h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: TONGLEN - A1033075
Author: Chaiwallah - U219914

This Entry was inspired by the conversation on racism and ways of dealing with it. You don't even have to be a Buddhist to make it work.

Hi Chaiwallah,

I'd suggest amending the title to show a little of what Tonglen is - adding something like = ': a practice in compassion' or something such.

The way you describe is a little different from the practice I do, which is to begin by getting in touch with my own feelings of joy and love, then taking in (breathing in) the fear, hurt, anxiety, anger of the other and breathing out love, joy and hope. This can be done for an individual or for a group or for a world situation.

Hi Zarquon,

Excellent suggestion, editing will follow my reply. I would like to make the sub-head a bit zingier, like,"The transformative power of compassion" or something like that. What do you think? As you practise it, you are much closer to the Pema Chodron model, which is suited to sitting meditation. The shorter version I use is something I do during activity, mainly, ( although I was doing Tonglen "sitting" all through the Iraq build-up and war mess ) including when cycling through murderous, rage-provoking traffic in gridlocked Dublin.

Hello again, Z,

the new sub-heading tells a lot more, so that it will appear under searches for Tibetan and Buddhism, as well as compassion. OK?
C

Yes, Chaiwallah, the title works much better now.

Perhaps you might consider adding inthe method I described earlier, seeing as it's so short and it's also a nice practice to do.

Certainly, dear Zarquon. Will you co-author? That'd be nice. Maybe we could work up a range of Vajrayana practice entries. I fancy one on Chod next. Tsultrim Allione made an excellent tape of Chod as a therapeutic practice for re-integrating personal demons. Maybe you've heard it. And I've just finished reading "The Chod of Macchig Labdron," which I got from Snowlion, so I'm fairly fresh on the history of the technique.

Hi Chaiwallah,

I'm not sure that I know enough about it to co-author, although I'm flattered by the offer. I'm fairly electic in my practices. I've worked with some of Tich Nhat Hanh's practices, which I think are good. i haven't heard of the technique for re-integrating personal demons. I'd be very interested to know more.

As what you're suggesting is an area of interest for me, I would undertake to be as supportive as possible.

Oh, just as a rider to the last message, it might perhaps also be worth saying that a by-product of doing Tonglen is that the practitioner tends to achieve empathy with the other person (if it's done on a personal basis).

I heard someone describe how he introduced it so another person, who said that he realised that none of this (the negative feelings of the person he was doing Tonglen for) was personal. He realised that he was not giving away his good feelings; they stayed with him and he was developing compassion for the pain of the other person, without taking it in personally. Apparently, it transformed the relationship so much that he began to use it in many other relationships.

Hi Zarquon,

I've been off cooking supper, eating and other real-time stuff. OK, as to Tonglen, the wonderful thing about the practice is that it is hugely empowering, and demonstrates like nothing else I know that the more you give away, the more you have. And negativity becomes like coal in a furnace, the blacker the coal, the greater the heat. The stronger the negativity, the more powerful the compassion it generates. It is an alchemical process. ( In fact, there is reason to believe that tantra, consciousness transformation, WAS the goal of western medieval alchemy, though under a different name, and using different symbolism from Buddhist/Hindu tantra. But then alchemy came to the west from the Middle East.)

As to integrating personal demons, this is a more lengthy procedure, deriving from the Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist tradition, known as Chod. In its oldest form, it derived from a blending of Bon shamanism with Buddhist tantra, and involved meditation in charnel grounds, or anywhere that inspired real fear in the practitioner. There, the raw emotions were dealt with and transformed by offering one's body as a feast to all hungry ghosts and other demons who were considered to live in the area.

