The Attention Revolution by B. Alan Wallace

Author:B. Alan Wallace [Wallace, B. Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Wisdom Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

INTERLUDE TONGLEN—“GIVING AND TAKING”

The first four interludes have focused on the meditative cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, which together provide a wonderful array of practices for opening the heart and achieving emotional equilibrium. These are much-needed auxiliary practices for the development of shamatha, and they are deeply meaningful in their own right. We move now to the Mahayana practice of tonglen, which literally means “giving and taking.” This one method integrates loving-kindness and compassion on a foundation of equanimity, and in so doing, it uplifts the mind that falls into depression and calms the mind that gets caught up in emotional turbulence. Just as mindfulness of a single cycle of respiration—arousing the attention during the in-breath and relaxing during the out-breath—wards off attentional laxity and excitation, so does tonglen counteract emotional imbalances of depression and excitement. And when it is conjoined with breathing, it can be especially effective.

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