Tonglen

[Ed]

Dear John,

What do you think of the practice of Tonglen and do you think it is a good thing to practice this?

"Tonglen starts right off with a counterintuitive instruction: pay full attention to your discomfort (physically and emotionally) and breathe more and more of it in with each inhale."

"While the first part of Tonglen involves breathing in our pain with each inhale, the second part instructs us to breathe out good wishes to ourselves and everybody else in the world that is feeling the same way."

To me it seems to be a good addition to emotional clearing as full attention is paid on feeling the discomfort.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Ed

[John Ruskan]

I'm not familiar enough with the Tonglen practice to be able to comment on it, but after you understand the principles of EC work, you can of course combine it with any other healing or spiritual practice that appeals to you. The sentences you mention are interesting in that they seem to offer an ancient confirmation of the EC method.