Tonglen Practice Circle - Sunday, July 16th, 2023

[Meian]

This Sunday, July 16th, 2023, there will be another special guided Tonglen Practice Circle for anyone who wishes to do taking and sending practice for themselves and everyone in need.

For those who may be new to Tonglen Practice and what it's about, Tonglen is an ancient Practice originating in Tibet, but has been adopted by many Zen and other Western Buddhist Sanghas, for the transformation of suffering, anger, sadness and the like within ourselves and in the world, and transforming the same through visualization into peace, joy, acceptance and other positive emotions. To learn more about Tonglen Practice, please visit this link: https://tinyurl.com/Tonglen-Instructions

This event will occur in the Scheduled Sitting Room (SSR) and last for around 35 minutes.

The Treeleaf Calendar can be found here: https://www.treeleaf.org/now/#calendar to convert the date to your local time zone.

The Scheduled Sitting Room can be found here: https://www.treeleaf.org/now/go.php?l=ssr

The livestream and "any-time" viewing after can be found here: https://youtube.com/live/9_c5l9_YVII?feature=share


ALL are welcome (no prior experience needed!) -- just come sit with us -- we hope to see you there!

gassho Washin and the "Tonglen team"

[Tai Shi]

For those who wish we also have a complete creative writing thread. Log in to thtead Poetry.
Gassho
Tai Shi


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[Guest]

I've noticed Tonglen practices on the Treeleaf FB page, and am trying to understand where it fits.

To my understanding the practice is part of Tibetan Buddhism, is that correct? If so, how did it get incorporated into zen Buddhism?

For the practice itself, looking at the lions roar description, https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/ it seems like an elaborate form of compassion-based prayer, would this by an accurate summation?

Confusedly sattday,

Dan

[Jundo]

I've noticed Tonglen practices on the Treeleaf FB page, and am trying to understand where it fits.

To my understanding the practice is part of Tibetan Buddhism, is that correct? If so, how did it get incorporated into zen Buddhism?

For the practice itself, looking at the lions roar description, https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/ it seems like an elaborate form of compassion-based prayer, would this by an accurate summation?

Confusedly sattday,

Dan

Hi Dan,

Many western Zen Sangha have picked up a few practices from other traditions which seem to be nice complements to Zen Practice. Maybe it is because, as some commentators have noted, they "soften up" a bit on the "Compassion" side the sometimes traditional hard "samurai" flavor of Japanese Zen and its emphasis on the "Wisdom" side. There may be something to that. Other examples are Metta recital, a little more focus than is traditional on "engaged" charitable work, and some others. Tonglen is another example that has caught on with some Soto Zen folks, such as Norman Fischer from San Francisco Zen Center, here:

https://everydayzen.org/teachings/tonglen-guided-compassion-meditation-tassajara-2011-talk-6/

Tonglen, as we practice here, is a very simple and direct approach, a visualization, to take in the suffering and sometime ugliness of the world, purify it in the heart, send it back out into the world again. Really, not much more to it than that. It really does work to change feelings in the heart, changes our appreciation of the world, expresses our hopes for a better world.

That is my understanding, although I am not myself a regular Tonglen practitioner (although I recite the very similar Metta). Our Rev. Kokuu introduced Tonglen a few years ago.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah