Tong-len and the Four Immeasurable Thoughts

By Lama Zopa Rinpoche - August 2009

Rinpoche gave the following advice on how to do the preliminary practice of tong-len

Tong-len: This 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

LC 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!

Four Immeasurable Thoughts

Rinpoche gave the following advice on how to do the preliminary practice of the four immeasurable thoughts.

This is the practice of reciting and meditating on the four immeasurable thoughts:

The Four Immeasurable Thoughts

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to abide in equanimity,

free from hatred and attachment, not holding some close and others distant.

May they abide in equanimity.

I myself will cause them to abide in equanimity.

Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, taking on all the disturbing emotions of sentient beings and giving them to your self-cherishing thought, thus destroying it.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and the causes of happiness.

May they have happiness and its causes.

I myself will cause them to have happiness and its causes.

Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, transforming your body into a wish-granting jewel that gives every sentient being every kind of temporal and ultimate happiness that they desire and need.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

May they be free from suffering and its causes.

I myself will cause them to be free from suffering and its causes.

Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, taking on the sufferings and causes of suffering of all sentient beings.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated from the happiness of higher rebirth and liberation.

May they never be separated from these.

I myself will cause them never to be separated from these.

Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

 Meditate briefly on tong-len, giving all one’s merits of past, present, and future and their results, including enlightenment, to all sentient beings.

Recite each verse with meditation – this helps to develop bodhicitta. When reciting the prayer, if you meditate on the meaning, then you collect limitless skies of merit. With each one of the four immeasurables you collect extensive merits.

This is why in each sadhana, there are the four immeasurable thoughts before you engage in the three kaya meditations, because this practice is so essential. This is one of the main causes of being born as a Wheel Turning King, and for that one has to collect inconceivable merit.

This is similar to generation stage meditation in the three kaya meditation. It is just visualizing, but through this one can actualize the completion stage, which ceases ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth, and, of course, in the same way one can achieve the ultimate resultant state of the three kayas. So, here, one is doing generation stage three kayas, just visualizing, but each time it plants the seed and purifies ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth, and plants the seed to achieve the resultant three kayas.

One collects so much merit by generating the four immeasurable thoughts. The main thing is to meditate on the meaning and generate the mind. This is a great practice to develop and strengthen bodhicitta, because you do this practice for all sentient beings. Each time you generate the thought, it generates the cause of enlightenment. It causes you to be able to benefit sentient beings for many lifetimes and to have control, so that you can benefit sentient beings more, like the Dharma kings in Tibet, or like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. You benefit sentient beings not just in one country but the entire world.

Include all sentient beings, all those who are suffering and who are devoid of happiness, also you can think of specific people that you want to help.

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Lam-rim Topics : Preliminary Practices
By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche at various locations (Last Updated Sep 2, 2008)

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