Preliminary Practice of Tong-len

Tong-len is the practice of taking and giving, the most brave practice of bodhicitta. One way of doing this practice is by reciting verse 95 in the Lama Chöpa:

 Tong-len: Meditation on Taking and Giving

Lama Chöpa, v. 95:
And thus, venerable, compassionate gurus,
I seek your blessings that all karmic debts, obstacles, and sufferings of mother beings
May without exception ripen upon me right now,
And that I may give my happiness and virtue to others
And, thereby, invest all beings in bliss.

You recite this verse according to the number you need to recite, and, at the same time, do the meditation. Each time you do this, you collect limitless skies of merit. It is an extremely powerful purification method, and you become closer to enlightenment.

This practice helps to develop bodhicitta. This is a most brave practice to generate bodhicitta.

Or, you can base the recitations on a verse from Nagarjuna’s teachings:

“Whatever sufferings there are, may they ripen on me; whatever happiness I have, may it ripen on sentient beings.”

With the first part, you do the practice of taking. With the second, you do the practice of giving. Then, you count on the mala (each time you recite the verse). I think you will be blissed out from this practice and sentient beings will be blissed out.

About the Preliminary Practice of Tong-len

This is a most powerful practice to do. (This is reciting the requesting prayer, together with the meditation of giving and taking.) Here, each time you take the sufferings and the causes of sufferings, including the negative imprints, take all sentient beings’ sufferings, including the delusions and karma, together with the negative imprints, and also the undesirable environments. For example, in hell, there is the ice fire, the ice mountain, the burning ground, the iron house; then, for the pretas, it is a very depressing place with no water, and is so hot and so cold; for human beings, it is a very dirty place full of thorn bushes. You take the environmental sufferings as well, those kinds of things, in the form of black pollution, and you give it to the ego and destroy the ego – one’s own worst enemy. This is the greatest demon that has interfered so far with your being able to achieve enlightenment. It hasn’t allowed you to achieve enlightenment so far, besides that, it hasn’t even allowed you to achieve liberation from samsara, and hasn’t allowed you to enlighten all sentient beings, not even one. In these ways, you can see that one’s own ego is somehow the enemy of all sentient beings, not only an enemy to you.

Also, you collect numberless merits by taking all the sufferings, all the causes of suffering, and also all the undesirable environments. Then, when you give, you collect numberless merits by giving your body as a wish-fulfilling jewel and by giving your possessions to all sentient beings. However many possessions you have, they are given to sentient beings. So, however many possessions you have, you collect that much merit by giving them to sentient beings. Because sentient beings are numberless, you collect numberless merits with each possession.

Then, when giving all the past, present, and future merits, the three times’ merits, again, you collect so many limitless skies of merit. You give all your future happiness – your present happiness, and from the next minute’s happiness up until enlightenment, including liberation, including the realizations – to each and every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human, sura, and asura being. You can see that sentient beings are numberless. By giving to each of them, you collect so many numberless merits. You can’t imagine how many. I think if you really knew how much merit you collected, you would faint, fall down, and it might be difficult to get up! I hope it’s not for a long time. I hope people won’t take you to a hospital or a psychologist. I hope your family or friends don’t take you to the hospital because of it!