing, self-grasping. And recall that when that black ball and that flame touch, they will both be instantly obliterated in a flash of light, with a wisp of smoke, and we can sink into their absence.

Get that all set up in your mind.

And when you're ready, you do the long exhale, the long inhale. And when they're all gone, go right back to breathing. So whenever you're ready.

Enjoy those seeds are gone.

Then turn your attention to that other person again.

See them also feeling such relief, that they have a peacefulness they didn't have before, a contentment.

Enjoy them having this relief.

And check in. How do you feel about them now? Still so neutral?

Then think to yourself, how wonderful it would be if I could also give them things that would help them be happier, help their life be easier.

We'll try. And so we follow our outbreaths again.

This time that breath looks like that beautiful, shining white light.

It goes towards them, a little bit at a time, pushing our exhale a little bit longer until it's reaching that person.

And as it reaches, it widens and spreads and flows down over the outside of them. 

Going a little further with each exhale, and some gets drawn in on their inhale, going to the inside of their body, shining its light inside there.

On this breath, we are giving them things that are the opposite of what it was we took away from them.

So maybe we took away their hurting feet, and so what we give them is the most comfortable pair of shoes. So all day, they will feel like they're walking on clouds. 

Maybe what we took from them was their exasperation with their customers, and so what we give them is customers that are polite, and kind, and helpful, so that this person can feel happy with the job they do, feel that they're helping people instead of just one constant struggle.

Make a beautiful story of what your white light breath forms into, as it surrounds them and goes inside them.

We can even give them the understanding of where their ongoing happiness actually comes from.

Suddenly, perhaps they are aware of past overworking others, or expecting too much of others.

They have this keen awareness that their own behaviors create the circumstances for their future experiences.

Give them growing their own four steps practice.

Give them having some experience that shows them, oh my gosh, this really works. 

Give them that deep awareness of how and why of things.

Give them a deep awareness of what it is to love and be loved, and feel how good it is to have given them this gift.

Enjoy that you did so, and then leave them where they are.

Bring your attention back to your this you in this body.

Recall that precious holy being, your own personal guide, helping you thank them, and dedicate this session to the awakening of your own Bodhichitta through the power of these sessions.

And then, when you're ready, wiggle your fingers, your toes, move your body.

When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.

Growing Bodhichitta

(48:12) So we tend to think a neutral person, I don't know what they're feeling. But we can always put ourselves in their shoes and imagine what it would be like. Just from the expression on their face, or what kind of work they do.

Do we have to be absolutely accurate to their own personal experience? No.

Because can we be accurate to their own personal experience? No.

We can ask them, what's upsetting you the most? We might want to do that then, if we realize, I mean, this is a real person we were talking about. And now I realize I really don't know them well enough to know how to help what's going on. So maybe I might want to ask them. Not like, what's going on in your life that I can help with? But Hi, how are you? How's your day going? Just a 30 second conversation, you'll know a little bit more about them.

And then next time, a little bit more. They'll probably do the same to you, and all of a sudden, they're knowing you a little bit better. And all of a sudden, they're not neutral anymore.

I mean, it could go either way. The information you gain from them may be e-gads, or it may be, Wow. Who knows?

But it doesn't matter for our Tonglen practice, for our growing our Bodhichitta, whether we like them or don't like them, or are neutral towards them. Our Bodhichitta, our growing Bodhichitta says, they're suffering. So it doesn't matter my relationship with them. They're suffering.

And yes, someone who's who I really don't like, or I'm even afraid of, I can't get close to them. I'm too scared of them. They really are dangerous. But I can Tonglen them, because what I'm doing is then working on my own seeds for this relationship I have with them.

So our growing Bodhichitta does not mean we have to put ourselves and keep ourselves in harm's way of those beings that we don't like or that we are fearful of. 

But to have that in our life, gives us an object of Tonglen practice.

It is very safe to do on our meditation cushion. We'll still have mental afflictions about it, but all the better. So that we can actually work on those difficult relationship from our meditation cushion, and keep at it until we see a shift in our own disposition related to that other person.

We've heard Geshehla say you have trouble with somebody at work, be kind to them, and they will disappear. They'll either move away, or you'll move away, or they'll become your best friend. Either way, the ugly person, the mean person disappears, even if the person person stays there.

Tonglen can be such an amazing tool, because it's safe to do on our meditation cushion, when it's not safe to do in what we're calling real life, which you know that's debatable, which is more real. So we'll talk about that more in a little bit.

From our classes so far about Tonglen, where does Tonglen fit in our Lam Rim?

It's the first thing our Lama tells us to do, right?

No. The first thing they tell us to do is, get the essence of your life.

Well, how do I do that? Figure out your own impermanence. You could be dead four minutes from now. Does that get you motivated? Oh, well, what happens when I die? Probably this. Egads, who can help? Refuge.

We could stay in that practice loop, get the essence of my life, my own impermanence, refuge.

As our renunciation gets stronger and stronger and stronger, and our practice could even be such that we are purifying and making merit such that we see emptiness directly and go on to reach Nirvana. Woohoo, we're done, right?

If that was our ultimate goal, yeah.

(student: You need to care about others.)

Yeah, but what about your mom, you know? What about, you're all unafflicted, but what about everybody else?

So somewhere along that cycle of leisure and fortune, my own impermanence and refuge, I would say we wake up to saying, yeah, but what about everybody else? They say, no, not everybody wakes up like that. But I don't know, it would make a good debate.

Regardless of whether you can or can't, we're in this class, in this lineage, which is a Mahayana lineage. Which means it has occurred to us, I'm suffering, other people are suffering. Maybe how it's occurred to us is others are suffering way more than me. And when I recognize that this suffering has an actual cause, and it has a cessation, because you could stop the causes, and that there's actually a method to do it, it's like, oh my gosh, it's not enough for me to just do it for myself. I want to help everybody, but most of them don't appear to be interested.

So we're growing this thing called Bodhichitta in this part of the Lam Rim where we're growing our bigger capacity.

From lesser capacity to greater capacity is where we're taught Tonglen.

We're trying to grow our Bodhichitta.

Which Bodhichitta? Both Bodhichittas, right?

We want to grow our love and concern, love and compassion for other beings, because their suffering is as unacceptable to us as our own. And we're only going to have the thought to do that because we've been taught about the no self nature of that suffering. And we have the seeds to hear that and go, oh, there's some clue in there. There's some key. I know there's more. I want to know more.

The term Bodhichitta in this lineage where terms are so precise, here's one that when they use the term Bodhichitta, you can't quite be sure which one they're talking about. The heart opening, see the face of every being and love them Bodhichitta, or the experience emptiness directly Bodhichitta. They're both Bodhichitta.

Yet the word means bodhi, mind move, right? Buddhahood, mind move. I want to be Buddha, total Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings—is what we've learned to pack that word with.

And then it's like, well, here it is in its appearance form. And here it is in its true nature. The direct perception of emptiness is its true nature. And it's appearing nature is this glimpse of all sentient beings.

So Tonglen, which one's it helping us grow? It's growing both of them.

We don't have the people, we have a little bit in the Tonglen when we destroy the negative and poof goes our ignorance. If we could penetrate into that absence of self-existence, we could maybe slide through the door to direct perception of emptiness, if we were doing our Tonglen with a meditative concentration of Shamata, maybe.

So even if it's not happening there, we're planting seeds for it to spend that little bit of time after the blink out of everybody's suffering and our red flame for this absence, sheer absence.

But don't just think, oh, my ignorance is gone. Think, oh, my belief in the self-existence of my ignorance is gone. Because technically, there was no self-existent ignorance there to begin with.

So when we get rid of the misunderstanding about it, it is just gone. Because ignorance is the belief in self-existence. It's not something else.

