I'm Danielle and we we talked previously about Lojang, which
is a Tibetan Buddhist mind training program.
And the idea with Lojang is that you focus with great
concentration on 59 different slogans, each in turn getting a
lot of time to each slogan, concentrating and meditating on
it so much that it settles into your body, and then you practice
it in your daily life. I'd like to talk about one of
them that I think it's kind of interesting and I'm going to
give it a little bit different spin than they usually do in the
traditional Lojang training. So I'm going to focus on slogan
7, which is sending and taking should be practiced to.
Alternately, these two should ride the breath in the Lojang
training. In the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition, this refers to the meditative practice of tonglen.
So tonglen is like the other side of the coin from loving
kindness meditation. So, you know, loving kindness
meditation is where you generate good feelings towards others and
may you be happy and may you be free from suffering and kind of
pushing out that kind of loving kindness and you give loving
kindness to yourself. Tonglen, on the other hand, is
about taking in, you know, sadness or hurt or pain or anger
and then sending out the positiveness and goodness and
light and that kind of thing. And the idea with this with in
the Tibetan version is that you breathe in, you know, the pain
and suffering of others and you breathe out kindness and
compassion and, and light, that kind of thing.
And it is to help us practice a little bit more balance for us
to understand the feeling of, of, of, of, of pain and
suffering and to let it out. One of the challenges that I
found when I have taught Tom Glenn before is that for people
who tend to internalize a lot of other people's emotions anyway,
it can be kind of harmful, right?
Because for people, especially if you tend to kind of self
blame or you tend to take a lot of responsibility for things.
If you're taking on other people's sadness or anger or
negative feelings, it can often magnify like feelings that you
already have in yourself. So it can be kind of harmful.
So when I've when I've taught this to others and the way, but
I also practice, it is a practice of acknowledging that
there are negative feelings in the world and to take them and
set them in your lack and then to breathe out kind of the, you
know, the goodness of the light. And for me, that's a good
practice because it also helps me to remember not to take on
everybody else's pain, that it's OK to sit with difficult
feelings that come from other people without having to take
them on. I've also used this kind of
tonglen training to help people who are really sensitive to
other people's moods that feel like when other people are upset
that it really throws them off balance.
And one of the ways that that I have helped people to deal with
that is by having them visualize like the other people's emotions
are coming in and whether you take them in or not, because
some people just take them in without thinking.
Then use your own body as like a conversion machine and translate
that negative feeling into light and then kind of send it out
into the world. No matter what any of these
practices, the idea is kind of a balance between taking and
sending. So not that you are especially
some of us have a tendency to try to take the good things from
from people because we're feeling bad and then we get
grumpy and we send bad things out.
So this is kind of the counter that also to instead of trying
to like make yourself feel better by taking in good
feelings, you can practice this path of awakening by taking in
negative feelings and then putting out good feelings.
So that is the it's the meditative practice.
And this is the idea, you know, breathe in negativity and
breathe out positivity or whatever words you want to use.
Breathe in dark, breathe out light, that kind of thing.
I like that practice. I think it's a good practice.
It's a good, helpful practice, especially if you're already
practicing a lot of loving kindness meditation because it
has a little bit of a different flavor to it.
But I also think, and this is not something that's taught in
lozong training, I also think that it has that.
It's a really good reminder on other levels about balance and
about the the middle path and about how we navigate through
the world. And what I mean is that as
people, we all have a tendency to give and take with other
people, with people, places and things, right?
We bring things to a place. We are words, thoughts, deeds,
and we take things from other people and from other places.
It not necessarily objects, but experiences or emotions or ideas
or something like this. And to me, this idea of
balancing taking and sending, giving and taking, is to think
about what it is that we are putting out into the world and
what it is that we are taking from the world, right?
Because the world is helping to construct us.
And this idea of us being interdependent, who we are, is
the result of all of the experiences that we've had.
So what are those experiences? What are we taking in to kind of
construct who we are and then what are we putting out into the
world that helps kind of construct the world in a
particular way? So it's a more abstract way to
think about taking and sending, but I think it's also important
and it can ride along with the tonglen meditation because I
think that one of the things about tonglen meditation and the
idea is to kind of let go of your ego a little bit.
