A Combined Lojong/Pranayama Practice:
A Personal Reflection on Hard Times
[Note: This is a story of some practices I found useful in a specific set of hard times and is offered here as simply that — a story about a hybrid practice from my experience in yoga and the mindfulness tradition. There are references to dharma sources to give a sense of how the practice was grounded, but without any thought of originality of my own. These thoughts, as well as other entries to this site, are meant for a circle of practitioners and not as a general discussion vehicle; however, I would welcome comments at mw@meredithwwatts.com]
Introduction: A Mixed Tonglen/Pranayama Practice
Hard Times and Your Storehouse of Practice
One of Those Times (A personal story)
Resume of the Practice
What is the value of the practice for me, and for others?
Introduction: A Mixed Tonglen/Pranayama Practice
This reflection discusses a simple practice that combines elements of lojong training, tonglen and pranayama to bring breath to someone who does not have enough of their own. It arose naturally from the near-fatal accident of someone whose breath was being supplied by elaborate machines in an intensive care unit. It has since been used other breath crises, including the last stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) when, eventually, the diaphragm muscles cease to function and the breath stops.
Because the practice was so personal, I hesitated for some time to set it down in writing. However, the two people who inspired it are now in safety – one recovered, and the other having left the body as peacefully as her condition (ALS) allowed. My reflections are still personal, but with a bit more distance now. I am sharing this with others now because the experience renewed my faith in the value of continued and varied practice, creating a storehouse of resources for complex times. It became as a tool for working in community to give direction and focus for our compassion for people who were in crisis and risked losing their breath; I have since generalized the technique a bit in my own practice, but its origins are still in sending and receiving the breath. Those who would like to skip the discursive part of this reflection might wish to go directly to the “Resume of the Practice” below.
Hard Times and Your Storehouse of Practice
Most yoga practitioners gain a familiarity with many practices — not just asanas but breathing and meditation techniques. Most do not practice them all the time or on a daily basis, but choose those techniques that have become habitual or fit the particular needs of the day. For teachers the practice is often dominated by the need to develop a particular sequence or set of practices to transmit to others. At other times, one’s personal practice has more flexibility for incorporating elements that are directed to the practitioner’s personal needs and growth.
Personal practice always nourishes one’s teaching, and the reverse is of course true. But sometimes the personal practice (and the teaching one has received but perhaps not actively used) provides a resource that can be drawn upon. This storehouse of practices is somewhat like the passive vocabulary a language learner acquires, but does not always use. We all have a stored knowledge of practice that can be called upon – drawn from the passive interior of memory into the action and reflection. The depth and subtlety of the physical practitioner’s experience is a storehouse of techniques, modifications, and adaptations of postures (asanas) — for example, to accommodate specific conditions, limitations, or transient states of mood or energy. The same is true for practices of the breath and meditation.
The practice of tonglen rests, for many of us, on the belief in the interconnectedness of all people, that there is a subtle exchange of energy and well-being that passes among them, and that directing your attention, generosity and compassion outside yourself are restorative. The simple elements of this breath practice are:
Pranayama: The yoga practice of breath distribution and control, involving many techniques of inhalation, exhalation and retention.
Lojong: An ancient Buddhist training by the sage Atisha, codified into maxims for the training of the mind. Some of the maxims embed the notion of “sending and receiving” the breath — the link between pranayama and tonglen that helped connect several communities of not-entirely-well but breathing people with those whose breath might not stay.
Tonglen: Use of the breath for sending and receiving — breathing in the anxiety and fear of others, and breathing out peacefulness and equanimity. The emotions one feels are used to identify with the suffering of others and to employ one’s empathy and compassion to understand others, identify with them, and reinforce your aspiration to alleviate suffering.
One of Those Hard Times (a personal story)
The occasion for this reflection is the near-fatal accident of my son whose truck went off a road in the mountains of Colorado and left him for weeks in an intensive care unit. During much of this time he was unconscious and unable to breathe without artificial support
Since then I have used some variation of a tonglen/pranayama practice for other intrusions of turmoil and mortality: the death of close friends, serious illness in the family, a second son who was injured in an accident, and other deeply intrusive emotional and physical events. The tonglen practice embraces the dark, painful sensations of anger and fear. It is often taught as a technique to prepare you for daily rough spots and provide a practice for dealing with the harder bumps in the road. Most of all, I think, it is a practice to use your own suffering to understand the suffering of others, and to renew your aspiration to help reduce their pain. It aims to replace anxiety and self-pity with compassion.
