Good Medicine – The practice of Tonglen – Pema Chodron
This is a summary, an outline, of a wonderful talk which I recently heard and which can be found with the above title on Udemy. Presenting a summary is always a risk. There are things omitted, but if you are thinking of purchasing this talk, which I would recommend, this can act as a preview.
To talk about Tonglen we must first talk about Maitri and Mindfulness Awareness Meditation.
Maitri – is compassion for oneself, being able to make friends with yourself. Not to struggle against the pain in our life. Don’t struggle with the discomfort of being oneself. Use meditation to get closer to oneself. Get closer to grief, joy, embarrassment, success. The pairs of opposites: victory defeat, praise blame, pleasure pain, loss gain aways exist side by side. We identify with only one side but that brings only momentary satisfaction.
Happiness doesn’t lie in getting momentary satisfaction. There is gratification but it doesn’t add up. Temporary happiness can be gained from buying something, taking a drink. But there is a hangover. Root of happiness is to begin to live your life in a way to open up to include all sides, not geared to the momentary pleasure. Think bigger, know somehow that you can embrace it all. Struggle against what is perceived as unpleasant and trying to get all under one column doesn’t add up to lasting indestructible happiness or being at home in your body or feeling right which is the basis of maitri.
Foundation for compassion is the deepening of friendship for oneself, not lying to oneself. We have parts of ourselves that we find painful. We struggle with that and it doesn’t measure up with the image that we want to present to people. Not calling yourself right or wrong. Amazingly unfamiliar territory between between acting out and repressing. Hold the paradox, stay on the razor’s edge.
Mindfulness awareness meditation – is an opportunity of actually doing something to be able to see clearly with compassion. Sitting quietly with this body and this mind, being with yourself. Beginning to meditate, you are facing your mind, a pool of water stirred up with wind, when the water calms down you see all the tires, corpses, junk, debris. Beginning to discover your own humanness. Sharedness of the human condition. Become intimate with things that you have shunned. Intimacy of losing something that is dear to you. Become intimate with…all the sides of being human…the whole catastrophe.
Become aware of your body sitting here, and your breath going out. Notice your mind going off, continuously, keep coming back to being here with this body, as comfortable or uncomfortable as it might be, this mood, as disturbed or peaceful as it might be. This mind, turbulent ocean, moods and weather changes of the mind. This is the training for maitri. Staying. Train the dog, Hitting makes a dog skittish. Train with love and kindness and clarity, then the dog has flexibility, sense of humor. Train with kindness. Very naive. No big deal. Acknowledge what is there, be present here, in the present moment. Feeding the baby. Keep the spoon by the mouth, don’t hit the baby. Do it over and over. This is training in living without prejudice toward yourself.
Tonglen – Compassion begins to dawn on you. Tonglen is cultivating compassion. Not just being kind to others but having compassionate honest relationship to yourself – exploring the human condition. Our life stories are different, but the feelings of anger, jealousy, loneliness, depression have been felt in the same way forever. This is knowing the human condition. Not condescending compasssion. Stand in your own shoes and you are standing in the shoes of other people as well. Tonglen is built on this knowledge. When you feel discomfort, automatic response is to push it away. Tonglen approach is to breath in this discomfort with knowing that what you are feeling is felt by millions of people. Breathe out that which brings relief. Send out spaciousness, love, joy – you are doing this for every person and you know every person because you know your self. Relation between equals. You can stay with yourself and you can stay with others.
This compassion comes from opening yourself through the sitting meditation, the Tonglen practice, or, if not by doing these practices, just staying with experiences and not running away. Walk down the street and try to keep heart and mind open for one block. You won’t believe how much you notice attachment, aversion, like and dislike. Staying awake and open for one short block can be quite a spiritual experience.
Essence of Tonglen: when things hurt think “other people feel this.” When enjoying something, or experiencing happiness, think “may other people feel this.” Compassion is what heals us. It is a continual feeling of your heart and mind opening up, to the situations and people that you find yourself with.