A lot of the Lojang training is a really about getting out of
your own way and to try to detached from our egocentric way
of thinking. And a meditation practice like
tonglen helps with that because it's not about like I'm trying
to feel better. It's about I am being part of
the world where there is unhappiness and sadness and I'm
experiencing that and then sending out, you know, goodness
and light and peacefulness or whatever else.
And that is an important part to remember, that kind of taking
and sending both in like a figurative sense, but also
thinking about how we are interacting in the world and
what we are taking and sending to the world, to the people that
we love, to our environment, to our communities, all of that.
So I think it's a good physical way to embody a kind of
conceptual way of being. So it's a this meditation
practice can be a helpful way to practice being more of being
less self-centered and trying to be more connected in a balanced
sort of way. Anyway, I'm going to turn it
over to you because I'd like to hear your comments, questions.
If you have ever practiced tonglen, then I'd like to hear
about what your experience was. If you have questions about
tonglen as a meditation, you know, feel free to raise that.
But otherwise I, I would also like to touch on this, the, the
concept of giving and taking in a more abstract sense.
So not just about the meditative practice, but about what we put
into and take from the world, put into ourselves and put into
the world. So I'm going to turn that over
to you. When you speak, please start
with your name so we can get to know you now.
This time is yours. Could you read the initial
state? The initial statement I can.
Yes, sending and taking should be practiced.
Alternately, these two should ride the breaths, so practice
pongling. So what all stuff you just said
didn't didn't resonate with the initial like, oh, cake in the
gut. I got let's stick in the initial
cake. And the guy that I got from the
statement was was more aligned with listening in action with I
need to alternate the my absorption of what is the need
of the moment. What is need of person that I am
talking to with and act and I should not withdraw and not act
and just listen or absorb or even detach, but I need to
intake act. I don't know if Tomlin is except
I have practiced toggling through another group.
So and I found that that was largely like intended on
anchoring you in the moment with, you know, the traumas and
the paid people were experiencing grounding and
finding that middle space up like it's OK.
And so I suppose that that does apply.
But my initial thought they heard that stay was like a
little bit and punch in the gut like, oh, looking at my my wife
was got this problem work that has nothing to do with us or
anything that I do. And she's talking about this
problem trying to work it out. But like, I don't understand it
like quarter what you're saying. And so I was largely just
listening. And then Marvel was like a
Marshall's port because she's struggling through a province.
The problem I can't help her and like that just to me illustrates
the like what is the inhalation of no and like she's talking for
like 20 minutes or something, but I can't do anything to hell.
Do I need to shake the conversation with you lost me
and I don't know how to help with this problem.
I understand dementing try most check out.
So I mean, and that's where I found that statement to really
resonate me so. I'm married, this serves.
This is just what I thought of when you're telling that story
about your wife. My boss used to say 2 heads are
better than one, even if one is a cabbage, so just being there
and listening is probably fantastic.
That's the action. That that is the exhalation
itself. That's good.
I actually when you were talking, I think I took it a
little bit of a different way because, you know, in Buddhism
and meditation, there's all a big discussion between doing and
being. So one of the challenges is that
our culture, we are doing culture where the expectation is
like, act, do something, engage in something, be always doing.
And so a lot of meditation, especially in the West, is like,
but why don't you practice being?
Why don't you just sit with something?
Why don't you just listen? Why don't you just experience
it? And I think that figuring out
the balance, so it's kind of in the same way, like what is the
balance between like just being, I'm just here having this
experience and then doing something And it's kind of hard
to tell. And especially I think in
relationships, when do I just sit with you while you're having
a problem? And when do I need to take
action to help you solve that problem or something like this?
And a lot of us are are kind of trained to like the that to
beat, to solve a problem, like we're solving a problem solving
culture, engage in action and do things.
So the being for many of us, the being part is more difficult.
It's harder to just sit and just be, especially if somebody that
you care about is struggling. It's hard to just sit.
I'm just I'm just sitting with your difficulty.
