Healing and Purification through Tonglen practice

For years now, around the world there has been a growing understanding that our physical and mental illnesses are inextricably linked with the state of our minds.If we ar e happy and contented, if our minds are not tormented by self-doubt, lack of confidence, emotional turbulence and stress,we are far more likely to be happy, healthy human beings.
In this compilation of some of his best teachings on the Buddhist approach to developing love and compassion (bodhicitta)—the second in the series that introduces the Tibetan Buddhist approach to healing and purification—Sogyal Rinpoche explains how, by learning truly to love ourselves and others,we can profoundly transform and heal our minds, our hearts and our bodies.
One of the practices Rinpoche introduces is that of Tonglen, the practice of “giving and taking”.In this practice we learn to take, through compassion, the suffering and illnesses of others, and give, with love, complete happiness and well-being.Man y students have found that this practice is deeply therapeutic, especially for those who sense their lives lack something of fundamental importance, who feel unfulfilled, or even suffer from the “self-hate” that is so prevalent amongst modern people.
“In Tibet, the healing power of Tonglen was legendary; in the west today, the potential of such practices rests largely unexplored, but they could, I feel, have astounding results if applied more widely in cases of mental and physical illness.” |