Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 426. In Chapter 9 of The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron, saying more about compassion practice, explains the ancient art of tonglen. Let’s talk about that and then practice it together.
Tonglen is the simple practice of breathing in suffering and breathing out peace. As Pema explains it, “we breathe in what is painful and unwanted with the sincere wish that we and others could be free of suffering. As we do so, we drop the story line that goes along with the pain and feel the underlying energy. We completely open our hearts and minds to whatever arises. Exhaling, we send out relief from the pain with the intention that we and others be happy.” Simple.
And like so much, not easy. Because first of all, it’s the last thing I mostly want to do. I mean, who wants to breathe in other people’s suffering? Who wants to breathe in the suffering of the planet? Who wants to take in all that negative energy, energy that even Pema describes as “thick, heavy, and hot.” Yuck. Sounds like a “pass,” to me.
And yet I can say, tonglen is one of the most powerful practices in my toolbox.
There’s a reason for that: it’s the practice that places me right in the center of the world, or of the moment, whatever that moment is. It’s what enables me to let go of my stories about the way things should be, or about how everything is going to be ok, or about how this or that person or situation isn’t dealing with so much (or any more than I am), or about how they should be able to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and keep chugging along, or about how their suffering isn’t mine to deal with. It’s my one sure-fire way of keeping my heart turned towards the reality of suffering, instead of turned away.
I don’t know about you but when I see someone suffering, I do want to help. I do. But I also want to finish helping, and go home to my nice warm house and my nice clean sheets and my nice safe life.
So right away maybe you don’t relate to that because your house doesn’t feel warm or your life doesn’t feel safe. I respect that – that, in and of itself, and “that,” as a reason why you don’t feel the same way I do – you don’t necessarily have the impulse to be done helping and go home. As a child and teenager, my home wasn’t particularly safe either – not emotionally safe. But it is now, and if that impulse to help and then retreat to your own, more comfortable life is resonant for you, then maybe you know what I mean. I mean that I have a tendency, and I believe it’s a very human tendency, to do what I can and then turn away.
Tonglen isn’t about wallowing in the suffering and never going home to a warm bed, so you don’t have to click off now because you’ve heard enough (or because that tendency is showing up right now). But it’s also not about denial. It’s about facing the world, with all its suffering.
I feel like as a lawyer, it was easy for me to live in a fairly deep state of denial. Maybe it’s easy for most folks to do that. When I say “denial,” I’m not talking about denying that there’s pain and suffering in the world. I’m talking about denying that it’s mine, or frankly, that it involves me in any way.
I’m talking about believing, on some fundamental level, on some cellular level, that your pain is not my pain, your suffering is not mine, the suffering in Israel/Palestine/Gaza is not mine, in Ukraine is not mine, in the Congo, in Myanmar, in island nations dealing with climate collapse – frankly, in San Diego right now, dealing with monstrous flooding: not mine. That the suffering on the other side of town is not mine. Even, that the suffering on the other side of the table is not mine.
Or if not “not mine,” not mine to worry about beyond, as I said, doing what I can and then going home to my nice warm bed. Which is all about believing, on a very fundamental level, that I’m a separate being, that my suffering and my issues are mine to bear, and yours are yours. That I exist independently of you and everyone else.
Even though I know that’s not true. I know we’re all connected. That we inter-are, as Thich Nhat Hanh said. So why do I forget?
I think – going with Pema here – it’s because touching into the suffering of others, the suffering of the planet, is hard. And scary. Or I’ll speak for myself: I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I get too close, let too much in, I’ll either feel overwhelmed or contaminated, by their suffering. I’m afraid I’ll be overwhelmed by a prisoner’s sorrow, or the traumas they’ve suffered. I’m afraid I’ll be contaminated by opposing counsel’s rage, my partner’s frustration, my student’s anxiety. I’m afraid to even look too closely at the person on the street, in the rain, with nowhere to live. Mostly, I’m afraid of my own trembling heart. The reason I don’t turn towards, get too close, breathe too deeply around other people’s suffering, is fear.
Tonglen says, ok, and face it anyway. Face the fear so you can face the suffering.
When I first learned tonglen I was a young lawyer and I would walk through downtown San Francisco and turn towards every unhoused person, breathing in their suffering and breathe out the wish that they would be safe. It was fierce – my nature – and it was also terrifying. I was afraid on a literal level, that I would breathe in their germs. But much more than that, I was afraid on some other level, that I might breathe in something even more scary. What? Their confusion? Their shivering? Their karma?
But I did it anyway for a few years, as a training. And then I started doing it at my office, and for friends, and for strangers who looked perfectly safe – making the assumption that Longfellow was right, that “[i]f you knew the secret history of those you would like to punish, you would find a sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all your hostility.”
I don’t know if the practice helped anyone else but I could see that it was changing me. I was less reactive and didn’t pull away, or turn away, so often. I could get closer to suffering. I could even – sometimes – be with it fully, and be ok. It felt different than what I thought it would feel like, in a good way.
And then when my mother was dying, I sat on her bed, held her hand, and did tonglen for her. I didn’t check in with any teachers, so I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. But in my imagination, I was breathing in any fear she had of death, and breathing out peace. And maybe I was breathing in my fear, too, of death, and of my mother’s departure from my life, and breathing out peace for myself, too. Maybe we are all, always practicing for others and for ourselves.
