Origin 1042 to 1200
Tonglen, "giving and taking", is a Tibetan compassion practice worked on the breath: breathing in, the practitioner imagines taking in the suffering, pain and darkness of others, willingly, rather than recoiling from it, and breathing out, sends them relief, warmth and whatever is good in oneself. It deliberately reverses the ordinary instinct to pull good things toward oneself and push suffering away, and is used both as a general training in compassion and at the bedside of the dying and the grieving.
It comes from the lojong or mind-training tradition rooted in the teachings Atisha brought to Tibet, and set down in Chekawa's Seven Points of Mind Training. Unlike the higher tantric practices it is taught widely and openly, and has become one of the better-known Tibetan practices in the modern world.
Facts
Status
Status Within the TraditionSourced to the subject's own accountTonglen is traditionally described as reducing selfish attachment, increasing renunciation and purifying karma; Tibetan Buddhist teaching holds that developing it fully touches all six perfections of bodhisattva practice. 3 Current StatusUnlike the higher tantric practices, tonglen is taught widely and openly, and has become one of the better-known Tibetan practices in the modern world. 4 Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 4 Attributions
TraditionTibetan Buddhism, a compassion practice from the lojong or mind-training tradition rooted in the teachings Atisha brought to Tibet and set down in Chekawa's Seven Points of Mind Training. 5 Practice
Who Performs ItAll adherents of the tradition 1 Solitary or Communal Identity
AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountTonglen traces to the seven points of mind training attributed to the Indian Buddhist teacher Atisha, born 982 CE; the Kadampa master Langri Tangpa, who lived from 1054 to 1123, first put the points into writing, and Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, who lived from 1101 to 1175, systematized them into the Seven Points of Training the Mind, known as the Atisha Slogans. 3 Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginComes from the lojong mind training tradition rooted in the teachings Atisha brought to Tibet. Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteUnlike the higher tantric practices of the same tradition, tonglen is taught widely and openly rather than restricted to initiates, which is part of why it has become one of the better-known Tibetan Buddhist practices in the modern world. 5 Learn More
Breathing in Suffering, Breathing Out Relief
Tonglen, Tibetan for "giving and taking" or "sending and receiving", is a Tibetan Buddhist meditation for the cultivation of compassion that deliberately reverses the mind's ordinary instinct. Where the untrained impulse is to draw pleasure toward oneself and push pain away, tonglen trains the practitioner to do the opposite: to breathe in, with each in-breath, the suffering of others, imagined as dark, hot, heavy smoke, and to breathe out, with each out-breath, one's own happiness, ease and merit, sent to them as cool, bright relief. The practice thus uses the rhythm of the breath as the vehicle for an exchange of self and other.
The method is typically directed first toward a particular suffering being, then widened to all who share that suffering, and ultimately to all beings without limit. Practitioners are taught to begin, if the suffering of others feels too remote, by taking in and transforming their own pain, so that the capacity for the fuller exchange is built gradually.
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.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
A Tibetan lojong mind-training practice.
Sources
1. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014View the Source 2. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism
3. Tonglen (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026on Atisha, Langri Tangpa and Chekawa Yeshe Dorje's roles in the Seven PointsView the Source 3. Tonglen (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026on tonglen's doctrinal function and the six perfectionsView the Source 4. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies
Geoffrey Samuel, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993On mind-training (lojong)View the Source 5. The Seven Points of Mind Training (Lojong)
Chekawa Yeshe DorjeThe instruction on giving and taking
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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