In Pema Chodron's tape, she discusses the etymology of the word "demon," how it originates in the ancient Greek as "daemon," which meant an in-dwelling spirit, which animated the individual's psyche. By medieval times, Christianity had caused large sections of the psyche to become "demonised," externalised and projected as alien, negative entities. So she suggests that if we have personal "demons," we have to work to re-integrate them, transforming them back into "daemons," creative aspects of our own psyches. Among her "demons" she included fear of abandonment. But she listed all sorts of examples from people she had worked with, such as AIDS victims, alcoholics, and other addicts.

The technique works by sitting in meditation, visualising the "demon" one wishes to work with. really allowing it to take a form, whether it is a disease entity, an addiction entity, or whatever. Really see the form, the shape, colour, skin-texture etc. Then ask it what it wants from you. ( An AIDS victim was told by his AIDS demon that it wanted his total life energy, but slowly, in juicy gobbets. Over a year, having been huge, green and slimey, it diminished to a tiny seed, and his T-cell count got so good he was asked to leave an AIDS-study research group he had been a subject of, as he wasn't sick enough any more to be worth studying!) Remembering that in consciousness/imagination, you have unlimited resources, you then feed your demon until it is fully satiated, which may take some time. But eventually it will be satisfied, and re-integrated.

Interesting. I'll re-read your posting again when I get back from work.

Thanks Zarquon, talk to you tonight.
Chai

I've had a hiccough with my son's school, so I'm unexpectedly home at present (and supposed to be working as opposed to playing on my computer), so I've had time to read what you posted. Fascinating and logical.

I read elsewhere that you were interested in Vedanta. More appropriate to talk on your space rather than the Tonglen thread, probably. I've noticed that the Tonglen entry has improved considerably by the inclusion of extra information, though.

Dear Zarquon,
I'm just about to head for bed, but before I go, I just wanted to thank you for your suggestions, as a result of which I have added another paragraph to the technique section of the entry on Tonglen.

Yes, this helps.

Would you mind altering this a smidgen to satisfy the skeptics among us? Descriptions such as "This technique can be used within the individual to deal with an area of the body that is sick. It can be used to send healing to other people who are sick, in pain, or suffering. It can be used to diffuse an angry situation between two people." clash wildly with my world view and might cause me anguish. And you wouldn't want that, would you?

Could you be more specific about precisely where the clash occurs, and what should be amended.

Believe me, it is an very practical technique, although the idea of "sending healing" may be hard to swallow. In my, Buddhist/Vedanta- influenced world view, there is a continuum of consciousness by which all consciousnesses are interconnected, so that intention, such as "healing" can have a measurable effect. And there is recent rather mind-boggling scientific research on the effects of prayer on healing that support this idea.

One non-skeptic thing is that you should shorten the title. Just Tonglen - a Buddhist Technique will suffice. Having it as long as now, wreaks havoc on the screen of those, like me, who prefer their browsers not to cover the whole width of the screen.

And I'd dispute the ramifications of the occasional study showing an effect of prayer on healing. History may yet prove me wrong, but so far they have suffered from bad science, and the file-drawer effect. (Where the occasional statistical fluke is praised as success and the equaly important failures are hidden from the publics view.)

The clash occurs with the use of words like transforming 'negative energy into compassion', but most of all with "Amongst the very many techniques of energy transformation, Tonglen is one of the simplest and yet most profound, and it works."

Energy transformation to me is a scientific term, but this use of it is not. Also I do not believe it works in any scientifically provable way. Again, history may prove me wrong, but in my view this entry would improve with a few 'it is believed', 'practitioners say' and similar.

OK, Naita, your point about the research on the effect of prayer on healing is a good one. But with regard to the use of the word "energy," I'm afraid you will just have to accept it, because it is a word that is used in more ways than one. Science does not have a monopoly on language here. Practitioners of meditation will understand the use of the word, and as it sounds as though you are probably not big into all that, you don't have to let it be a source of irritation to you.

As to the title, I originally had just the word, "tonglen," and was asked by some h2g2 Buddhists to lengthen the title so as to give some indication of its meaning. Sorry about you browser, all the same. And thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on the entry.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

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Great! Congratulations, Chai!