Practice with others · 20 minutes
How to practise Tonglen with others.
Tonglen — a practice from Tibet is The Tibetan practice of breathing in suffering, and breathing out relief, and the wider mind-training that grew around it. Here is how to bring it into your life as a small ritual you share with someone you love.
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Step 1
Invite, do not insist
A sentence, low stakes: "Would you sit with me for ten minutes after dinner?" Tonglen is not a recruitment campaign. The invitation is the practice.
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Step 2
Open with a shared gesture
A breath together, a candle, a single bow. The shared opening matters more than the polished words that follow.
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Step 3
Speak the teaching, then listen
You read the line: The Tibetan practice of breathing in suffering, and breathing out relief, and the wider mind-training that grew around it. The other person speaks first about where it lands. You speak second. Equal halves; no advice.
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Step 4
Close before either of you wants to
Stop slightly early. Tonglen is better as a small thing you both want again than a long thing one of you endured. End and let the silence carry.
Tonglen done with another person changes both of you slightly. That is the oldest reason any of these traditions survived: they were never solitary all the way down.
Other contexts for Tonglen