So to have the thought, somebody in my world is suffering, I'll pretend that I can take their pain and I'll pretend that I understand well enough that it's really my seeds ripening anyway so I can use it to destroy those seeds that made me make those seeds to begin with, my ignorance and selfishness. And I'll poof it all out.

And then I'll imagine that I could, in fact, give them all kinds of happiness, and I'll see myself doing it. So we're growing our compassion, because now we can witness somebody's suffering. And we can do something about it.

Does it change their suffering in the moment?

Yeah, hard, right? It's like, probably not. Could it? Yes. But probably not.

Nothing we do in the moment is the actual cause of what happens in the next moment. Not Tonglen, not opening the doorknob to open the door. Like what we do in our worldly life, what we do is not the cause of what happens next. So we tend to think, oh, Tonglen is just fantasy. It's just pretend. And we tend to discount its power. But it doesn't not work in the same way that any worldly thing we do doesn't not work. Did that come out right? It seems like we grab the door, turn the knob, pull the door and it opens, it seems like that's cause and effect.

It is, and it isn't.

It is worldly cause and effect because our seeds are ripening grab, turn, pull, door open. That's the seed ripening.

How do we know? Because sometimes we do it and it doesn't work. And our mind goes, well, it doesn't work because the lock is broken, or it doesn't work because the door is locked. We have a reason for why it doesn't work.

But then when we evaluate that, it's like that has to be from seeds also. So we tend to think, oh, the Tonglen's just fantasy. It would be better if in real life I really could reach into them and take their pain away. But that would be implying that there's something I can do in the moment that makes the next result happen.

Is it possible? Yes. But we would have to plant the seeds for it to be possible to reach into somebody and take away their pain.

To do that, wouldn't we have to be somehow affecting their own karma? Would we be affecting our own karma in the moment if we could do it?

We'd be affecting our seed planting, but we would have had to already planted seeds that had ripened as the ability to reach into somebody's head and pull out their headache.

We could have the seeds, oh my gosh, I really did it. But they could say, but my head still hurts. Because their experience is their karma ripening and my experience is my karma ripening. So we're back to that deep sense, it's like, oh, well, then it doesn't really work. Yeah, but neither does turning the door, right? That doesn't really work either. We're trying to find this belief that Tonglen has somehow a lesser practice because it's only in fantasy. To come to realize that when it seems like what I do now makes something else happen, that's in fantasy also. Because really what's happening is some seeds from the past are ripening now for that action to appear to open the door. See?

It's really, really hard because we believe what happens in our material world is more real, is like the most real thing. Like seeing is believing, right?

And when it's like, no, actually, believing is seeing.

When we get there, then we realize there's so much more that we can do in our seed planting arena when we're working in this space of fantasy, imagination. Because in our imagination, we can do things that we can't apparently do in our physical world.

So we can reach this place where it's like, wow, to Tonglen somebody is like the most important thing I could do.

So even if I do stop and give the homeless person the dollar, I'd want to be Tonglen-ing anyway, because the dollar is only going to give them a coke pleasure for 20 minutes, and then they'll just go back to wanting something else.

But my Tonglen, how's it going to help them at all?

It's going to change my seeds for seeing them suffering.

Does that mean I just change my seeds and when I drive by that street corner, they're never there anymore?

That might be my experience. Then I might go, wow, well, then I really did help them because right now they must have a job, they must have a home, they must…

But my ignorant mind goes, no, they're just on some street corner someplace else panhandling, because I don't really believe that my Tonglen could work a week or two later. I'm thinking my Tonglen is going to help them ultimately. But maybe that's going to take 15 lifetimes. But really, does it matter? Right? I mean, we want it to matter. We want to take their pain right now.

But there's nothing we can do that will allow us to take their pain right now. Not worldly, not by fantasy.

But we can imagine doing so. And that plants the seeds for someday having the tools to help them in that deep and ultimate way someday. And those tools are, it's not a tool so much, but the quality of omniscience and the quality of that pure speech that allows us to say just exactly what is needed to be heard in order to wake them up a little bit.

But even Buddhas can't take our karma, we've learned that before.

Buddhas can't give us the blessings we ask for.

But we can receive blessings that we ask for, which is a really interesting thing to think about.

(74:50) Our growing Bodhichitta is helping our growing realization that what makes our lives and our world be what they are, is past deeds ripening into our perceptions of current experiences, in which we do deeds that plant seeds for future current experiences.

Nothing exists, nothing happens in any other way than this.

Which is why everything that happens, happens.

Every detail of every experience comes from this process. Every instant of subject-object-interaction between.

We are creating our futures, which means we could create futures, we could create the seeds that ripens as current experiences of all happiness for all beings, and Buddha paradise for everybody.

Each Buddha paradise for everybody unique to them, as each of our experiences are unique to each of us. That's still true.

Really, this truth is deeply profound. It shows us how it is that Tonglen practice does not work directly. And it shows us that nothing we do works directly. So by doing Tonglen, we are saying to our own minds that we believe in karma and emptiness enough to do this practice, so that we can reach a state where we can teach and guide everyone in how to reach that state of ultimate happiness for everyone. From which they teach everyone how to reach that state of ultimate happiness so they can teach everyone as well. And it's like, so eventually, is everyone teaching everyone and does it finally ever end? 

It's like, that's again a good debate.

If we are thinking that once I'm a Buddha, the practice is done, I've reached my goal, I don't have to do anything else. Then that's where that belief is like, okay, so you have to keep doing it until everybody sees themselves as Buddha.

But it's misunderstanding, because that's thinking I will become a Buddha that suddenly self exist in Buddha. So I don't have to keep making myself Buddha. But actually we do. Once we reach this Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating, that's the start of our career, not the end. We just keep emanating.

So does that mean there'll never be a time when there's no more suffering?

It's like, yes, there's an end to samsara.

But like, then what? 

We want to keep digging into what we think we mean, when we say, Oh, finally, I'll be Buddha. I'll be omniscient and I'll have that pure speech where I can teach everyone.

How are we relating to that ideal? That's not so much part of Tonglen practice, but for those in training, if we're thinking of our own Buddhahood in the wrong way, we're not going to make it.

But we can't think of our own Buddhahood in exactly the right way, because it's beyond intellect. And that's why the direct perception of emptiness is so crucial to our path. Because when we come out of it, we recognize Oh, what I experienced, now I know now I better know what I mean when I say Buddha me and Buddha paradise. It takes that realization of no self nature to stop believing that there must be some self existent nature to Buddha's.

(80:45) We want to be sure that we are making that clear distinction in our experiences between the how and the why.

The how the store clerk has hurting feet is because she's got not well supporting shoes and she's standing for hours at a time. That's the how, and it's valid.

Although she could still have foot pain, even if she has perfect shoes. 

And she could have no foot pain, even if she has lousy shoes.

And she couldn't have lost my train of thought there… The other two, right?

No foot pain. You get it. Right? That though, the how, worldly how doesn't hold up when we do an analysis of is it really the cause of the problem.

To say no, it's her shoes are not her shoes or job or not her shoes does not mean her foot pain is not important, or it's not valid, or that she's not really having foot pain.

It's to show us that there's something else going on here for why she's experiencing pain in her feet.

And then it's like, well, she's telling me she has pain in her feet, so now I know it. And I didn't know it before. So I didn't have the seeds ripening for her to have pain in her feet, and now I have the seeds ripening for her to have pain in her feet.

Now I want to do something about it, because now I know. Whereas before, I was just thinking, maybe she's got pain in her feet, because she's on her feet all day. And if I was on my feet all day, I think I would have pain in my feet.

That's how we work with someone that we don't know very well.

Maybe we'll be right. Maybe we're not right. We're planting seeds anyway.

The willingness to take any kind of distress that we even get some kind of hint they might have, it's still such a radical change from what our usual habit is, when we come to know of somebody's distress, or don't even know of somebody's distress, it doesn't occur to us that they might be having some kind of problem, and so it doesn't occur to us to focus in and have a little compassion for them.