And that is one way that I find tonglen to be helpful because if
I have the practice of just sitting with difficulty, whether
it's difficulty that I generate or difficulty that I imagined in
the world, it helps me when somebody that I care about is
having difficulty. And I don't just automatically
rush into problem solving. I try to just sit and say, like,
that's really difficult while you're you're really going
through something like I can just sit with that.
And part of that is because I've practiced just sitting with
things that are difficult through the tonglen practice.
So it's not exactly what you were talking about because I
think there was more of like listening is an action kind of a
thing. But I also heard a little bit of
a tension between should you just be in the space with
somebody who is having a difficult time or should you try
to do something about the difficulty that that person is
happening having? And I think that fits really
well with what we're talking about.
Also that tendency we all have to be like, it's my trying to
talk and that's the initial thing that I have a like knowing
what it's not. But the the the stay there.
That's why I can't be the cut because it's like.
Breathing in and out, talking, See, we caught play receiving
and acting. Like it just feels like there
should be more resting and less acting.
And that balance is kind of saying like, no, you also have
to act, which is counterintuitive to me for what
you're saying. Like we tend to do that enough,
but maybe that's what. Part of it is the balance,
right? Like if you are already a doer
and you are heavy on problem solving, then probably you need
to learn more into just being and sitting with things.
If you are not like an action oriented person, problem solving
and and you do a lot of like sitting with things and maybe
you should engage more in the active action side.
So yes. What are you asking of us to do?
I heard you ask us to take on the world problems instead of in
our lap and then get a goodness. You're asking, you're asking us
to do that one right? Well, this is, I mean, that's
the idea behind the tonglen meditation.
So it's not like a homework assignment, but.
We are pragmatic Buddhists and so I would like to mesh the two
together. That's and but unless you're
asking me to do just long gender homeland meditation, the other
Lausanne, Mojon, Lojon. OK, so for today you want us to
just do Lojon? Well, yeah.
No, no, no, no. No.
Then I asked something to say. Go.
OK, OK. So I got the blend, which is the
three questions when I had sitting with someone which could
be the world problems and I'm uncertain what to do.
So I had three questions that guide me.
They are is it true because Danielle says to ask Bell all
the time. Secondly, is it necessary, you
know, to get involved, counteract or take action?
And thirdly, is it kite and it and those are just filters.
It's not like you have to get all three yeses.
So if I'm with my AD mother and she's telling the story that
really never happened, do I stop her with kindness?
That thing, it's not necessary, so I just let it go or let it
go. You're just there for them.
Or if I'm in a folk and I don't know what's wrong, but
something's not right and I'm disturbed, I can ask those three
questions during meditation. Is it true?
And I try to get in touch with what my body is trying to tell
me. And then if I get in touch with
that, that I'm all tense about, let's say a schedule scheduling
problem, then miss necessary. Do I need to do something about
it or just let everything go clap or and so the necessary is
like what action should I take an action and that if I decide I
should take an action or something could be said, is it
copied? So I always want to wrap my help
as certain word. It might just be acknowledging
someone's pain or hit you or something to do it kindness.
So that's kind of like a mesh. But if I'm supposed to be taking
on the world problems, then I'm not allowed to.
I don't need to talk. That is true.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a sort of a
visualization kind of thing, like sitting with other
problems. Yeah.
So you can do both. And that is, I mean, actually
those three questions that typically comes up when we talk
about skillful speech in part of as part of the eightfold path,
kind of asking yourself like is this, is it accurate, this thing
that you're going to say, is it necessary?
Is it helpful or kind or what they're saying?
Of course, what they're saying too, but it's a good, I mean, I
like the way that you framed it. It doesn't have to be about what
you're saying. It can be about what you're
thinking or seeing or feeling or considering putting out in the
world. So I think that that is a good.
Well, we'll always say made the fruits of our practice extent.
So in your case, Arie, you're listening to a woman who's part
of another word by you giving her and ease, she can face those
people at ease. So we're all connected and
important to do it. So that's our pragmatic
principles in in play. Absolutely.
