Tonglen Meditation: The Practice of Giving and Receiving

What Is Tonglen Meditation?

Tonglen meditation — the Tibetan practice of giving and receiving — is one of the most direct compassion practices in the Buddhist tradition. The word Tonglen (གཏོང་ལེན་) means literally to give and to take: on the inhale we take in what is difficult, on the exhale we send out what is good. It sounds counterintuitive at first. It becomes, with time, one of the most natural things a person can do. Pema Chödrön, one of the most widely read teachers on this practice in the West, has described Tonglen as a method for awakening the compassion that is already within us — not importing something foreign, but uncovering what is already there.

This page is a practical introduction to the practice: why it works, how to do it, and how to bring it off the cushion into daily life.

Why Would Anyone Breathe In Suffering?

It is a fair question, and the answer changes everything about how this practice is understood. You are not taking suffering into an ordinary self, tightly defended and easily overwhelmed. You are working from a different ground entirely — the limitless compassion of the awakened mind, which does not accumulate pain like a defended self does. The black smoke touches the heart centre and is immediately transformed. Not because you are especially sturdy, but because the nature of awareness itself is not diminished by what passes through it.

This is why Tonglen is sometimes described as the fastest route to compassion. Not because it is easy — it isn’t, at first — but because it works directly with the thing we most protect: the felt sense of a separate, bounded self. When we deliberately open that boundary, even in imagination, something loosens. Practitioners report this again and again.

The Practice: Giving and Receiving

We sit as before: good posture, a settled breath, a few moments to arrive. Then we begin.

Step One — Those Close to Us

In our mind’s eye we see all the beings in our near vicinity — our family, our friends. We understand that they suffer and have pain, and we wish to help. As we inhale, we picture their suffering and pain as black clouds and thick smoke, perhaps hot, perhaps heavy. We see it, feel it, understand it — and as we breathe in, we take it into ourselves.

As those clouds enter us, they touch all the love, joy, and light of our heart centre. And due to the unlimited compassion of the buddhas, they are immediately transformed into bright, clear light. Upon exhaling, that warm clear light shines outward from the heart centre back to everyone around us. We do this three, seven, or twenty-one times. See why we learned the counting before?

Step Two — Widening the Circle

Now we expand the view. We picture all the beings in our city and inhale their suffering, sending them light as we exhale — just as in the first step. We widen progressively further: all beings in our country. And finally, all beings on earth, inhaling their suffering, exhaling the brightest light from our heart centre to every single one of them. You may even expand to include all beings in all directions if that feels natural.

Closing

When we finish, we rest for a moment in the openness that remains. Then we end with a deep wish: May all beings who came into contact with the light may become happy, healthy, and one day discover their own enlightened qualities. Or actually the Four Immeasurables are appropriate here. They are the most beautiful wishes ever.

1. May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.

2. May all beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

3. May all beings expierence happiness that is completely free of suffering.

4. May all beings dwell in equanimity that is free from attachment and aversion.

Who Can We Practise For?

One can do Tonglen for people who are ill or dying. For people we do not like. Even for enemies, maybe especially for them. Even for ourselves — and this last one is often the most difficult, and the most needed.

QP

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