So this practice is giving this ability to pay more attention to people. Because even if we can't do anything worldly, we can always Tonglen.

They may or may not feel better the instant we're done Tonglen-ing, but we have changed our seeds to see them in pain.

We can plant those seeds and just move on knowing that they're going to ripen someday.

Maybe they ripen three lifetimes from now, and that person ends up being my first grade teacher. I'm not connecting the dot, but because of my Tonglen-ing on them, my first grade teacher does not have feet that hurt.

Whereas maybe without my Tonglen, they would have, because of my seeds, do you see? I let my seeds for their foot pain continue to grow, because I heard about it and I didn't try to do something. I can't buy everybody new shoes, but I can Tonglen.

So we're wanting to grow this, like almost a default mode of Tonglen-ing.

We're coming to realize that it's actually a really powerful practice, not because it gives results right away—because it doesn't—but because it shakes up our seeds. The seeds we have in our mind is your ordinary being like me, is seeds that have been planted with self-existent me. So self-existent me has needs that are more important than self-existent you. No matter how kind I am still deep down inside, it's like me, me and mine, and all my seeds are colored with that. Even from when I was a lizard life, even when I was a mosquito life. It was always me, protect me.

Then all of a sudden we're seeing somebody's any kind of upset and we're going, Oh, I wish I could do something. I can't do anything worldly. I'll pretend I can on my breath and just take it from me. We're putting somebody else's pain or distress ahead of our habit of, No, I'll just look the other way. I can't see it. I don't want to know about it. I'll just pay for my groceries and go.

It's so different that it damages a little bit of that self-existent me and mine seeds in us, because it's not matching them the way we match them with every other moment, almost every other moment of our day. When we Tonglen, the seeds that are going in are so different than ordinary. Do you see?

The more we Tonglen, the more we can, the more it will occur to us to do, the more effective it will start to seem like it is to us.

It's not like we're making it such that it can ripen in the next moment, but we're affecting our own seeds so that our own belief in self-existence and the self-cherishing that comes from it is lessening, lessening, lessening. Not in the big, dramatic way that it gets cut when you see emptiness directly, but by chipping away at it little by little according to how much time do we spend in Tonglen versus how much time do we spend in old frame of mind.

It's going to take a lot of Tonglen if that's what we're relying upon only because we're so many minutes not Tonglen-ing than Tonglen-ing. But every little bit is better than none at all.

So again, the how we're seeing somebody's distress is worldly hows, they do happen. But the why we're seeing their distress is because of seeds that we planted in the past to somehow cause similar distress, or just have similar distress that we showed to somebody else or having even Tonglen-ed someone before, will help us recognize someone's distress.

Why we're seeing it is our own seeds ripening.

Then, like all the distress we see in our world, it's opportunities to Tonglen.

Then are we avoiding looking at it anymore? Or are we like on the search, who's limping? Who looks upset? Where can I find somebody that Tonglen?

We're never at a loss if we could just remember. And we're always breathing.

So it really is a beautiful, powerful practice.

Tonglen does work by way of cause and effect, but not worldly cause and effect, of course.

What do we know about results and causes?

They can't happen simultaneously or they'd be the same thing.

The cause has have happened before, has to be in us in order to have the result.

And they have to be similar in some way, right?

A kindness seed planted will give a kindness result.

An unkindness seed planted must give an unkindness result.

They have to be similar.

Are they going to be identical? No, because seeds grow. They can't be identical.

So even if we say, you have a pen because you gave pens before. But come on, like pens have only been around for what? A couple hundred years. And maybe the seed that we planted for today's pen was planted 16 lifetimes ago. There were no such things as pens. But there must have been some kind of thing that had to do with communication, or had to do with demonstration—something similar that my mind seeds ripen this thing as pen.

We can't teach that to beginners because it's just too nebulous.

But when we really want to work it out, it's like, it's not that if you want apples for apple pie three thanksgivings from now, I better give apples away now, or I'm not going to have apples. It's really not like that, right?

I could never give an apple, but I could give all kinds of other things. And then when I need apples, my seeds will ripen apples. Because that's what I need, because I've been helping others get their needs met. It doesn't have to be apple for apple.

But it can't be unkindness for kindness, or kindness for unkindness, because the seed of kindness never changes to a seed of unkindness. Because they're so different. Now there's never in a non Arya, there's never a pure kindness seed because we still have the belief in a self existent me, and that colors every seed, no matter how kind they are. That self existent me doing the kindness is a negativity. It's a blackness.

So even our very, very best behavior, great seeds are still dirty, good karma. We've heard that, it's a little discouraging. But when we're Tonglen-ing, we're chipping away at that.

I like to think, yeah, dirty, good karma instead of blackness in my white, it's like getting grayer and grayer and grayer and grayer and grayer and grayer. Which makes it easier and easier to be wisely kind than when I first started working with the wisdom, because the seeds of that real tenacious selfishness are being slowly cleaned. Not completely destroyed, but clean. Power of Tonglen practice.

Geshela gave these examples for how we live according to the how and the why. It's not like what we do in Tonglen practice necessarily. But his example back then is, suppose you're trying to get your green card to be able to work in the United States. They ask you all this kind of information and something comes up in the information and you decide, I'm going to tell this little white lie. Beause if I tell them the truth, it's going to make sure I don't get that green card, and nobody will ever know. So we tell that little white lie.

Maybe we get the green card and maybe we don't. So suppose that we do get the green card and we told a lie, our mind will say, we'll see? It was okay to tell that little bit of a lie because I got my green card. If it wasn't okay, they would have denied me my green card. So we justify that it was okay.

Then a few years later, we're working and doing our job and we're realizing that, my gosh, the people around me there, they don't trust me. They don't believe the things that I say, and for the first couple of years it was fine. But now it's like nothing I say anybody, they don't respect it. They don't believe. Like what's going on?

If we understood, we would connect the dot. Oh, I thought I'd get a good result from telling that lie. But now I'm getting the actual result from telling a lie, which is that other people lie to me and they don't believe what I say.

Like if we had known that that would be the result of telling the lie to get the green card, would we have been willing to tell the lie? Would we have been willing to try to get away with a lie?

No, because it wouldn't be worth it. It's awful to not be believed, to not be respected. It's awful to be lied to.

But we can't connect the dot, and so our old worldview says, well, if you can get away with it, then okay.

But what if we had lied and they'd caught us in a lie? We would not get our green card and we'd probably get exported in the next instant worse nowadays.

The fact that sometimes these non-virtues, we seem to get a good result afterwards, reinforces the very ignorance that we had that made it occur to us to try to tell a lie to get the green card.

That's like a big obvious example. And yet there are little ways that we're doing that kind of stuff all the time, not lying, but giving ourselves an excuse for why we can't do this versus that, when really the excuse is just going to come back as somebody else giving us a lame excuse for why they can't do something.

It's like, oh man, if we understood, it would be so much easier. If we could see, oh, I made this make that, it would be so much easier. But we don't seem to be able to do that yet directly, but we can do so logically.

When we have that logical connection between pleasant things and unpleasant things happening to me now, as having been caused by similar pleasant or unpleasant things I did before, if I don't like those unpleasant things, then that means my now and now and now, I want to be really careful of how I interact with others.

Does that mean all of a sudden everybody likes me and nobody will ever be insulted by something that I say?

No, because I still have seeds from past selfishness. People are going to experience me however their seeds ripen. But my task is my effort to be as pleasant for them as I can. That's that NGOTSA and TRELYU, remember? They call it shame and consideration. Do I hold my own personal self-esteem such that I won't let myself do a negative deed even if nobody would ever know? And number two, do I choose my behavior based on the impact it might have on somebody else?

Those two grow stronger and stronger as our wisdom about the power of our interaction grows.