Gary Olden So that concept of building up enough of a grounded
state and awareness to be able to internalize some of the pain
and suffering or the observation of the state of the world and
not be overwhelmed by it, I think is something I've been
striving for when I observe what's going on in the world.
It's very overwhelming for me at times.
So as as it is, I'm sure for countless other people.
So one way is just to try to reject what's happening, go into
a state of internalizing or state of entertaining to get
away or distract the mind or distract where I am from those
things. But I feel like that's the state
of rejection from reality. And so I think the important
thing for me, what I've been trying to focus on is to get
well balanced in a state from what meditation hopefully is
helping me with is just being able to absorb war in general
without having it change my state of.
Emotion or my emotional state or change my, my overreactions or
to feel like I'm able to take on more of that realization and
hopefully react to it in positive ways.
So, yeah. And then the, the idea that we
are a combination of the experiences we have or some to
some degree, I want to try to build on and take my own
initiative to create new experiences that then will
evolve my own way of thinking and evolve my own state of being
and evolve my my internal growth to become war more capable and
more mature and more able to just offer more to the world.
So yeah, I can. I can Appreciate, appreciate.
And I think tonglen is part of the point of tonglen is to
increase our tolerance for discomfort, right?
So, and that's part of what meditation practice is.
Also, I tend to think of meditation in general about
increasing my tolerance for uncertainty or, you know,
ambiguity. And tonglen helps with me in the
same sort of way with trying to increase our capacity for
discomfort. And so in that sense, and this
is the, the more traditional tonglen, if you take on
discomfort and then feel it, the challenge to your point, the
challenge is to not allow it to disturb our equilibrium to our
equanimity. And, and that's where if you
practice that enough, like bringing in some pain and
suffering and maintaining your equanimity, then it expands your
capacity for sitting with more difficulty.
And that can be a good practice because sometimes in life, major
difficulties happen and we don't have a wide tolerance for
sitting with difficulty. And so that's what we're trying
to do is to just to expand our capacity to give ourselves a
moment, not that we should be, you know, putting ourselves in
harm's way regularly and just saying like, oh, I feel
terrible. And I guess that's just the way
that life is. But if we can expand our
tolerance for sitting in discomfort, that can give us
enough space to step back and say, like, what is appropriate
for me to do now? Is it, should I just sit with
this stuff discomfort or should I move out of the way and not be
discomforted anymore? And we don't always know that
right? When we're when we're in the
midst of discomfort, we're often really reactive and it doesn't
give us an opportunity to take that step back to kind of be
more intentional about what our actions might or might not be.
So that is part of this practice is about can you learn to expand
your capacity for sitting with discomfort, which happens
anyway. And when we sit in zazen, it's
often uncomfortable. We are expanding our capacity to
sit with discomfort. But this is makes it more of a
like an intentional visualization process where
we're being explicit about sitting with the discomfort and
then kind of navigating through it or or increasing our
tolerance for to give us enough space to step back from the
discomfort. Would that be through a state of
observation or would it be any thought?
Would it be observation or would it be thought?
Did you say, well, it kind of depends, It's a little bit of
all of them. It's observation, it's thought,
it's sensations. So and different people can are
more in touch with different parts of that.
So it could be just observing like what is coming up for you
while you are having these thoughts about taking in
suffering and sitting with it and putting out not suffering.
It could be just an intellectual process.
And this is especially true. There are some people who cannot
visualize, you know that well. So it is like a narrative.
And for that, like thinking about the words of like, what is
it like to sit with discomfort and then to kind of put out in
the world more comfort? And then for other people, it's
about how does it feel in the body?
So if you imagine yourself taking on discomfort, what does
that feel like in your body? And if you imagine yourself
putting out comfort, what does that feel like in your body?
So it could be that it could also be emotional feelings.
What does it feel emotionally to to take in sadness or pain or
discomfort and put out goodness or light or comfort?
It could be any of those, and those are all different forms of
the same sort of practice. Nathan Ukulele only or nothing
actually, I already know Gary from the this site.