The broader practice is lojong is found in the fifty-six maxims of classic mind training of the Tibetan tradition. The more specific, crisis-oriented practice is that of tonglen, the receiving of pain and the sending of compassion. A used here, tonglen is the immediate search for relief when there is an illness of the body or spirit, while lojong is the broader, life-style training;.
The first event of this practice occurred in the waiting room of an intensive care unit. I had arrived full of anxiety and had not yet seen my son. I only knew that he had survived driving off the side of a mountain — he had serious internal injuries and had been unconscious since the accident. There seemed to be no life-threatening injury to the head or central nervous system, but damage to the lungs and internal organs was severe.
What greeted me as I entered the ICU area in this unsettled state was a prayer meeting – an improvised mass – for a large Latino grouping of friends and relatives of someone who had been injured. A chaplain held a group prayer in the waiting room, blocking the entrance and filling the space. There was nothing to do but wait. And join the mass though that was not my own spiritual tradition.
In this group there was a spirit of compassion and community that had not been part of my solitary and unsettled plane ride to the hospital. Without knowing who they were praying for, nor the condition of my son, I joined them – praying with them for their injured one and hoping to absorb their prayers for my son. This was the first, almost automatic, tonglen – breathing in the suffering of the community. I could identifying with them as people who had also come to the edge of fear by a threat to the life of someone they loved. Being with them helped me merge my suffering with that of others and to share a few moments of spiritual community.
Later in the week I had the support of relatives and friends who were able to be present. We were a mixed group that might not otherwise have been together, but in this crisis we were connected to each other through our common concern. Temporarily we were along the path together, even though our various egos, agendas, and differences were scattered about us, creating confusion and mental dispersion. Tonglen became a way to dispel (at least for myself) that dispersion of energies that competing egos and perspectives created.
On returning home I had several such support communities that were willing to share my suffering, and who wanted to share a spiritual offering to my son, whether or not he was aware. I experienced the warmth and compassion that comes from gathering with others to send prayers (in whatever tradition, language, or religious idiom). Though I have often been unwittingly skeptical (or perhaps just unconcerned) with the efficacy of such practice, I began to take comfort from this belief by others. Even more, those people seemed to derive comfort and solidarity from expressing their compassion to each other and to me, even if they did not know my son. In a sense we might call this “community,” though I especially like Thich Nhat Hanh’s term “interbeing” to describe this web of human interconnectedness. This is the giving up of our delusion that we are separate beings and embracing our interconnection and interdependency.
Weeks later I had another such experience and began slowly to develop the tonglen/pranayama practice with a group. I had been working with seniors in a day care program for older Latinos that provides recreational activities and a variety of social services. They are not residents, but daily visitors to the center. For months we had been doing “yoga” together – or at least a yoga-derived movement practice that was based on a casual assortment of center’s chairs and a few simple props that I could bring with me. Those who could stand would do Trikonasana (triangle) and Warrior II with me, and some could do variations of Utkasana, half-Utthanasana and a few other poses that could be done with chair support. Some suffered dementia or Alzheimer’s in addition to their physical limitations, but even where some might not remember me exactly from week to week, they seemed to retain some muscle memory of the postura de triángulo, guerrero II, and silla (Utkatasana) we did together.
This is a population of people who were mostly migrants to the city — a history dating back at least a century to the efforts of tanneries and other industries in the area to bring in new labor. Their lives had been filled with hard work that was too often not supported with good health care. Their senior day care program now gave them a space, a community, temporary care-givers, and activities. There were wide variations in mobility, memory, speech, clarity, and serenity. At least one had no legs below the knee, another had no body below the pelvis. It was the most challenging “yoga” class I have ever taught, but this group was familiar with crises of the sort I had in my heart. And I found in them an astonishing ability to see the suffering of others and a great capacity to share it, even when their own limitations seemed so pronounced.
