Tonglen

Buddha of love with two gestures that can be interpreted as taking and giving

Tonglen ( Tib. གཏོང་ ལེན, Wylie : gtong len ; "send out and receive") is a form of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism . Tonglen comes from Lojong (Tib. བློ་ སྦྱོང་, Wylie: blo sbyong ; "mind training") - a method for developing relative and absolute bodhichitta , which means "heart of awakening" or "enlightening mindset". Tonglen mainly trains relative bodhichitta, i.e. liberating compassion, whereby the practitioner imagines absorbing his own suffering or the suffering of other people and then love (Pali: Metta, Sanskrit: Maitri) and compassion (Pali / Sanskrit: Karuna) to send out.

Origins

Tonglen practice has its roots in India . A related form of meditation is the metta meditaton , which is already described in the first Buddhist records ( Palikanon ). With the transfer of Buddhism from India to Tibet, the special form of tonglen practice developed.

Tonglen practice

Amitabha , Buddha of love

Tonglen is a path to enlightenment by identifying with all beings. You mentally connect with the suffering of your fellow beings. You visualize your feelings (fears, anger, sadness, longing) and transform them in your own mind through ideas of light, positive phrases (thought work) and through meditation on suffering. This practice creates happiness in one's mind. Then, according to Tonglen practitioners, the spirit of the suffering fellow beings is also purified because all beings are connected to one another (this is the basic assumption of Tonglen). This will reduce suffering.

The second step in tonglen is mentally sending happiness to all suffering beings. One wishes all beings are happy. In Tibetan Tonglen, this exercise of relieving suffering and sending happiness is practiced as breathing meditation . You breathe in all the suffering of your fellow beings and breathe happiness towards them. You do this in constant change until you are one with your fellow human beings. One can also start sending happiness and practice taking suffering as a second step.

In Tibetan Buddhism ( Vajrayana ) there are examples, where tonglen is traditionally practiced very radically. You take all suffering from your fellow beings and give them all your happiness. This radical path can be overwhelming for a spiritual practitioner.

A gentle way of tonglen preferred in the West is to start with yourself first. You mentally inhale your personal suffering and exhale happiness there. Then you connect with a friend, an enemy, with all close beings and finally with all beings. Through this practice one identifies with all beings, cultivates love and compassion in one's own mind and can thus come closer to the goal of enlightenment.

literature

• Pema Chödrön : Tonglen . Arbor Verlag, Freiamt 2001, ISBN 3-924195-73-0
• Surya Das: Tibetan Wisdom Stories. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-453-08088-2 .
• Dalai Lama : Love. Source of happiness. Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2005, ISBN 3-451-28840-0 .
• Patrul Rinpoche : The words of my consummate teacher. Arbor Verlag, Freiamt 2001, ISBN 3-924195-72-2 .
• Yesche U. Regel: Tonglen Practice - Meditations for the Development of Compassion , Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-485-02869-1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Patrul Rinpoche: The Words of My Consummate Teacher. Page 291.
2. ↑ Patrul Rinpoche: The Words of My Consummate Teacher. Page 291.
3. ↑ Dalai Lama: Love. Source of happiness. Page 180. Surya Das: Tibetan Wisdom Stories. Page 54.
4. ↑ Pema Chödrön: Video "Tong Lin"