When we interact, that's when we are creating.

When we experience, that's what we have created.

We're wanting to grow this ability to have our our awareness be more concentrated on the planting than on the experiencing. Not meaning we ignore what we're experiencing, of course. But we tend to be so focused on what we're experiencing so that we can protect ourselves, or so that we can grab what we want.

We're not thinking so carefully about, what am I going to plant in response to this?

So it really takes a big shift in off automatic pilot, which like we're hardwired to protect ourselves. I'm not saying that we become beings that don't protect ourselves.

But that hard wire is always in react mode, and it's very difficult to shift from react to create. That's what we're trying to work on.

In our Tonglen-ing, others, and we're giving beings what they want, it seems like it should always be all worldly things. But then we know the worldly things are just going to leave them wanting for more. So worldly things, although they're nice to Tonglen somebody with, take it deeper.

Tonglen the understanding of karmic emptiness.

Tonglen the aha that how they interact with others is where they create their future. 

Tonglen them this ability to love in the face of adversity.

Because what seeds are we wanting to plant by our Tonglen?

Our wisdom, our Bodhichitta—both kinds. So give that person that very wisdom that we're wanting to grow in ourselves. That's the beauty of Tonglen.

If we tried to do that in a worldly way, you'd have to keep asking that grocery clerk, You want to know what I know? Do you want to take classes? And that person's going to go, here she comes again. I don't want to hear it.

Whereas in our Tonglen-ing, just see ourselves, visualize ourselves, giving them these sweet teachings in which they go, oh, yeah, I get it. I can use it like this and like that. We've only got our meditations a day. You might get to the point where it's like, man, I want my meditation to go for two hours, because I want to do that person and this person and this person and this person. And then I want to do hell beings and hungry ghosts. It's the beauty of retreat. You get into retreat where you don't have anything else to do, but your four sessions a day.

Tonglen as many or as long as you want, as long as you're staying focused and bright and alert. And when you start to get tired, it's like, OK, finish that session. I'll go take a nap. Come back, do it again.

It's really fun to be in deep retreat with nothing else to do than sessions. Because we're so unlimited by what we can do by the power of our mind.

We think, oh, I'm so limited in what I can do worldly. But it's like, come on, we're limited in what we can do worldly when we're out in the world, because nothing we do in the moment brings what comes next anyway.

This process of recognizing that our current behavior creates our future and then choosing our behavior based on that is what it is to be practicing the perfection. The perfection of wisdom is using our understanding of ‚my behavior creates my future‘ to choose our behavior.

When we have this perfection of wisdom in our mind as we do our six perfections. It speeds up the process of the seeds ripening from previous times that we used our wisdom for the six perfections. That's the basis of the Diamond Way, is that we can change the seeds of our perception of our own material body from a material body that's made of solid—organs and bones—to a material body that's made a very subtle substance of light and love. Because there isn't really a physical body made of tissues, and there isn't really a subtle physical body made of light and love. There's just the one that's ripening now and now and now.

By changing our seeds we change our perception.

By changing our perception we change our identity.

And that's how our identity of me-suffering-being can be transformed to identity of me-enlightened-deity before this body dies. Because that this body dying is just a perception and we change those seeds, and there's no other way that we can become a Buddha than by changing the way we perceive this thing that we call me, my body and my mind.

Geshela says, if we want to be a great musician, worldly ways says, choose your instrument, get a good teacher, practice, practice, practice, practice. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.

World view says, yes, do those things, and find somebody who wants to get good at something. Help them, support them in some way to get good at what they want to get good at. Those who are already good at what you want to be good at, admire them, share them with other people, push people towards them, contribute to their success, and get a good teacher and practice, practice, practice. It will increase the likelihood of that practice ripening improvement.

Whereas if we just get a teacher and practice, practice, practice, and we're going through our day jealous of good musicians, interfering with other people's efforts to become good at something because of our jealousy, very likely our effort to get good at music isn't going to work. It might, because if we had past good seeds, but it does not necessarily mean your career is going to take off because we have those seeds for jealousy for other musicians. Do you see?

Yet it's such human nature. Like one excellent musician we’ll go, wow, they're so inspiring. They can do no wrong. But all the rest of the good ones, it's like, nah, and we interfere. So it's hard. It's hard to get this deep, deep conviction that my effort to become good at something will only be seeds ripening from past behaviors in which I help someone else get good at them, and then to say, well, I want to get good at doing something, I'm going to go help somebody else get good at something else. And then think, well, then I should be able to sit down and play the piano, performance level without ever having learned. Technically it could happen, from just having helped somebody else with this high intention, this clear wisdom, enough times that our own seeds have shifted. And when they ripen, oh my gosh, you sit down and you can play, you know, like the four-year-olds that are playing Chopin. That came from somewhere. And we tend to think, oh yeah, they were great musicians in their previous lifetime. Probably more likely they were great promoters of great pianists. And then in this life, you get to be one of those. Thinking it through. 

Tonglen is based on all of this. And again, it seems like how does just fantasizing really going to help me become a good musician? Because it's all by way of seeds. 

Any time we have an opportunity to help and we don't, it's a blocker to some goodness we're wanting to experience. Yet as we go through life, there are all kinds of opportunities that we think, well, I could stop and help there, but then I don't get to where I was going to begin with.

Until we can emanate, we can't do it all at once. But we can always Tonglen in those places where, I'd like to be able to stop, but I can't. I have to go do this. I can still Tonglen. And we're still planting seeds. Of course, we're planting seeds as we're Tonglen-ing.

Geshela asked this question.

Suppose between our Tonglen and everything else that we do, we have purified our own seeds to the point of only seeing high level Bodhisattvas. Now, who do we help? 

Like who further do we help if our seeds are already like, wow, my seeds are so good, all I see are high level Bodhisattvas.

We're not yet omniscient in this example.

If we perceive them as high Bodhisattvas, do we know that they are perceiving themselves as high level Bodhisattvas?

Not yet. We still have obstacles to omniscience. Although it looks like they're going to be fine. They're high level Bodhisattvas.They're on their way to their own Buddhahood. We don't need to do anything more for them. It's like, well, yes, I do. Because I don't know for sure if they see themselves the way I see them.

So I'm still going to do whatever I do for them.

They say Buddhas do Mahayana Dharma in their Buddha paradises.

It‘s kind of funny. Why would they do Mahayana Dharma? They're already Mahayana Dharma. Why do you have to do it? Whatever that means.

But maybe this is part of it. They're seeing other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But even as Buddhas, maybe they're seeing that those high level Bodhisattvas that they see are not seeing themselves that way, and they still need teaching. So spontaneously, effortlessly, our compassion appears as teachings. And maybe some of those high level Bodhisattvas that we see, whether we're Buddha yet or not, actually are not seeing themselves as anywhere close to Bodhisattvas. In which case, of course, they can still benefit from my emanations, from my help. So just because our own seeds are getting more and more and more pure, does not mean we can say, okay, fine. I don't have to do any more. Right?

We will continue to do these practices of plant, plant, plant, plant, plant. Even as fully omniscient Buddhas, we'll perceive every being as Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, and we will perceive, experience directly how they experience themselves, and our compassion will spontaneously emanate to be whatever they need.

Geshela had pointed out that we ask the Lama for blessings.

We go before His Holiness, please bless me. That long line, they stand in front of him. They probably don't even get to say anything. They're just, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he puts his hand on their head. Some go by, like, great, that was nice. Others just like, boom, and they're changed forever. If His Holiness’s compassion could cause one person to have an epiphany, why wouldn't they cause everybody to have that epiphany if it was in his power to give the blessing?

But then so what happened? That person got this life changing experience from being bonked on the head. 16,000 other people didn't. Where is it coming from?

The power of His Holiness to give a blessing is coming from the mind, the devotion, the karmic seeds ripening of the one who received it.