When the group learned that I would miss some sessions to visit my son, they asked for details and requested that we have a moment of silence and prayer. We sat in silence together for a time. Many offered to send their prayers. One man, whose grasp on memory and language was not firm, seemed to have spent much of the class constructing this message to me – in the first English sentence I had ever heard from him” “I will pray all day for your son.” Who was I, then, not to let myself into the embrace of such compassion – and to send it to my son? This was yet another reminder of the old saying that you are rarely so strong that you cannot be helped, nor so weak that you cannot help others.
We did our first group tonglen/pranayama practice together. The beginning was not hard because I had previously taught them some simple breath practices. Together now we combined those practices with their prayers to send our breath to my son. It is easy to imagine how the practice would have worked with a roomful of Buddhist or yoga practitioners who would already know, or immediately understand, tonglen. Meditating on the breath, sending and receiving, is a familiar practice. But this was a room of Spanish-speaking seniors of many different faiths.
Participants in my other classes were of even more diverse religious traditions – from liberal to conservative, from devout to skeptical. These were my community along the way. Whatever the combination of faiths, we always decided that as a group we could make our breath a joint prayer.
Throughout this process there was a rich and diffuse outpouring of prayer and compassionate wishes to me and my son, but this was different: It was a mindful and deliberate mental, emotional and spiritual activity consciously directed toward the experience of compassion — receiving pain and suffering from others and sending them your compassion and love. It evolved into practice that was done in a group, a community.
Theology never became a problem. Many participants in any yoga class or meditation group might be skeptical or argumentative about the value of prayer, and many have doubts and arguments about the nature of a higher power. But tonglen does not need anything more than the belief in a compassionate community. It is not a belief or faith, but is instead a practice of identifying with the suffering of others and expressing the intention to feel, share, and alleviate that suffering. It is an identification with the universality of suffering and a willingness to meet it with the universality of compassion and generosity.
This meeting of faiths (and skepticism) is reminiscent of the lojong maxim that “All dharmas are one,” rendered more simply by Surya Lama Das as “All teachings are in agreement.” In spite of whatever differences in doctrine and spiritual tradition we had as a group, most agreed in the value of some form of prayer or “sending light” of compassion, faith, hope, optimism, generosity, and loving-kindness. From this tonglen/pranayama practice we were put on the prayer list of conservative evangelical, Catholic churches, several Jewish congregations, and a mixed Lutheran congregation of Latinos, Hmong and various Asian and other ethnicities in the city’s neighborhoods. In this case, at least, “all teachings were in agreement” about faith, compassion and the power of community.
The Practice
In thinking through this practice I drew heavily on Pema Chödrön (Chapter 6 in Start where you are) Boston: Shambala, 2001. The key sayings or slogans are:
“Sending and taking should be practiced alternately/These two should ride the breath” “Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself”
Chödrön Points out that “what you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself, ” and that “When anything is painful or undesirable…breathe it in…breath [feelings and emotions] in and connect with what all humans feel” (p. 36). She continues by saying that if you “breath it out, you give it away, you send it to everyone else.” This can be the case for many emotions – she refers mostly to positive ones here – and counseled sending positive energy to others with the outbreath. In my own practice I have included a conscious focus on sending the breath itself to one who lacks it.
The idea is to visualize the suffering of others on the inbreath and give peace and happiness on the outbreath – spiritually affirming the desire to send them the breath they need. As a crisis practice, it is directed to a particular person and might be called “relative bodhchitta” — directed to specific suffering; “absolute bodhichitta” would be the intention of such a practice directed at the general suffering of all beings (Lokah samastha sukhino bhavantu). The key, these teachers say, is the ability to be present for suffering – not denying, but confronting, accepting and “digesting ours.” It is not an abstract notion, but a technique to bridge a hard, unpredictable situation with some equanimity and compassion.
The actual practice, as it evolved, looked like this:
Finding position
[ NOTE: This sitting posture than is more typical of pranayama than of some meditation traditions. For one, it places more emphasis on the lift and opening of the chest, the use of the shoulder blades to support the chest opening, and its greater use of thoracic breathing than the more abdominal meditative techniques. It is important for a more vigorous pranayama component, but not necessarily for the tonglen/sending-receiving practice itself. Of course, a softer abdominal “belly breath” may be substituted for the more vigorous abdominal/thoracic form.]