I think the thing that yeah, mine's sure I've done loving
kindness meditations before. I haven't done under one, but
usually when I've done welding countless meditations, I focus
on metaphor. I've never actually thought
about what the metaphor is referring to, which is I guess
if you if you don't think that there's, if you don't, if you if
you're not like a duelist, you're just am honest to me.
Think of all there is is physical reality like I am the
loving kindness that's going out into the world and really
meditation is shaping me so that I can go out.
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
I mean, I think that is it's helpful how we approach
meditation, all the meditations, loving kindness or tonglen or
even zazen and figuring out what is the best frame for us or for
the lesson to land. Because all kinds of meditation
are brain training and how you learn can vary, right?
We all have kind of different ways.
So if it's helpful to have a visualization about like you
being part of the universe, that's helpful.
If if it's helpful for you to think about the the phrases or
the words, maybe that's helpful. If it's helpful to think about
the physiological sensation, maybe that's helpful, but it can
be, it can be a lot of different things for a lot of different
people. So part of our, all of us are
our practices figuring out what helps to make the lesson land.
So in this case, the lesson about like giving and taking,
sending and receiving, how what would it take to get that lesson
for House to be more balanced and to increase our tolerance
for discomfort and to be in communion with each other and
the rest of the world? What would it take to learn that
lesson? That's all what Buddhism is
trying to tell us. What will it take to learn that
lesson? And sometimes meditative
techniques, visualizations, thought experiments can help.
Sometimes they can't because it depends on how it's going to
land for you. I'm Steven.
I think for me that when I listened to everything and this,
I think the thing that's like really resonating with me right
now is sitting with discomfort. That statement is kind of just
stayed in my brain to her. But for me, the way that that is
showing up is I've been married for 18 years, I got 3 kids and
my daughter's about to go to college.
We lived kind of in like car centered suburban, you know,
purple politically area. And there's a lot of like
concentric circles of discomfort and not for me right now that
I'm noticing. So I like, you know, there's,
there's all the there's all the scripts that you bring from your
own upbringing and your own, you know, view of the world and
social circle. Then there's the scripts that
your partner and you know, the people you're next what they're
bringing. And there's the scripts that
your broader community are bringing to the table and all
those interacts and intersect in complex ways, you know, and
there's like socioeconomics and your cultural background and all
those things. And So what I think about when I
hear sitting with discomfort is, you know, sun, you know, some
conflict that perhaps me and my wife are attempting to work
through. There are all these other
background things happening that come up during meditation when I
sit and think about sitting with discomfort, you know, it's not
there's the, the primary relationship and the the good
threads that are there and the background tensions and things
like that. But then there's also those
concentric circles of things unrelated to her that are
happening over here in this domain and my community and
frustrations about something with my children's school over
here. And then, you know, and deeper
existential frustration with American culture.
And, you know, like all those kind of stuff that interplays.
And the tendency, like you said, is to want to solve it.
You know what, to do something about it.
But if you are unable to sit with discomfort, then you're
doing will be from ego and impulsiveness and all these sort
of things rather than consideration to be able to sit
with discomfort for that and think and feel and and be so
that the most appropriate action actually comes up.
And I don't do a great job with that.
So that I think is what comes up as I listen to this.
We described life so well. I'm in the thick of it.
Yeah. And thank you because aren't we
all right. And I think that that's, that's
one of the reasons that many of us came to meditation in the 1st
place because the discomfort was acute.
And often we were given a recommendation from someone that
said meditation can health. And, and so I think on some
level, many people who find meditation in the West are
really aware of the idea of discomfort.
But I agree with you that they don't realize that part of what
the meditation training is to expand our ability to sit with
that long enough to step back and, and actually be intentional
about, do I try to solve this? Do I just sit with this, you
know, instead of being reactive to it?
And but it's difficult. It's difficult because those
reactions just come up. It's and that's we're trying to
increase our capacity to not be reactive to the discomfort to
whatever it is. I feel like our brains are also
really good at each layer that you peel back during meditation
of like, oh, I see that, you know, my ego is coming in, you
know, in this place. Oh, cool, I didn't realize like
another fully my ego coming out. It's like you peel back these
layers and we start to think that you're, you know, beginning
to act more loving. And in some ways you are.