Does that mean that person had to have given blessings to other beings before?

Kind of, but not in the sense that they had to have been an His Holiness, in order to receive the blessing, not in that way. But in the sense of some kind of seed for receiving something especially powerful from somebody would have to be from some way in which that person had perceived themselves helping somebody else in some pretty extraordinary way.

But it doesn't have to be a religious blessing. All of us help others in pretty extraordinary ways from time to time. Maybe between the devotion and the longing and the begging and the asking, that person has this seed ripening experience that oh my gosh, His Holiness blessed me, and now I'm a different person. And it's true. They really are. They call it Shaktipat. Like you just got bonked on the head and I've got realization. It's possible, but it's not His Holiness doing it.

So we can receive blessing. But the one giving the blessing can't give it.

It's such a conundrum, it's worth chewing on to really understand how we get blessings to happen.

If we could, our practice would like get a whole lot easier. It's like just love and just bless me, and then it would happen. Bless me, just bless me, bless me. And it won't happen if we don't ask. So that's why they build in ask, ask, ask, ask, ask for blessings. All right, good enough.

[Dedication]

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.

For the recording, welcome back. We are the Tonglen Practice Module Studiers. This is our 8th class. It's November 30th, 2025. Our 8th class is our final class of this module. Although there's lots more to learn about Tonglen. It's like we have enough, we'll have enough to work with it.

We'll do our opening prayers and then I'm going to yak for a while, and we'll save our meditation for towards the end. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

[Class Opening]

(7:49) Last class, we were doing Tonglen on someone we really don't know. They're familiar, but we don't really know them.

Why would we do that? What do we Tonglen on them if we don't know what they're feeling, what trouble they're having?

If we see them as someone in the desire realm, then we know that they experience obvious suffering, the suffering of change, and pervasive suffering. So, by way of our own experience, we can make a good guess in terms of what they might be experiencing at any given moment.

We can watch their body language. We can watch their facial expression. We could spy on them from afar for a little while to see how they move, to get a more specific idea of how they're suffering.

And we can always include those other levels of distress that we know anyone is experiencing–the end, then it's gone level, the pervasive suffering level.  And we are aware of the 84,000 mental afflictions that arise in the mind of a desire realm being that compel them to act in a certain way if they don't have some other method of deciding their behavior.

Again, just by seeing them as a desire realm being, there's all kinds of stuff that we could work on to Tonglen them. Any suffering we see in them, in another, on whatever level that we see, that's the level we work on. We help them with the Tonglen, and if there's a worldly way to try to help, we do that as well.

It's important to recognize we're wanting to grow Tonglen as our default method of helping anyone we come across. But we don't want to think of it as, well, then that's all I have to do.

Technically, it is. If and when our default Tonglen is frequent enough, complete enough, all we would need to do is Tonglen, and we would reach that place where it did seem like it's having an effect.

That'll happen as we're getting close, close, close, close to our enlightenment. Meanwhile, of course, we also try to do worldly things to help.

Any suffering that we are aware of is an opportunity for us to plant seeds for our future perception of ourselves as one who can help in that ultimate way. The way we become Buddhas is that our perception of me and my world shifts from suffering being me in a desire realm to Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating.

We don't all of a sudden become really Buddhas from having been really self-existently suffering beings. We change our mental seeds from seeds that are still colored with the misunderstanding that drives our selfishness to seeds that have the wisdom that propels our loving compassion.

It's like suffering me, Buddha me, neither one is there, so either one can be there–but not by wishing it and not by willpower as we know. By shifting the seeds. I guess we want to do it this way. More seeds for Buddha me until there's only seeds for Buddha me, and then we are spontaneously effortlessly perpetuating those.

So, any suffering that we can be aware of is an opportunity for planting seeds for that state of being the one who knows directly what that other needs to take up and needs to give up.

If we're still perceiving ourselves as suffering beings, then we need other beings, and we need and want to be aware of their suffering, their problems in order to grow our love and compassion that will propel our actions that will plant the seeds for this becoming the one who can actually help them stop perpetuating their own suffering. 

We are coming to understand, I hope, better and better how it is that Tonglen works.  We've talked about it quite a bit.

When we are aware of someone's distress and we understand whatever they're experiencing is ripening results of their own past deeds, whatever I perceive of them experiencing is ripening results of my past deeds, and it's all driven by this big mistaken belief that our happiness will come from something that I get. And at least I understand that that belief is a mistake and so it could end, and so, I really sincerely wish that I could take that pain from them, take that icky situation from them, take that mental affliction from them, and take that misunderstanding of where it's all coming from from them.

When we see ourselves specifically visualizing taking something, using it to destroy our own seeds for seeing them that way, and future seeds for more, and the misunderstanding that makes me see them, destroy that, feel the relief and the amazing, oh my gosh, that feels so great to be free of it all, even in our imagination. And then from there go, oh, I want them to feel that as well. So we see them already free, and then we give them whatever would please their precious heart from the worldly thing that they wanted. All that we can give them all the way up to their own enlightenment at the foot of the Bodhi tree, depending on how much time we've got.

Suppose the person you are Tonglen-ing, whether you know them or not, they are having financial difficulty. And so you're taking from them the actual stress of the financial difficulty, you're taking from them the past stealing that probably put them in this position, and the past not sharing when they could have that's contributing to it. And you're taking from them this misunderstanding of where prosperity comes from and what you do with it. You're taking all of that away.

Then seeing yourself giving them that freedom from financial worry, whatever that might look like, bank account with a million dollars, a job that gives them the opportunity to share with others so they do it as part of their work. All kinds of wonderful tools that you're seeing yourself give them, that brings them along the path, whether they know they're on the path or not.

The side effect of that, as time passes, is maybe even without you realizing it, your own financial circumstance gets easier. You're feeling more secure. You're feeling more generous with money, with time, with resources of any kind.

Who's getting the benefit of the Tonglen that we're doing

Who's the only one that can benefit from the Tonglen that we're doing? Yeah, it's our seeds planting.

Oh my gosh, what a selfish practice Tonglen is. No. What a wise practice Tonglen is, because underneath that, I wish I could take your suffering away, is our understanding, but I can't. And neither can a Buddha, just reach in and take it. But by having this high intention of wanting to take it away, and knowing I need to reach that ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom state, to be able to be what that other needs through which I will eventually get to be who and what teaches them what they need to give up and what they need to take up.

So when we are Tonglen-ing, we're Tonglen-ing to grow our Bodhichitta, to awaken it. But then we're still Tonglen-ing to grow that Bodhichitta into our actual Bodhichitta, the Bodhichitta of Buddhahood, so that we can finally help them in that deep and ultimate way.

So yes, Tonglen, we will benefit because we are planting seeds in our mind. But the seed we're planting is not for just worldly ease, although we will experience that. The seed we're planting is that intention to reach the highest state we can reach in order to help them reach that as well. That powerful intention for doing the Tonglen is what contributes to the seed planting of Tonglen, to be strong enough that we can actually see changes in our circumstances, our outer world, and ourself within the lifetime that we are doing Tonglen. We hear that about Tantra practice.

Tonglen was a deeply secret practice for a really long time. Now it's part of the Sutra teachings, but it's working on us similar to a Creation Stage practice of Diamond Way as an open practice. It's sneaky and beautiful and readily available. We don't need initiation, we just need instruction and understanding how and why it works so that we can inspire ourselves to do it.

We don't want to Tonglen because the lineage says so. We want to Tonglen because something in our heart says, whoa, this is special, right? That's what happened to me. This is special. I need to do it. I don't know why. I don't know how it works, but I did it anyway. Now that I know how it works, and even now that I've been in the Diamond Way for (a long time) and I come back to the Tonglen, it's like, it's all we need. It's like all that other stuff I've done, great. It's prepared me for Tonglen. Yeah, true, Diamond Way has other stuff, but it's all happening the same as Tonglen. So do our Tonglen well, Diamond Way will happen. That was my experience. Do your Diamond Way well and Tonglen will happen–Sarahni’s words, not Geshe Michael.

