Tonglen: Taking and Giving

Tonglen is the practice of taking and giving, the most brave practice of bodhicitta. One way of doing this practice is by reciting verse 95 in the Lama Chöpa:

 Tonglen: Meditation on Taking and Giving

Lama Chöpa, v. 95:
And thus, venerable, compassionate gurus,
I seek your blessings that all karmic debts, obstacles, and sufferings of mother beings
May without exception ripen upon me right now,
And that I may give my happiness and virtue to others
And, thereby, invest all beings in bliss.

You recite this verse according to the number you need to recite, and, at the same time, do the meditation. Each time you do this, you collect limitless skies of merit. It is an extremely powerful purification method, and you become closer to enlightenment.

This practice helps to develop bodhicitta. This is a most brave practice to generate bodhicitta.

Or, you can base the recitations on a verse from Nagarjuna’s teachings:

“Whatever sufferings there are, may they ripen on me; whatever happiness I have, may it ripen on sentient beings.”

With the first part, you do the practice of taking. With the second, you do the practice of giving. Then, you count on the mala (each time you recite the verse). I think you will be blissed out from this practice and sentient beings will be blissed out.

About the Preliminary Practice of Tonglen

This is a most powerful practice to do. (This is reciting the requesting prayer, together with the meditation of giving and taking.) Here, each time you take the sufferings and the causes of sufferings, including the negative imprints, take all sentient beings’ sufferings, including the delusions and karma, together with the negative imprints, and also the undesirable environments. For example, in hell, there is the ice fire, the ice mountain, the burning ground, the iron house; then, for the pretas, it is a very depressing place with no water, and is so hot and so cold; for human beings, it is a very dirty place full of thorn bushes. You take the environmental sufferings as well, those kinds of things, in the form of black pollution, and you give it to the ego and destroy the ego – one’s own worst enemy. This is the greatest demon that has interfered so far with your being able to achieve enlightenment. It hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment so far, besides that, it hasn’t even allowed you to achieve liberation from samsara, and hasn’t allowed you to enlighten all sentient beings, not even one. In these ways, you can see that one’s own ego is somehow the enemy of all sentient beings, not only an enemy to you.

Also, you collect numberless merits by taking all the sufferings, all the causes of suffering, and also all the undesirable environments. Then, when you give, you collect numberless merits by giving your body as a wish-fulfilling jewel and by giving your possessions to all sentient beings. However many possessions you have, they are given to sentient beings. So, however many possessions you have, you collect that much merit by giving them to sentient beings. Because sentient beings are numberless, you collect numberless merits with each possession.

Then, when giving all the past, present, and future merits, the three times’ merits, again, you collect so many limitless skies of merit. You give all your future happiness – your present happiness, and from the next minute’s happiness up until enlightenment, including liberation, including the realizations – to each and every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura being. You can see that sentient beings are numberless. By giving to each of them, you collect so many numberless merits. You can’t imagine how many. I think if you really knew how much merit you collected, you would faint, fall down, and it might be difficult to get up! I hope it’s not for a long time. I hope people won’t take you to a hospital or a psychologist. I hope your family or friends don’t take you to the hospital because of it!

This is the practice of reciting and meditating on the four immeasurable thoughts:

The Four Immeasurable Thoughts

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to abide in equanimity,
free from hatred and attachment, not holding some close and others distant.
May they abide in equanimity.
I myself will cause them to abide in equanimity.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tonglen, taking on all the disturbing emotions of sentient beings and giving them to your self-cherishing thought, thus destroying it.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they have happiness and its causes.
I myself will cause them to have happiness and its causes.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tonglen, transforming your body into a wish-granting jewel that gives every sentient being every kind of temporal and ultimate happiness that they desire and need.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May they be free from suffering and its causes.
I myself will cause them to be free from suffering and its causes.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tonglen, taking on the sufferings and causes of suffering of all sentient beings.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated from the happiness of higher rebirth and liberation.
May they never be separated from these.
I myself will cause them never to be separated from these.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tonglen, giving all one’s merits of past, present, and future and their results, including enlightenment, to all sentient beings.

Recite each verse with meditation – this helps to develop bodhicitta. When reciting the prayer, if you meditate on the meaning, then you collect limitless skies of merit. With each one of the four immeasurables you collect extensive merits.

This is why in each sadhana, there are the four immeasurable thoughts before you engage in the three kaya meditations, because this practice is so essential. This is one of the main causes of being born as a weel-turning king, and for that one has to collect inconceivable merit.

This is similar to generation stage meditation in the three kaya meditation. It is just visualizing, but through this one can actualize the completion stage, which ceases ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth, and, of course, in the same way one can achieve the ultimate resultant state of the three kayas. So, here, one is doing generation stage three kayas, just visualizing, but each time it plants the seed and purifies ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth, and plants the seed to achieve the resultant three kayas.

