In the most recent edition of the Enlighten Up Podcast I talked about Compassion and a practice to help generate it. A very similar practice that has become quite well known is called ‘Tonglen’. Tonglen means giving and taking and the point is to visualize someone who is suffering and as you breath in, visualize their suffering being inhaled. As you exhale, visualize good thoughts and feelings being sent back out to them. There is a bit more to it than that, but that’s enough for you to get the general idea for this story. When I first learned this practice from my friend and teacher, David Gordon, he also talked about what could be called spontaneous tonglen. This would be, for instance, if you see a car crash and you know people involved are suffering in some form or fashion, you just immediately begin practicing tonglen informally for them.

This concept of spontaneous tonglen stretches to any situation you encounter where someone or something may be suffering. I tend to also practice this when I see roadkill on the side of the road. This brings me to my story from this morning. I was driving to work, which is about 35 miles each way for me, and I noticed a cat that had been hit on the side of the interstate. I immediately began to practice tonglen for it, when I discovered it was not, in fact, a cat. It was, in fact, a skunk. It did, in fact, stink. Which I noticed, in fact, on my first inhale taking in the suffering.

At this point, I really wanted to hold my nose, at the same time, I was practicing tonglen and holding the nose and tonglen are not compatible. I did, however, notice that I was wrinkling up my nose and not really taking a deep inhale during the practice, so I feel as if I might have gyped the little guy. Looking back on the whole experience, I think this was possibly the closest thing to true ‘tonglen’ practice you can get. When inhaling to take on suffering causes us to to truly suffer, even if mildly. It definitely drive the true nature of the practice home.

Next time you see a ‘dead skunk in the middle of the road and it’s stinking to high heaven’ (comedic song reference), try practicing some spontaneous tonglen and see how strong your practice truly is.

=)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Buddhism, Daily Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.