Because why are we Tonglen-ing? In order to become Buddha, so that we can really help those others. It's a beautiful, beautiful practice, as we see.

In looking back at my own Tonglen career, I didn't know enough to be thinking, wow, my Tonglen is ripening as this circumstance, my Tonglen is ripening as that circumstance. I just was progressing along, dealing with difficulties and planting seeds as best I could.

But now that I look back, it's like, I really could honestly say, the effect of my Tonglen practice that started in 1989 was to bring me to that place where I met Geshe Michael and the ACI teachings, and then brought me to that place where I got asked to share them, which actually started in like 2002 and has continued.

So I can honestly say that the Tonglen practice that I thought was just a simple practice, right, has been hugely powerful in my own life. I had never intended to teach like this. I'm happy to do so. It doesn't mean you do Tonglen, you'll end up a teacher in front of people. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But it will have this effect without being obviously, oh, that's from my Tonglen. We don't need the connect the dot necessarily. When we understand how Tonglen works, we want to do it.

(26:07) So we've learned we can Tonglen our future self, and that qualifies as Tonglen-ing someone we love, whether we admit it or not.

Then we can Tonglen somebody we love, another person we love. That's fun. We usually know them well enough to know their suffering.

And then we can Tonglen beings that we like know, but don't know well enough to really know their deep suffering.

And we can Tonglen people that we don't know at all, we just happen to see them. And we see their limping or their rushing or their disheveled or whatever.

And we can Tonglen people we downright dislike. Those are the hardest ones, maybe. Those who are dangerous to us.

We can Tonglen those we know of, but don't really directly experience, like hell beings like we did that one time, like hungry ghosts, like pleasure beings who are so pleasured out, they don't know they're running out of their good seeds without making more and are going to suffer obviously later.

All those kinds of sufferings and beings who suffer that we've learned in the ACI courses, they are all opportunities to do our Tonglen practice on.

That's when we are on our cushion or when we've got some spare time, like you're sitting in the doctor's office, you can scroll your phone or you can Tonglen. You can Tonglen the people there. Everybody's stressed out when they're in the doctor's office. So is the staff. Tonglen everybody.

Will it make a difference on your day's appointment? Maybe, maybe not.

But will it make a difference in your future appointments? Yes, eventually. And not just doctor's offices, like anywhere people are stressed out about appointments.

Tonglen-ing at the Moment of Death

(28:24) Then they say that another time to Tonglen is during our death process. 

Like the final Tonglen we get to do in this life would be to Tonglen as we are going through dying. There's a particular kind of pain that they say is excruciating when we are running out of our seeds for the familiarity of me and this life. They say, it's a physical pain and a mental pain and that it's indescribable. We've all experienced it multiple times, which is why we are so good at suppressing our death awareness. We just really don't want to admit that's going to happen again, and so it's a difficult thing to come to that keen death awareness. When we do, it's pretty motivating. Especially if we ever have some kind of recall of it, it would be really motivating. I have not had that.

So we can learn how to Tonglen as we are going through that process. You know the term POWA. There are initiations that we get to practice POWA.

Geshehla always is a little derogatory about doing those because we have the tendency to think, oh, I got POWA initiation, so POWA is just going to happen to me. It means transfer of consciousness. That means I don't need to be worried about my dying because I've had POWA. It's like, yeah, that would be true if you followed your POWA initiation with training and how to do it, and then you practiced it regularly so that you were so familiar with the practice of POWA that you could also do it as you are dying. 

Our tradition says, look, you do your Sutra and Diamond Way practice well and you are not going to perceive yourself die. Will this life run out? Yes, but it will not be perceived as dying.

So they say, you don't want to be doing POWA in order to prevent the usual dying pain because we don't need to. There are other more important things to do. But curiously, in order for those more important things that we learn to do to be effective, they have to be done with a mind, a heart that's been cleaned out, and merits been put in. And the way, a very effective way of doing our clean out and put in is, guess what? Tonglen.

Tonglen-ing is the Gelugpa version of POWA. To be able to think this pain that I'm going to have or that I'm having if I'm going through the process of dying, I understand it's my ripening seeds. I'm thinking of my me two days from now or two hours from now and all the pain that they're having. And I'm going to suck it into this me now, and in the process, I'm going to suck all the pain of dying, all the pain of living. I'm going to just take everybody's pain away and use it to destroy my own residual selfishness that's what's resisting this process that's happening right now. And I'm going to give that me, that future me, this relief of that fear, relief of that mistake. I'm going to give them whatever you would call it, confidence, peace, love that can take them through this process into recognizing their own true nature and actually reaching their realization in the process of this.

Do Tonglen All Day Long

But to be able to do that when we are going through that process would mean we would have already needed to have grown our Tonglen practice so strong that it actually has become our default thing to do when any kind of stressor or difficulty pops up. So in order to rely on Tonglen practice when we're dying, we would need to have trained ourselves in Tonglen practice all day, all day Tonglen practice.

It can be our on the cushion practice where maybe we spend an hour or even two every day Tonglen-ing, Tonglen-ing, Tonglen-ing. But then there's still 23 hours of the day when we're not Tonglen-ing and we're dealing with life in the same old way, making our efforts to do it differently. But it's not enough just on our cushion to be able to then hold the Tonglen as our default when we're going through dying of our cancer, or our heart attack, or flying through the windshield of our car, heaven forbid all of those.

Our mind's going to be saying, what medicine do I have to take? Don't feed me, I don't want any more food. We're going to be in survival mode, even as we know that there's no more survival to be had. That struggle will color our mind and the likelihood of remembering to Tonglen ourselves, let alone anybody else is remote, unless it's our default.

We can learn, train ourselves to be doing Tonglen all day long. It's different, obviously, than what we do on our cushion, because on the cushion, we take those 10 breaths to identify, to grab it. We take our time. But when we're on the fly Tonglen, we're training ourselves to be on the lookout for somebody's distress–that's not so hard. It's just the awareness. And when we see anybody with any kind of distress whom we turn on the thought, seeds ripening, there's mine opportunity. I breathe out, I grab whatever pain they're having, whatever their distress is, suck it in, use it to burn away my similar seeds, my ignorance. Give it a pause, send them relief, send them whatever solution might be appropriate.

It happens right on an exhale and an inhale, and you're on to the next thing. So it doesn't just have to be humans. It can be any being. It can be any suffering. It can be our own. You're all by yourself and up coming the mental affliction, destroy it, send relief.

It won't change what happens in the next moment.

It won't change the person's distress necessarily.

It won't change our distress necessarily, at least at first. Because there's the time gap between what we do and the result that we see.

When we start seeing results of our Tonglen practice, what we find is we are actually perceiving less and less distress, less and less obvious distress in our world.

We are feeling less and less obvious distress in our world.

That then doesn't necessarily mean your knees stop hurting, but your attitude towards your knee hurting is shifting. Instead of, oh man, my knees are still hurting. What's causing it? What do I have to do about it? The Tonglen result is, okay, purifying still. More to Tonglen. That's fine. I'll take my knee pain and with it, I'll take every knee pain there is known in the world–all by fantasy and all planting seeds that will have an impact on our seed ripening sometime later.

We think it through to ourselves again and again and again. The power of Tonglen is in the seed planting that’s going to affect our own pool of seeds from which all of that suffering is coming anyway. So all of the relief of suffering will come from there. The only way we'll see it that way is if we have the seeds planted from the fantasy of taking that pain away.

A fantasy based on pure intent: I really, really wish I could and so I'll pretend that I can. 

Like when we were little kids. I really want to be a school teacher. Let's play school teacher, right? Let me be the teacher. You be the student. Remember? I didn't do school teacher, I did something else. Probably we all did something.