In a chair (at least for this population, may also be seated in sukhasana (sitting cross-legged) or other yoga posture)
Legs perpendicular to floor, aware of all four corners of each foot (balanced on inner and outer metatarsal area, inner and outer heel)
Side ribs lifting, sternum lifting, outer shoulder tips slightly back, shoulder blades moving in to support life of chest, shoulders released downward to “normal” height
Eyes closed softly
Relax muscles of face of throat, vocal chords, base of tongue, lower jaw)
Initial Centering
A few moments of centering and concentration on the breath
Ujayyi I (“hero’s breath,” calm, “normal” but full inhalation and exhalation)
Focus on movement of breath in the torso, lungs
Calm the shoulders, allow the breath to lift the side and upper chest (alternatively, soft abdominal breathing)
Reflection/Prayer (personal religious practice)
Maintaining posture and Ujayyi (or abdominal) breath (not straining with either)
Spend a few moments in your own tradition of prayer or reflection, acknowledging your own suffering and that of others. If you wish, ask for help (mercy, blessing) in your own tradition
[Note: this element was an important grounding element for those with a religious practice, but is also a moment of deepening reflection/centering for those without prayer tradition)
Sending and receiving
(Stage 1)
Identify the suffering (in this case, the inability of the other to take a breath)
Inhale the suffering and anxiety of that person
Breath out fully, carrying that breath to the other
On the in- and outbreath, use some variation of the phrases/gathas from the compassion practice, for example:
May (he/she/they be held in compassion.
May (he/she/they) be free of fear.
May (he/she/they) be free of harm.
May (he/she/they be safe.
On the inbreath, draw in the fear and suffering of the other, on the outbreath send compassion, peace, restfulness, fullness of breath, strength
(Stage 2)
Imagine now the sending and receiving of breath as breathing for the other, merging your breath with the one who is fighting for breath
Concluding the Practice…
By giving thanks silently in your own tradition, and giving thanks (with the atmanjali mudra/namaste position) for this community that shared its suffering and hope.
What is Value of the Practice For Me, and For Others?
My own practice does not qualify me to speak with any authority about the techniques, but I am hoping here to reflect on my own experience. I will have to rely on others for any authority in these issues of everyday dharma.
From my own experience, the practice directs attention away from the own “ego” – the smaller self, and helps transform this attention into the aspiration to relieve the suffering of someone else. I found it to be a gift to have a practice that was relevant to the particular situation, but was derived from classic techniques for broadening broaden one’s energy to transform suffering into compassion. This has stages: the first is the transforming of your own suffering into compassion for others, dealing with your own pain to understand that of others and to develop the intention to develop compassion toward them. There are hundreds of “I” statements about the pain of others that are really about myself – how it affects me, how stressed I am, how I can’t feel better until they are better. All of this has validity, but the focus at this first stage remains on how I feel about what is happening to you, or to them.
The practice can shift this “I” center and begin bringing a compassionate awareness to your own pain and suffering, treating it as a part of you and helping digest those feelings (rather than being dominated and controlled by them). Breathing in that pain, darkness, heaviness; breathing out (to yourself) lightness, peacefulness, and generosity. Teachers recommend that you first make peace with yourself and absorb your pain into the larger spirit of your health, generosity and acceptance of yourself. As Surya Lama Das says, (p. 163) you can “consider yourself as having two parts. One part is loving and compassionate; the other needs love and compassion. Envision yourself being able to send love, care and acceptance back to your own being.” (162-163)
The second step is to include another being that is suffering. If the practice is during “hard times,” we have someone in mind whose suffering also causes us pain. If it is someone close to you, visualize that person, attempting to maintain your own balance. Usually you can become better at avoiding the dramatizing of your own feelings and anxieties about the situation; then you can maintain any composure you gained in the first step and avoid any “I” narratives that feed your fear or anxiety (e.g., “What will I do if he dies.” “How can I handle this?) These are important areas of darkness and anxiety, and they are dominating your mind and emotions, it may be better to stick with the first stage until there is some calm. It is hard to develop a clear intention of healing for the other person if your focus is still on you. Working on that first seems to (eventually) help clarity of your intention toward the other person.
