Lojong Practice Journal: Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself

The 59 slogans through a social justice lens

Lojong slogan card on a shrine with text: Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself.

In slogan number seven, ‘Sending & taking should be practiced alternately’, the practice of tonglen is introduced. This slogan, ‘Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself’, offers 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’s pretty 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. What this means is that when we seek comfort all the time and resist pain all the time, we are actually narrowing down 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. We might understand conceptually that pain is not a punishment and comfort is not a reward, but still somehow think we can put ourselves at risk by breathing in pain and breathing out comfort. 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 the ‘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, and also learning how to connect with the limitlessness of human compassion. Rather than becoming more sensitive to suffering by always resisting it, we could spend our lives training in how to sit with suffering, to become less fearful, and more capable of responding in meaningful, transformative ways.

We begin with ourselves because a key part of the practice is to connect with shared humanity — to move from ‘I am suffering’ to ‘There is suffering’. Of course, it might sound like beginning with ourselves is going to emphasise ‘I am suffering’, but Tonglen is not about wallowing. 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. We start with ourselves so we can move beyond ourselves.

When we get comfortable sitting with our own suffering, it becomes easier to sit with the suffering others experience. 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.

~~~

Originally published on Medium

This is part of a series of posts I am doing to support my practice.

Patronage helps sustain my work in the world, if it’s something you can offer.

Toodle on over to www.KaitlynSCHatch.com to find out more about what I do.

Thank you!