Somehow as little kids, we were really good imaginators and then we grow up and for crazy reasons, we stop doing it, or we think there's something wrong with us if we do do it, right? You're not allowed to keep your imaginary friend once you're 16 or 18, but it's unfortunate because it's useful.

To train ourselves in the all day Tonglen, the Lamas gave us that, they call it a mantra, right? It's the verse from the Lama Chupa. And it's long in English. Apparently in the Tibetan, it's only five lines. But I never received the oral transmission of the Tibetan and where I have it, it's in the squiggles, and I can't read the squiggles so I can't help you with that.

The verse is,

And then my high holy Lama, Lord of Compassion,

Give me your blessing, please

So that all the pain of mother beings,

All their bad deeds and obstacles

May ripen upon me now.

Remember this?

And so I may give them all my good and happiness

And in this way assure

That each one of them has all happiness.

That verse ringing in our heart is the verse that motivates us to recall, oh, I see suffering. Take those seeds, destroy it from my heart because that's where it's coming from. Give them all the happiness, give them all the goodness. Doing so in order to someday be omniscient, someday be made of that perfect love and compassion.

We can boil that phrase down to Tonglen Bodhichitta. If we've got the verse and the meaning of the verse, and we tag it to those two words, Tonglen, take, give, Bodhichitta, the wish for enlightenment that includes my total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. When you have those meanings deeply tagged to those two words, then those two words is what this verse is talking about.

Tonglen, Bodhichitta, Bodhichitta, Tonglen.

Can we train ourselves to move through our day focused on doing whatever we need to get done and the background noise is, ‘And so my High Holy Lama, Lama of compassion, bless me, please, that I can take the pain of every living being, everyone, my mother, destroy it and give them all good and happiness.’

Tonglen, Bodhichitta, Bodhichitta, Tonglen, Tonglen, Bodhichitta–running in the background.

We're deciding whether we want to train ourselves in that and then we're breathing. When we have an opportunity to Tonglen, exhale, grab it, inhale, destroy it, exhale, give it and go on. It's beautiful, simple.

In one of the Tonglen courses that Geshela gave, he went into greater detail about the three spheres in Tonglen practice. I'm thinking, shall we do that or shall we just do a meditation and finish early?

Let's take our break and I'll wait for a message. I’ll pause the recording.

Tonglen and the Three Spheres

(45:37) Let's do a little three spheres. When we are Tonglen-ing,

1. we have the me doing the Tonglen.

2. We have the one we are Tonglen-ing on and

3. we have the doing of the Tonglen.

We understand with the emptiness of the three spheres is each aspect of that experience, they are all empty of not being seeds ripening and seeds planting. So they are what they appear to us as, because they are our seeds ripening us to perceive them that way. Me doing Tonglen, them being Tonglen-ed upon by me and the Tonglen that I am doing.

We're doing Tonglen because we see suffering and we want to become the angel. We want to become Buddha and we want them to be Buddha.

Could those around us be angels and we don't see them that way? Sure.

Might they see themselves as angels as we see them as ordinary? Yes.

Might they see themselves as ordinary also? Yes.

Might we see them as angels and they see themselves as ordinary? Yes.

All of that is possible at any given moment, actually.

When we see a being as an angel and we are not seeing ourselves as one yet, and we are not Arya yet, our mistaken mind takes them to be an angel in them, from them and there's no such thing.

When we perceive one as an angel and we are Arya, we might still experience them as their identity in them, from them, but we know we're mistaken.

And when we are Nirvana level, 8th level Bodhisattva and above, we won't even perceive them as angel in them, from them. We will perceive them as angel from my side, and they will be just as real as the angel that we're thinking of non-Arya seeing an angel, if we do thinking of them as real.

The ones we think of as real are not real. They're non-existent.

The ones 8th level Bodhisattva thinks of as real are real, not from their own side, because they're not being seen as from their own side anymore.

It's difficult, because our mind, my mind still thinks, well, when I see them as projections, they'll somehow be less real than when I see them from my ordinary state of mind. And that's because my ordinary state of mind is so mistaken. It believes that things with their own natures in them are real, when they're not real. They're non-existent. I've never experienced a real thing in it, from it, because there's no such thing.

So one of the factors that our understanding, our study of the three spheres again and again and again, helps us get to is to reach that place that when we are able to clarify, oh, this is projection and nothing but, instead of falling off that cliff of, so it's not real and having to pull ourselves back, our mind goes, oh, now it's real. Now it's solid and it can do stuff and now it's something I can work with.

To Tonglen somebody's ignorance and use it to destroy our own is planting the seeds for us to get that better and sooner, is the idea.

We are talking about the one we are Tonglen-ing. They look to me like a suffering being and that's why I'm going to Tonglen.

Because they are empty of self-nature, the suffering I see in them is ripened from my seeds, and it is very real because it's my seeds. I don't know what they are experiencing, but it doesn't matter because if I can see it, I want to stop it. The suffering I see in them is real because it is my projections.

To understand the emptiness of them and their suffering increases the power of my Tonglen to do what we are intending for it to do. To see their pain as my projection and very real, our heart goes, of course, I should suck it out of them. Of course, it's my responsibility. HLAKSAM NAMDAK, that's the state of mind right before Bodhichitta wakes up.

We said before, if you Tonglen somebody's financial difficulty, the side effect is going to be the end of your financial difficulties.

What if you Tonglen somebody's ignorance? Tonglen the misunderstanding of where suffering comes from, use it to destroy our own understanding the emptiness of the person and their suffering, and the doing this practice to take their suffering and the emptiness of me–what might be the side effect of doing that? Perceiving our own self as closer and closer to that angel being, especially if what part of what we give to the other is them seeing themselves as that enlightened being.

Well, I can't make them see that.

No. In doing so, you are seeing them as an enlightened being seeing themselves as an enlightened being, because that verifies in our mind, oh, then they, this projection really is enlightened being. The same kind of real as the ripening result real–not real from their own side. Me perceiving them perceiving themselves as Buddha, I have to be Buddha to do that.

To imagine that as the final result of our Tonglen, all this stuff we give them, then give them that awareness of their own Buddhahood.

Side effect? Oh, gee.

Because of the emptiness of me, it is possible. I mean, the Tonglen-er–so you think ‘me’ when I say me–you think you are me. The side effect of your Tonglen will be getting glimpses of your own holy enlightened nature.

Keep Tonglen-ing, those seeds will keep ripening. They'll grow bigger and bigger.

Because there's nothing in Tonglen practice that can work from its own side, which is why the seeds planted when we're doing it affects our mind in such a way that brings about the result. Eventually, right?

Maybe the person where Tonglen-ing is 95 years old and then they don't live long enough for my seeds to change to me seeing them see themselves as an angel, but their mindstream and I are connected. That mindstream will live long enough that I will eventually help them get to that awareness of themselves as fully enlightened being, because I made that connection with them. 

Do I have to do that personally? Or can I just know about them and Tonglen them?

Yes. Do I have to do each one individually? We'll never finish. No.

In our day to day practice we can Tonglen anybody. But if we're out amongst other beings, then we just have all this material to work with. We don't have to stop and think, oh, hell beings, I'll Tonglen hell beings during my ride to work on the bus, or a ride home from work on the bus, because there's that businessman who just looks exhausted. I'll Tonglen him, because he's right there. And there's the other, the mother with twins. It’s like, oh, man, she must be exhausted. I'll help her too. I'll help the twins. I'll help the person sitting next to the twins because they're freaked out. Suck it in, blow it up. It's so easy. When typically our default mode is, can I stay far enough from those twins that they're not going to spit up on me? Or how am I going to protect myself? How am I going to keep me happy?