But then you also discover how deep the ego goes and how many
tendrils it gets into the way that we react to people and the
things that we think are right action in that moment, you know?
Absolutely. It's it's why this is a
practice, because it does take practice.
I mean, we have practiced for our whole lives in a different
way and now we're like, OK, so now I've logged some meditation
hours. It should be fine now and it
takes, you're right, it takes a lot of time.
And, and this is one of the reasons why I what I appreciate
about Buddhism and why I always focus on the idea of sitting
with discomfort, because that isn't discomforting statement
that you just made, right? Like you practice a lot and
you're peeling away the layers of, of the ego and you're like,
Hey, I'm letting go of my ego and all of a sudden you're like,
I am not letting go of my ego. And that's uncomfortable, right?
And so it often just a reaction to that, where you when,
especially when you think that you're making progress and
you're like, I am getting more grounded.
I'm more able to sit with all of this.
And you then you realize that you're not in this instance or
that instance or whatever else. It can be really frustrating and
it can make it harder to, to continue with the practice.
So it's helpful for me to to recognize like, Oh, I'm
uncomfortable with the thought that I'm a bad Buddhist and I
just should sit with that for a minute and just be like, hey,
that's the thing that's that's happening and engage in some
more practice or whatever it is. You know what I mean?
So it's a good reminder. And that's why we have these
discussions, because sometimes we need some explicit reminding.
Well, it seems like the discomfort could be through this
practice seen through multiple ways and then the scaling of it,
how there's a scaling effect there to the closest things to
our daily lives to then maybe it goes outside to to to the wider
group of friends or, or a little wider.
And then you could go, you know, when you're going out to, OK,
what's happening on a little wider scale of the county or
what's happening to the state level or the country level or
the world level, Then you know how each of those is going to
have its own sets of complications and difficulties
to observe and maybe have some discomfort about.
And then understand how your own reactions might be just
observing those discomforts and becoming more aware of reality,
really seeing all the all the realities around you and a
greater sense and just seeing with all that reality and
understanding it better. And then maybe coming out of
that with with more action to how you could react in a greater
with more of all of that concentration going into that
hopefully come out with with almost almost like in a planning
state that will ultimately come out of that with something,
something to to do an action or actions take out of that.
That's interesting. I do think, I mean I have had
experience of getting completely overwhelmed by some of these
concepts and I think that that is something for us to be
mindful of because all of these are really good practices.
So the idea like, OK, we need to increase our comfort with
discomfort. And so then we sit in more
discomfort. And sometimes, and I have had
this tendency and, and in case any of you do, I have sometimes
used Buddhism as a weapon against myself to say like, you
need to sit with more discomfort.
And I'm like, but I don't like it feels bad.
You need to sit with more discomfort, be more
uncomfortable. And it's not that that's a bad
thing, but it's really, I mean it.
That is not a space of learning. So I think it's important also
to recognize that we learn best when we are a little
uncomfortable because it's making us pay attention.
It's something that we didn't know before.
But if you get too uncomfortable and you're completely
overwhelmed, you're not learning anything new, it's not helping
you. So if it's helpful, right, if
you are tend to be kind of cut off from the world or you are
trying to avoid things discomfort so much that you are
completely disengaged with it, then it can be really helpful to
say, OK, I'm going to invite intentionally invite in this
idea of discomfort, but monitor yourself and recognize when it's
now gone beyond the level, like it's no longer about I'm
learning how to tolerate discomfort and it is now like I
am just hurting myself. So trying to figure out that
kind of a balance. And because if you can do that
in smaller steps, like, OK, I am, I'm kind of pushing myself
out of my comfort zone like a little bit here.
And then I'm going to push it out a little bit more and push.
That's how you expand, right? Slowly pushing out.
If you try to do it all at once and try to like jump way into
the deep end of discomfort, it's probably going to make it worse
and then you're going to have to come back even further and then
you haven't made quite as much progress.
You're not actually expanding your ability to be sit in
discomfort. So yes, I think it is a good
idea for us to expand our awareness and to think about
discomfort in larger sort of concentric circles and try to
imagine the world as it is a little bit more.