One collects so much merit by generating the four immeasurable thoughts. The main thing is to meditate on the meaning and generate the mind. This is a great practice to develop and strengthen bodhicitta, because you do this practice for all sentient beings. Each time you generate the thought, it generates the cause of enlightenment. It causes you to be able to benefit sentient beings for many lifetimes and to have control, so that you can benefit sentient beings more, like the Dharma kings in Tibet, or like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. You benefit sentient beings not just in one country but the entire world.

Include all sentient beings, all those who are suffering and who are devoid of happiness, also you can think of specific people that you want to help.

Although we have different definitions for love and compassion, and during tonglen practice love and compassion are practiced at different times, actually, they are not separate.

Just as smoke is a sign of fire, and with fire there is smoke, so, too, where love is present, so is compassion. In practice they come together.

When you are wishing to take on the suffering of others sincerely, then you are also wishing for their happiness. And when you are wishing sincerely for others’ happiness, then you are also wishing to remove their suffering.

Although the thought of love and compassion does not arise simultaneously, in practice they appear together.

One time I was in England and we were driving to an office for a meeting with the Maitreya Project designer, engineer, architect, and environmental advisor, when these people were going to present their ideas. We were stopped at a red light.

There was a middle-aged, well-dressed man, quite short, crossing the road. He had such an awful body, with long, large fleshy protrusions pointing out, covering his hands and face. It was the first time I saw such a face and body. I pointed him out to my companions. This one fortunate time I remembered to practice tonglen. When you see such a suffering being, practice tonglen. I pointed him out to one of my companions and said "Quickly, quickly, practice tonglen." I found that meditation quite effective. You can take the suffering on yourself and give it all to your ego, to destroy the ego, the self-cherishing thought.

One of my companions asked whether by doing this practice it made the man's sickness meaningful, that it would get better. I said it would be extremely beneficial to achieve enlightenment to be able to benefit all beings. We can pray and dedicate the merits from that practice for that person to be quickly liberated from samsara. That means to stop all sicknesses, however many hundreds of sicknesses there are, all sufferings, and all the problems of life. So, this way of praying covers everything. This meditation develops bodhicitta, enables us to collect extensive merit, purify negative karma, and achieve enlightenment more quickly. After that, we're able to perform perfect work, not only for that person but for all sentient beings, and we are able to free them from the ocean of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment.

Dear one,
First, you have to know the benefits of the bodhicitta practice; you have to have a big goal in mind. The purpose of life is to free all sentient beings from all sufferings and to cause them to have happiness, especially to bring them to enlightenment, to free them from all defilements and sufferings.

The next thing, in order to perfectly do that, is that you need the path to enlightenment. The door to enlightenment is bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is the most important thing in life, not only for your own benefit but in order to eliminate all the defilements of countless other sentient beings, for everyone.

You need to know what bodhicitta is: it is renouncing oneself and cherishing other sentient beings. You need to understand this to be able to enjoy and accept the practice (tonglen). That depends on how much you see self-cherishing as the enemy. The more you see it as the enemy, the more you are able to do tonglen practice sincerely.

You are not only taking the suffering of others, you are taking all the undesirable things onto the ego and destroying the ego. The ego is the enemy of bodhicitta. If there is ego, there is no space in the mind for bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is the wish-fulfilling, holy thought that brings all happiness for oneself and for every sentient being.

The more you understand this, the more you will enjoy taking the suffering of others and giving them all your happiness and merit. How this benefits other sentient beings is because the more you renounce the ego, the more you are able to practice bodhicitta. It makes it possible to enter the Mahayana path that eliminates both defilements, gross and subtle, and to attain omniscience, so you are able to become enlightened and do perfect works for sentient beings. You collect vast amounts of merit each time you take others' sufferings or give others your happiness. For example, each time you visualize giving your body to others, you collect so much merit. Each time you give your possessions, happiness, and merits to others, you collect vast amounts of merit. Giving all of these are the cause for achieving ultimate happiness. Each time we take others' sufferings, we purify many eons of negative karma, so we are able to achieve enlightenment soon, even in this life.

The actual benefit of taking others' suffering, the long term, ultimate benefit, is that you become enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. This benefit is enormous, like the vast sky, and what you can offer to each sentient being is like the limitless sky.

This is the main benefit of this practice. Then, it becomes more powerful purification than doing a three-month Vajrasattva retreat, with comforts and ego. You are doing the Vajrasattva retreat so you will not be born in the lower realms. This is not a very powerful purification or sacrifice for others. Sincerely taking others' suffering and its causes with strong compassion, just once, purifies more than doing a one-year Vajrasattva retreat.

With much love and prayer...