Looking Beyond the Crisis: Generalizing the Practice
I have been reflecting here on practice in a crisis – hard times for you and someone you care deeply about. Distinguished dharma teachers have described the possibility of generalizing the practice to some broader collective, or even to all sentient beings, as Surya Lama Das writes in Awakening the Buddha Within, “After you have warmed your own heart with love, extend the circle of beings for whom you feel love and compassion (p. 163).” He recommends a general practice imagines a series of concentric circles, with yourself in the center and others arranged in larger circles depending on how close they are to you.
It may be that the nature of the crisis may keep you from choosing the next broader “circle” of concern because that circle may be others involved in the situation though they may not be the next closest to your heart. They may be chosen for you – by the way they are affected by and involved in the crisis. Hard times may not bring out the best in everyone and old resentments, frictions, blaming and grudges may darken the situation. This can be challenging and it tempting, even natural, to place your own suffering, resentments and expectations above theirs. I found this also to be an important part of the practice. You may be in a circle of sufferers you did not choose, but you temporarily form a community – linked by the person about whom you are concerned. That is a practice of “interbeing” with others, particularly when you do not ordinarily identify or sympathize with them.
Surya Lama Das (p. 156) states this in a more general admonition to “reflect on the kindness of everyone you meet …Everyone you meet, both the wise and the foolish, has something to teach you.” This includes those who you are in difficulty with and who arouse feelings of anger, jealousy and enmity (p. 156). Simply stated, you don’t always get to pick the people with whom you are joined in coping with adversity; this is very often the case when you or someone you love is in crisis. You are not in this alone, but you can’t pick who else is in the scene. Exclusion of those “unworthy” to share your suffering is no help. A helpful (but by no means easy) practice here is to reinforce the boddhisatva desire “for all sentient beings to be happy and free (Lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu). The practice of tonglen offers a concrete to develop this aspiration — using your own pain to understand and relate to others. It also helps direct attention from your personal suffering of physical and emotional pain and see how it affects others.
It uses your recognition of that pain in yourself to identity with the universality of that pain for all like you who are suffering. In a crisis that universality of all suffering beings may again be too large and diffuse for your intention, but you can direct the practice to breathing in the pain of those who, like you, are in this situation. That may mean other family members and friends who are affected by the crisis. Whether or not you love them, or even like them, they are experiencing pain like yours. Don’t try to minimize their pain by relativizing – for example, by saying “She doesn’t love him the way I do,” or “Nobody understands how I suffer as a parent.” Of course no one else suffers exactly the way you do and your situation is not exactly like theirs, but some part of that suffering is universal and shared by all of you affected by the situation. Use the practice to identify with what is shared; you can deal with your differences later. In fact, you may make more progress dealing with those differences (even severe, intractable ones) if you first recognize and identify the commonality of the suffering you all experience.
Does it work? Well, what do you mean by work? The eminently practical Dalai Lama is reported to have said: “Whether this meditation really helps others or not, it gives me peace of mind. Then I can be more effective and the benefit is immense.” Surya Lama Das devotes a chapter to the tonglen practice (pp. 161-165) — he describes it as a practice for “transforming the recalcitrant hardened heart into a heart softened by love and empathy…” and as a “way of increasing one’s capacity for unconditional love, generosity, and openness of heart” (p. 161). Within this broad intention we can face the current crisis, perhaps not yet ready to include all sentient beings, but beginning with ourselves, the person(s) in danger, and the circle of others who share our concern (whether or not we share any other positive thing with them). Moving from tonglen on ourselves to tonglen for others is “when you replace self-concern with a concern for others… “dissolving the barriers between self and others by transforming self-centered attitudes.” (p. 162). This means shifting as much of your attention as possible from how this situation affects you toward the person in greatest crisis and the others affected. This is a difficult practice, but my own experience with “sending and receiving,” – specifically sending the breath – had benefits of bringing together a community far more than I could have imagined. Though there may be no way of knowing what benefit this loving practice can bring to those who are ill or injured, it can give the circle of sufferers peace of mind and help them be more skillful in dealing with themselves and others.