But to recognize it when it gets to that point where now it's too
overwhelming to think about this much discomfort, come back to
something that is more manageable and sit with that for
a little while and then try again to expand out, right?
Because we are, we're trying to expand our awareness.
That's the whole point of sitting in Zazen is to become
increasingly more aware of the world as it is easier said than
done. Because there's that impermanent
thing, you think you have it all figured out, but then community
groups change their goals. Or.
Age change, so then you're back to.
Elections happen. Yeah.
So you have to allow that just for today, just for this moment,
they're. OK, yeah, I think 'cause that's
the other part of it, right? The, the especially when it gets
overwhelming about the discomfort or the unpleasantness
or the changing nature of life. When that becomes too
overwhelming, it can also be really helpful to remind
yourself or to invite in some of the joy and the peacefulness and
the compassion. And, and this is where something
like loving kindness training might be helpful or a gratitude
practice might be helpful because you can go too far.
You can go too far and like, I just want to be in the world
that it is. And then you're like, but the
world sucks right now. So maybe you should also
remember that even though things are difficult and you're sitting
with discomfort, there are moments of joy, there's moments
of peace, there's moments of contentment.
And it can be really helpful to invite those in also.
So this is part of what I was saying, that we can go too far
with inviting in discomfort. We should remember also to
invite in, you know, joy and peacefulness and contentment.
And then I, I guess it's also interesting the, the exhale, and
I don't know if I, if I heard that right, but you're exhaling
joy or you're exhaling love, then that would be in a sense
that's inside of you. So you're, you're releasing
that. And in a sense, I guess you
could, you could visualize that as being a way to help the
world. That is kind of part of the
point of Tonglan. The idea is that if you bring
and breathe in the unpleasantness and then you're
breathing out the pleasantness, you also can have an experience
of pleasantness as you are breathing it out.
And, you know, visualizing putting that out in the world,
which is kind of, I think, didn't you bring this up, that
the fruit of our practice extends to all living being.
That's the sort of idea that what we want is like we want to
put more kind of light and joy and contentment out into the
world so that the world becomes a more joyful and contented
place. And sometimes we can do that,
like just with our breath because if it can get us more,
you know, grounded or settled or in this moment the way that it
is, then the way we interact in the world is going to be more
pleasant to other people. And that can kind of create this
sort of a ripple effect. So yeah.
Might help prepare us. Also keep you like even as a
visualization. Obviously the breath of cells
isn't changing the world, but if we visualize that, I can see how
that might help build the action afterwards, you know, or or
strength to build action afterwards.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like Aaron said, that
this is just another tool. The idea of tonglen is another
tool that you could practice and figure out if it's useful to you
and if it's useful to you in what contexts.
So it's not like tonglen is not one of my primary practices in
loving kindness. My meditation is not one of my
primary meditation practices. I mostly is in zazen, but
sometimes it's just really helpful.
Like I mean, especially if I'm in distress or somebody that I
love is in distress, some of these kinds of visualization
practices can be really helpful in that in that moment.
So put it as a tool in your toolbox and see if it's useful.
There are plenty of tonglen meditation videos out in the
world on in YouTube or an insight timer.
I, I would just say to, to monitor yourself because some of
those, the ones that I have listened to can get too intense
in terms of like taking on the feelings of, of unpleasantness.
And that doesn't really work for me.
That's just why I modified it to like I would sit in my lap, but
you know you best so. So I participate in community
groups, parrot groups, and you know, there's a dark side of
that because I don't agree with the tone lunar work.
But when I do my outcry, I say they belong, Gertie, because
they have their own struggles. Their kids are way different
than my kids ever met them. I know they're different, what
they belong here to and that helps me when a meeting gets out
of Gant and it just gets anger is the main pitching.
I think this belongs here too because I want everyone to sit
with the discomfort that we're all in it together.
We're all parents. We all want the best for our
kids. It's how we get to the end.
The path is different from all of us.
So by having a blow up of craziness, I think this belongs
here to because there's someone in the room that can swing it
back to either put back to the topic.
