Lojong Practice Journal: Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself
The 59 slogans through a social justice lens
In slogan number seven, ‘Sending & taking should be practiced alternately’, the practice of tonglen is introduced. With the slogan ‘Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself’, we receive clearer guidance on how one should start the practice of taking on the suffering of the world and sending out relief, contentment and ease for that suffering.
It probably sounds counter-intuitive to breathe in the more painful things in life and breathe out anything we see as the antidote to that pain. Most of us habitually seek out comfort and reject pain because that seems like a logical response, but it’s only logical if the causes and conditions for both comfort and pain are entirely under our control.
Interconnectedness means life is unpredictable. We can make smart choices to help reduce chances of pain and increase chances of comfort, but we cannot stop natural disasters, the inevitability of illness, or how other folks might act in ways that cause us harm. When we seek comfort and resist pain all the time, we are narrowing our capacity to handle the unpredictability of life. Clinging to comfort makes pain worse and rejecting pain, makes pain worse.
Sometimes there’s also an element of magical thinking operating in our approach to suffering. We don’t want to open ourselves up to the chance that if we breath in the pain we see our friend going through due to cancer, for example, we ourselves might ‘get cancer’. But that’s not how cancer works. Or gun violence. Or mental illnesses. Or any number of examples of human suffering where thoughts and prayers are in the thousands or even millions, and yet suffering persists.
This slogan and practice is not about ‘magicking’ away that which is difficult, but learning how to bear with it. It is a key aspect of learning how to connect with the limitlessness of human compassion. If we spend our lives training in how to sit with suffering, to become less fearful of the hard parts of life, we become more capable of responding to suffering in meaningful, transformative ways.
Tonglen, and any meditation practice, is about familiarity. By allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not label it as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or a punishment, we become more comfortable with being present with pain. We start with ourselves because that is the only place we can start if we want to create transformative, lasting change. If we ignore ourselves in our wish to alleviate suffering for all beings, we aren’t truly doing the work needed.
When we get comfortable sitting with our own suffering, it becomes easier to sit with the suffering others experience. We start with ourselves so we can move beyond ourselves.
With the practice of tonglen, suffering is no longer a bogeyman hiding in the shadows but something with which we are familiar and which we see as worthy of showing up for. Which, to come back to the notion of thoughts and prayers, is the difference between hollow words and an actual practice.
If our prayers are to be effective, they must move us to act. By making time to be present with our suffering, to breath it in and become familiar with it, we can’t help but want to address it when we see it in others. We can’t help but want to start extending that love, that care, knowing that no human being is free from hardship and no human being doesn’t long for comfort.
Original draft published on Medium July, 2018. This is a redraft updated September, 2022.
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