Tonglen II - Relieving pain - Battlecry of Freedom

 

 

There are two approaches to practising tonglen to relieve actual present pain. The first is focussing on the pain being experienced, and dissolving it on the in-breath, and sending soothing energy to the point of pain on the out-breath.

The second approach is to imagine that the pain being experienced is the pain that anyone anywhere is experiencing in that moment. Through practising tonglen with this view, it can alleviate the personal pain, but also embrace the expansive view of helping others.

Battlecry of Freedom by Ngakma Nor’dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2019, ISBN 978-1-898185-46-8, Part II - the slogans, p. 74

 

Devotion to the outer Lama enables the student to be empty in relation to the Lama. - Illusory Advice

 

Devotion to the outer Lama enables the student to be empty in relation to the Lama. This allows the Lama to conjure with the form of the student’s neuroses to mirror them, so that they become transparent for the student.

An example of this would be when Ngak’chang Rinpoche made a suggestion to Ngakma Nor’dzin with regard to a building that had been vandalised. He suggested that the stone throwers were skilful in succeeding in breaking the highest windows in the derelict building. This comment completely cut through the prejudiced view she was presenting of their vandalism.

It was not that Rinpoche was condoning the vandalism, but just offering an alternative perspective. Ngakma Nor’dzin found that this opened her view so that she was then dancing with the ambiguity of whether this was a bad action or a skilful action.

page 62, Illusory Advice, Ngakma Nor’dzin & Ngakpa ’ö-Dzin, Aro Books Worldwide, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-898185-37-6