So the outbreak to me is saying we're all missed hits.
And everyone's experiences are different.
That's LED them to their own world views.
And it's hard to have judgement against people's personal
experiences in their backgrounds.
There's only one truth. There's there's really only one
true reality. I'm not one someone that thinks
there's different truths about the world, but there are
different observation nature. I think person has to those
reality, the real ultimate reality and their background and
their experiences totally shape that.
And it's, it's so easy for, for me and, and probably most of us
to not use the, the, the backgrounds we have and our own
experiences and everything we've gone through and the struggles
of the things that we feel like we figured out over the, over
the time on earth. And then to look at other people
that haven't figured certain things out.
And then I immediately want to question myself.
It's like, OK, maybe I figured that out, but I'm sure I didn't
figure other things out that they have, that they figured
out, You know, so it's a constant evolution of trying to
remove that judgement of other people's personal life
experiences and just trying to understand that they have good
intentions usually. I think that's an important
startup. For.
Most people, I think to you. There's dark side, but they.
Not all people, but most people, hey.
There's disruptors that just like NM key, but they belong
there too. That's part of the sort of
compassion training also is, is expanding our capacity to see
things differently or to acknowledge that different
people have different points of view.
But it's, it's also hopefully gives us enough space to decide
to be intentional about what we do with that.
Because part of the idea of building compassion is not to
say that we forgive everything and everybody's fine and
everybody's, you know, everybody can do whatever they want.
But to say like there are people have different intentions.
And to, to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume
that they have good intentions can give us enough space to see
like, OK, so maybe they have good intentions, maybe they
don't have good intentions, but what are the consequences of
whatever those actions are? And what can I, what should I,
what's an appropriate response to that?
And that they can give us a little bit of space if we, if we
can try to like treat other humans as if they mattered as
much as we do or the people that we care about do, that might
give us enough space to think about how we're going to act
instead of react. And that's the type stuff that
takes practice. Because when somebody is like
doing something that's really irritating, it's very difficult
to be spontaneously skillful if you haven't practiced, like
being compassionate and sitting within meditation along a long
time before. And using those three steps that
Danielle taught. I think to like, what are the
worst humbling things that I think about when I'm talking
with someone else that I'm disagree with is that I reflect
on my own journey. There was no single conversation
ever in the entire journey that was like the turning point in
which my mind changed, right? Like no single conversation did
it. It was this complex, messy mix
of experiences and circumstances and multiple conversations with
different people along the way and happenstance, the lucky
breaks and and then my mind changed as my behaviors change,
right? And so it is very likely that
that's also how other people change.
And so it, it's uncomfortable because it reflects the light
that when I've been some intense conversation, trying to change
someone's mind, that's actually you go because they're most
likely not going to change their mind just because I told them
something. They're going to have their own
set of experiences, right? And when they're ready to see
something a certain way, they will.
And maybe I'm one little bump in a different direction, but like,
I am not, you know, I'm not the catalyst capital.
I like you have this one conversation is not going to be
the thing that changes their mind.
And so then it's freeing because it's like, hey, maybe I can err
on the side of the kind here rather than, you know, proving
that I know this point and trying to force them to change
their mind, which they won't do it, you know?
I think that's another benefit of of this kind of approach,
this approach that tends to be calmer or tends to be sort of
more peaceful, that often times you can have difficult
conversations with people that you couldn't when if you were
emotionally charged about something.
And sometimes that that does contribute like a little bump in
somebody's development and and worldview kind of thing because
it is very difficult to actually like learn and listen when
somebody's shouting at you and telling you you're wrong and
telling you that you're. Bad.
It's it's. Difficult to say, like, oh, I'm
going to change myself because you said that that was wrong and
bad. It is easier if somebody's like,
well, have you thought about it this way or, you know, and have
it a little bit more broad. So, you know, that's a good
point to keep in mind sometimes that like the quiet way is the
and the peaceful way is the better way for us and for other
people. So we're about out of time.
So we'll close. And when we close, we like to
say, may the fruit of our practice extend to all living
beings.