The Exchange of Self and Other

Tonglen belongs to the Tibetan tradition of lojong, mind-training, a body of pithy teachings systematised from the eleventh century for transforming adversity into the path of awakening. Its philosophical ground is the bodhisattva ideal of the Mahayana, the vow to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings and to take on their suffering as one's own, and the specific contemplation known as the exchange of self and other, in which the meditator dismantles the reflexive priority of "I" over "you" until the welfare of others weighs as heavily as one's own.

The tradition is careful about what tonglen does and does not claim. It is not held to transfer suffering magically from one person to another; its transforming work is on the practitioner's own heart, softening self-cherishing and enlarging compassion, and any benefit to others is understood to flow from the changed person one becomes. Long a guarded practice transmitted within Tibetan lineages, tonglen has in recent decades been taught widely to lay and Western audiences as a method for meeting pain, one's own and the world's, without turning away.