Coaching practices for Sending and Taking Buddhist Practice
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Sending and Taking Buddhist Practice, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I pass real suffering all day
- My whole instinct is to push pain away and grab at anything that feels good, and I’m tired of how walled-off that makes me
- I’m kind and openhearted with the people I already love and quietly closed off to the ones who get under my skin, and I’m realizing that warmth that only flows toward easy people isn’t really the practice
- When I try to breathe in suffering from a raw, already-shaky place it just pulls me under rather than opening me
- I’ve heard of this breathing-in-the-pain practice but it stays a vague idea in my head
Practices that may help
- Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending
Tonglen ("taking and sending") is a Tibetan Buddhist compassion practice in which the practitioner breathes in suffering — their own or another’s — and breathes out relief, ease, and goodwill. It works by deliberately moving toward pain rather than away from it, which gradually reduces the fear of suffering and expands the capacity for compassion. Evidence is largely clinical and mechanistic; direct RCTs on tonglen specifically are sparse, though compassion training more broadly shows meaningful effects. - Use flash tonglen in the moment of encountering suffering
A single in-breath of someone’s pain and an out-breath of goodwill is a complete act of tonglen.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Tonglen: sending and taking
Breathe in suffering (yours and others’); breathe out relief and well-being.
Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training - Always abide by the three principles
Maintain your vow, don’t show off, and practise impartially with everyone — not just the people you like.
Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training - Prepare for tonglen with a brief equanimity grounding
Entering tonglen from a grounded, spacious state makes the practice sustainable rather than destabilising.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Work with the classical two-breath texture
Breathe in something hot, dark, and heavy; breathe out something cool, bright, and spacious.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Practice tonglen for your own suffering first
Use your own current pain as the object before extending the practice to others.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Don’t make gods into demons
Don’t let spiritual practice become a source of pride, judgment, or superiority over others.
Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training - Fourth noble truth — committing to the path as a practice, not a belief
The fourth noble truth is the prescription: engage the Eightfold Path as an active investigation, not as a doctrine to subscribe to.
The Four Noble Truths as a Practical Framework - Investigate resistance to the practice honestly
The impulse not to breathe in suffering is information about where your self-protective contraction lives.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending
Related concerns
- Brief Tonglen Daily Life
A single in-breath of someone’s pain and an out-breath of goodwill is a complete act of tonglen.
Use flash tonglen in the moment of encountering suffering
- Directed Tonglen Practice
Tonglen ("taking and sending") is a Tibetan Buddhist compassion practice in which the practitioner breathes in suffering — their own or another’s — and breathes out relief, ease, and goodwill. It works by deliberately moving toward pain rather than away from it, which gradually reduces the fear of suffering and expands the capacity for compassion. Evidence is largely clinical and mechanistic; direct RCTs on tonglen specifically are sparse, though compassion training more broadly shows meaningful effects.
- Hot Dark Heavy Tonglen
Breathe in something hot, dark, and heavy; breathe out something cool, bright, and spacious.
Work with the classical two-breath texture
- How To Practice Tonglen Meditation
Tonglen ("taking and sending") is a Tibetan Buddhist compassion practice in which the practitioner breathes in suffering — their own or another’s — and breathes out relief, ease, and goodwill. It works by deliberately moving toward pain rather than away from it, which gradually reduces the fear of suffering and expands the capacity for compassion. Evidence is largely clinical and mechanistic; direct RCTs on tonglen specifically are sparse, though compassion training more broadly shows meaningful effects.
- Informal Tonglen Practice
A single in-breath of someone’s pain and an out-breath of goodwill is a complete act of tonglen.
- Taking And Sending Tibetan Buddhism
Tonglen ("taking and sending") is a Tibetan Buddhist compassion practice in which the practitioner breathes in suffering — their own or another’s — and breathes out relief, ease, and goodwill. It works by deliberately moving toward pain rather than away from it, which gradually reduces the fear of suffering and expands the capacity for compassion. Evidence is largely clinical and mechanistic; direct RCTs on tonglen specifically are sparse, though compassion training more broadly shows meaningful effects.
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