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Ok i did this practice for a while today while i was out studying at the university library, and when i got back home i felt like complete crap and then i went for a shower and now i feel pretty good.

Thanks for helping me feel more of myself.

I find this practice to be very liberating: at once, a seemingly indulgent but yet,  universaly beneficial,  activity. It's guided very well on the ILP media by Willow Pearson. Thanks Willow, Ken and Diane.

When your tired of the focus on "me"... give it a try.

(How wonderful to hear Ken's and Diane's voices...)

First, it seems to me that in one way, Vipassana could be a meditation of "being", and tonglen one of "loving". 

This could be just something about me personally, but I would not want to take others' sufferings into my gross-body heart or any body parts, but can feel only joy in taking them into what I'd call my "high subtle" and causal self-feelings, as I experience them. I'd be curious to know what Ken, Diane, and others would say about this, but I take to heart the advice of some other well known writers (Elmer Green, Delores Krieger, Barbara Brennan), to transmit through my personal self these energies, but not to work from my personal self too much. 

Finally, I think that when a person who is not practiced in subtler consciousness is suffering and depleted, that might be the time that this person could be so eclipsed as to need incoming healing for a time being, and be careful not to move into guilt.  I don't think Ken and Diane meant otherwise but just wanted to share this thought.

On the other hand, love does feel stronger than suffering, and just a tad more pleasurable....  So if I imagine going down in a plane crash, but a loved one is beside me and I'm focused on holding and helping them, then my life has deep felt value when used for another's well being, and my fear blends with moral courage (in my imagination!).  The "selfishness" in a generalized love for human beings, a deep feeling of basic emotional similarity with every one, makes them our sibling underneath it all.  So connecting with the plight and pleasure of others in any moment, it seems to me, puts us into the flow of our subtle and causal selves, as it were, where we are more together, where there is less death and less pain. 

And for those who've seen the movie, "The Green Mile", see Tonglen in cinematic color. 

All learning welcome,
Joanne
NYC

After doing tonglen i got the feeling that the people around me were just extensions of me. And the suffering that i felt was the suffering of not being in harmony with all the people around me.

It is a goldmine indeed. I get the feeling that this could really speed up your personal development from egocentric to worldcentric.

And each worldcentric person out there creates huge waves of energy that ripples through to the rest of humanity. I asked myself how can one persons enlightenment affect others. And then i thought if being enlightened means being alive, then every where there will be more aliveness that people will be attracted to and they themselves will choose to be more alive.

Hi again,

When I recieved my first Reiki treatment during  surgical recovery, I  asked my practioner if she felt drained at the end of a long day of "working" on people. She replied that she felt quite energized by the process, and I can now atest to that as being true for me also.

That is what happens for me in a similar way with the tonglen practice. When I am done, I feel a renewal of all love.

Since we all suffer to some degree, it is also nice to transform that.

Take care,
KB

 

roravi .. it's kind of like the question what came first .. the chicken or the egg ?

do we develop into worldcentric from doing tonglen ? or do we do tonglen because u have developed into worldcentric ?

regardless .. there is something so raw and alive in this practice .. it's like life itself . . .

hey joanne .. i agree it's wonderful to hear ken & diane's voices

 

 

 

also .. what a beautiful response to the question of one's own suffering .. for the one who needs healing to become the healer

 

that's great, fairyfaye!

if we focus only on becoming more worldcentric or, possibly, kosmocentric, or only on meditation or tonglen, then our approach is necessarily partial. the integral thing is to take both into account.

and it's wonderful to hear from you, again, joanne.

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good comment fairyfaye, i like those paradoxes especially  the experience of it 

I think what i am really breathing in when im doing tonglen is the boundarys that i have created between my self and others.

The real question is whether we desire to truly feel whole, and whether we are ready to breath in the boundary's that we have created amongst us and breathe out our connectedness.

 

. . yes it's like panoramic breathing . . .

 

wondering if anyone has any "fine point" comments on how to practice as Ken suggests in dialogue... ken says whenever going through any troubles or anxieties or what-not oneself that one should intend  "May i take all such troubles" upon myself (on in breath)...

 well question i have is perhaps fairly obsessively based... what exactly on in breath are we to do with our own presently occuring suffering that, as he says, can be  the spur and reminder (in at least certain situations) ,  to practice tonglen in that moment... To hopefully not sound too obsessively ridiculous,,, in taking in "all such suffering" are we also to "mindfully"  take in our own as part of this  "all"? ...

 my sense is, of course, that on in breath one should  breathe in both ones own present suffering  and all others "in the same boat" ...Breathing in our own (being mindful of this)  as well as all others (perhaps even more strongly) would be in keeping with the injunction to  learn to stop contracting in face of our own suffering as well...

In such a manner it would be a little bit different from Pema chodron's instructions for similar situations where she counsels to take in suffering for self and all others and breathe out release (etc) for both oneself and all others...here, in Ken's brief instructions, there seems to be more emphasis on true "exchanging self and other" because on out-breath he clearly states to give (breathe out/visualize)  all of ones goodness, light etc. (to the "others")

when doing a practice just like to have clearest possible instructions starting out (esp. since intend to (and already working on  trying  to) practice this probably as much or more than any other practice)(esp.because can and do it so much on the spot anytime of day and not just on "cushion" )

just wondering if anyone else has any comments/suggestions/reassurances or whatever.  as i suggested, concerned about getting this as "right" as possible (even down to the fine points)  because to me is probably  most important and profound practice (that i intend to practice regularly, through -out the day,  anytime, anywhere)(ie Trungpa... "tonglen baby")

wmersy .. at what point does the boundary between self and other dissolve .. ?

 

 

well this strikes me as a nice koan...

but as far as practicing from a state of present contraction ie taking and sending,,, just was concerned (as i am wont to be) with "fine" points...   obviously "both and" is the integral stance  here so that both pema chodron's instructions and ken's are fine/ alright ...  i guess i am always looking for optimizing the practice though... what is going to go most against the grain of subject object contraction so that i am somehow more able to  somehow "answer" your  koan above...

my resolution of this "fine point" conundrum is to do practice as ken gives it here... because seems to me is more "cutting against the grain" and thereby might be stronger practice... true taking and sending... 

so in other words when using one's one suffering as starting piont on in breath take in all such suffering (self and other together) and on out breath sending out all goodness/release  to other(s) in same boat (a true "sharp"  sending and taking/going against the grain)

thanks for your response