We're wanting to shift to default mode Tonglen. I see somebody's distress and pain. I'm going to care enough to Tonglen. Our interaction with them may just be to smile. But what will happen is our own heart will soften, and we'll be more likely to smile at the exhausted guy, more likely to be the one that sits next to the twins to save somebody else. More likely for it to occur to us to do something a little bit more helpful, a little bit more caring than we might have otherwise thought to do, because our default Tonglen is affecting our heart. It's affecting our very personality. And we're looking for opportunities for just some little worldly way of surprising somebody with some kindness.

It's so fun to do. It's fun to be on the receiving end of that, which I am more and more simply because of my age. It's quite astonishing. It's like, oh, I know where I planted that. Because I was the one trying to do that. Grab the door. Can I help you with your groceries? Here, go in front of me in line. Happens to me all the time now. Mostly there's no line. But when there is, like here, go in front of me, because I've got my arms full and I look like an old lady with my arms full. I appreciate that. My seeds ripening.

Three spears of the Tonglen. That's enough. Let's do our sit together and then you'll be Tonglen experts.

Meditation: Tonglen-ing Someone We Don’t Like

(61:10) So this Tonglen will be to Tonglen someone that you have trouble with.

We can have trouble with somebody we really don't know. Don't do that one. 

This time do somebody you know that they're the one that pushes your button or whoever. It could also be somebody you love who you also have trouble with. That's common.

So I guess it doesn't really matter if you choose them or somebody you don't care for. Geshela used somebody you don't care for because you have trouble with them. So you decide. But pick somebody and let me know when you've got them.

Then settle your body in.

When you have it set, you come to your breath at your nostrils to trigger the mind to get set. Focus, clarity, intensity on the breath sensation. We will you use 10.

Now for refuge, think of just one of those amazing special qualities that you will have as your Buddha You. Pick one and think, because my me now is empty of self nature, I can gather the merit that will force my Me to perceive me as having this extraordinary quality.

Imagine what it will be like to be that empty me ripening that special quality.

And what will you do with that special quality? Who will you help?

You gained it through your Bodhichitta. Now your Bodhichitta will use it.

Now recall that precious holy angel guide who's been helping you learn how to plant the seeds to create that future You.

Feel your admiration for them, your aspiration and your gratitude.

Make them an offering. We know what they like best, an offering from our practice.

Then we clean our hearts of any negativity or obstacles. Tell them about it. Grow your regret, establish your antidote and your restraint.

And fill that space with rejoicing.

Share more of your own goodness, goodness you've seen in your outer world. 

Goodness you've seen from someone else.

Ask that holy being to stay close, to continue to teach you, guide you, bless you, support you. And dedicate what we've done just so far to deepening your Tonglen practice both on and off the cushion.

Shift your focus to your body. Do another scan. See if you need to adjust it.

Then come back to your breath to adjust the meditating mind.

Then bring to mind that person you have trouble with.

Imagine where they might be right now, and imagine you can be that invisible being in front of them.

Choose some suffering you see in them–not what they do to trigger your distress, not what you don't like about them. Look past all of that and notice what kind of distress do they seem to have?

I'll give us a minute to think that through.

Now think also of their emptiness. They are not unpleasant from their own side.  Someone loves them dearly. Someone enjoys them.

Recognize their unpleasantness is our own seeds.

And again, look past it to see their suffering.

See that suffering as that black stuff moving around in their inner being.

See also the black of their future similar distress and the way they probably act and react to others colored by that distress.

Call on your growing Bodhichitta to have the feeling, I know this suffering is made by a big mistake–mine and theirs. I really, really wish I could reach into them and take it from them. And so I will do Tonglen to plant seeds in my mind to see them totally free of this distress.

Then use the power of your concentration, focusing into the middle of their chest to draw all that black yuck into the tight little ball.

Use 10 breaths to gather it all.

Then shift your focus to your exhales with your determination to use your exhale to reach into them to pull that black ball of their suffering away. Use 10 exhales to go grab that black ball and then 10 more to pull it up and out and towards your own nose.

Do you have that black ball hovering below your own nostrils?

Shift your attention to look into your own heart. See that little flame of our own ignorance. It compels our selfishness that made the impulse to plant the seeds that made me see this other as a troublesome person and as a person with that kind of suffering.

Recall that emptiness of you, the emptiness of the mistake, the emptiness of that other’s suffering that's hovering underneath your nose. And make that determination that when you bring those two together, the black ball of their suffering, the red flame of our own mistake. When the two touch, they will obliterate each other into a wisp of smoke and will rest in their absence.

When you have it set, you do the nice long exhale, and then the inhale, and go.

Breathing normally, enjoying the absence.

Then your mind stirs and you shift your attention to that other one again, seeing them free of that distress, feeling better, suddenly feeling happy.

Seeing them happier, you feel happier as well.

It's a powerful thing to enjoy the happiness of someone you don't care for so much. Powerful seeds for Bodhichitta.

Then decide to give them even more than just this relief.

See inside your own being that white light of wisdom, love, and decide to give it, to share it with this other.

And so with each exhale, that white light of love, wisdom flows towards them a little further, a little further, sending our exhales towards them, seeing it reaching them, flowing down around the outside of them, flowing into them on their own inhales, filling the inside of their body.

Even their organs and tissues are suffused with this pure white light of your love, your compassion, purifying them of anything that's wrong. Sending more with each exhale, watching as their body gradually transforms into a body made of light, healthy, light, flexible, strong, loving, caring.

The white light on the outside does the same with their features, their facial expression, becoming so loving, so beautiful, their movements graceful, their attitude attentive, compassionate.

Your white light of love, compassion, wisdom still flowing into them, manifesting within them as this perfect love, perfect compassion, perfect wisdom, themselves seeing themselves as this fully enlightened being. You help them reach that.

Then let that bridge of white light between the two of you, let go, so that they draw in and you don't need to send anymore.

Feel how good it feels to have helped them in that deep and ultimate way.

Then turn your attention back to your own personal holy being guide.

See how happy they are with you.

Think of the goodness that we've done.

Imagine it to be a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands.

Feel your gratitude and your devotion to that precious being.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to inspire you and help you, and support you, and teach you.

And offer them this gemstone of goodness.

See them accept it and bless it, and they carry it with them right back into your heart.

See them there and feel them there.

This beautiful white glow of love, compassion and wisdom.

It feels so good, we want to keep it forever and so we know to share it

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with the being from the start of class, and then with everyone you love, and then with every existing being everywhere.

See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom and may it be so.

Nice job. You just planted some important seeds, didn't we? Yay. Nice. Thanks. So anything need clarified before we say goodnight, goodbye?

(student: I was wondering, I'm not sure how to correctly ask it, but when we were in the retreat last year and when we learned the Vajrasattva, you were saying that if we do that practice, everything after will be like more, like better. So you said if we do like the Vajrasattva and then we do like the Heart Sutra, like reading practice, it would be like more powerful. So I was wondering where would like Tonglen would fall in like order of like practices of how to make it more? If I do it in my daily practice, I don't know how to ask it in a better way. I'm sorry. Where to put it in your daily session? Or if it matters because it actually infuse our Bodhichitta. Like, yeah, I don't know.)

Right. Probably a good place to put it would be right after your meditation preliminaries. Just do short, some short Tonglen on somebody and you could include in your Tonglen, giving them, for instance, a Vajrasattva session where they get nicely purified, right? Beyond the purify you do, give them a Vajrasattva practice and then go on to your own Vajrasattva practice because the effect on the Tonglen will arrange your subtle body so your Vajrasattva can be a little more effective. Thank you. Yeah, nice. Anything else? Okay. Sweet.

Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it a lot. We'll be back together in this time zone in January. I'll send the stuff later. I'll send an announcement. You'll need to say yes, I want to join ACI 11 in order to get on the list. I'll do that right before we go away. Okay. Alrighty. I'm stopping the recording. Happy holidays, everyone. Have a wonderful Five Houses program.