Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Diana Taylor guides practitioners through a structured Tonglen meditation practice in this 45-minute session, beginning with breath-focused calming and then connecting with a specific personal pain—physical or emotional—that serves as an anchor for the wider compassion work. She walks through a detailed visualization sequence: developing clear awareness of your own pain, imagining others suffering similarly, breathing in their suffering as black smoke while radiating white healing light outward, and grounding this in a purification practice you can return to when the intensity becomes overwhelming. The teaching emphasises knowing your limits and working within them, using the analogy of teaching a child to swim—moving gradually beyond comfort without drowning in fear. Throughout an extensive Q&A, Taylor addresses common obstacles: resistance to taking in black smoke, concerns about visualization realism, and the risk of disempowerment for those already fragile. She stresses compassion toward yourself as foundational, offers flexible variations for different temperaments and capacities, and concludes with practical wisdom about feeding the ego constructively until it dissolves naturally. Suited for practitioners with some meditation experience or familiarity with Buddhist frameworks.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 Ret..mp3
UUID: 6c10f968-6ab5-42dc-bab7-e10fcf93a4d3
Teacher: Diana Taylor
Collection: Retreat (Diana Taylor)
Date: 1997 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~3,084
All suffering of all sentient beings. But often when we do it in a very general way, it’s so global that we’re not really doing anything at all. We’re just pretending. It’s often far more potent to select some sort of physical or emotional pain which you are experiencing and doing the Tonglen practice on the basis of that pain. So if you’ve got a headache at the moment or your knees are aching or you’re feeling have got a sense of grief or a sense of anger because whatever has happened in your life.
Utilizing that and extending the Tonglen practices to all people who are also suffering a headache or stiff knees or are angry or depressed or whatever. So in that sense everybody will be doing something different. So you need to say okay, this is what I’m going to focus on in this particular time when I’m doing the Tonglen practice. So always when we begin is beginning by bringing the mind in and helping the mind to be calm and still. If you’re at home, as I say, maybe you’ll put some music on at this stage or maybe you’ll simply sit and focus in on the breathing.
Whatever way you use, but this time what we should do is to focus in on the breath. So allowing the mind to be calm and still by focusing in on the breath. From this point of inner calmness, now developing an awareness of your own pain in a way that we did yesterday by looking where is this pain? Physically where can I locate it? What does it look like?
How does it feel? Is it heavy or light? What sort of color does it move? Building up a very clear awareness of your own pain. From there you bring the thought into your mind.
It is not only me that suffers this pain and many many people all around the world who suffer similar pain. And some to in a far greater degree to what I am suffering at this moment. Like myself, all these people desire to be free of the pain and to have only happiness in their lives. Imagine all the different situations, specific cases of people who are suffering the same sort of pain. And then thinking it is for the benefit of these people that I am going to do this practice.
So now we imagine this white light of healing and compassion coming in as it did yesterday so that it comes around your own pain. As you breathe in and then as you breathe out, the pain loosens up and comes out. Each time you breathe in, you hold the white light around your pain. As you breathe out, just observe what happens. Now breathing this white light into the center of your pain, allowing it to transform the pain and just observing what happens as you breathe out.
From there moving into the purification practice. The same white light coming down as you breathe in. Washing out the pain and all the confusion. All the fear coming out of your body throughout through every pore and every orifice. Now the white light becomes like milk and your body fills up with this healing liquid.
More subtle obscurations rising to the top, to the surface of this liquid until they flow out through the crown of your head and disappear. And the remaining subtle obscurations around your heart like a hard ball. As you breathe in the light of this ball explodes and you’re filled with light. Repeating that each time exploding more and more subtle obscurations. Until your body is radiating quite bright light.
From that mind of white light you now bring into mind those people who are suffering from the same sort of pain that you suffer from. You make the conscious intention to breathe in their suffering in the form of black smoke. As you breathe it out, your own self-cherishing which is the root cause of your own pain explodes. self-cherishing is like a black ball around the heart. And again, this black ball explodes as you breathe in.
As the ball explodes then you radiate the white light. Consciously sending the white light and the joy and the peace of that white light back into the minds and the hearts of all these people. Repeating this process over and over again as you breathe in and breathe out. Keeping your mind focused. Absorbing the pain.
Breathing it in. Breathing out love and joy and peace. Release from suffering. If it becomes too much of an effort then you go back to do the purification practice until you once again radiating light without any effort and then continue with the Tonglen practice. Keeping your mind focused.
Now bringing the meditation to a close. By dedicating any benefits that you receive from having done this practice. So that your own wisdom and compassion might be more fully developed. So that in this way you can help all these people who are suffering just as you are suffering to develop their wisdom and compassion as well. In that way, closing your meditation.
Now did anybody have any difficulties with that? Right. What? Were you falling asleep? I’m not quite good at it, but just to sleep the last time.
Right. Sometimes we do need to sleep. Yes. Meditation is not the same as falling asleep, but sometimes we need to sleep. Any other difficulties that people had with that?
Yeah? Mhmm. Yes. Right. Yeah.
Why do you think you have a resistance to the black smoke? Well, you are definitely taking in impurities. But why is this a problem? Other people might like to come in with some ideas on this one. Yeah.
Oh. Yes. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s it’s excellent that you’ve got that awareness, and it’s not just a a sort of a bit of interesting imagination. I think the most advice to that is fear.
Fear. Mhmm. Yes. Yes. What do you think we’re frightened of?
If fear is there on the source, what is it fear of? Losing ourselves. Who who’s saying that? You’re right. What do you mean by that?
Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Which underneath it all is fear of death, isn’t it? Mhmm.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep. Yeah. Right.
So there’s something even more powerful than the boulder. Yes. Quality of life. Right. Yes.
That’s when it’s important to go back to the purification practice when you are starting to feel like that. But even with that it’s still important to ask what is it that I’m frightened of? What is it that is so fragile? What’s going to happen if I fall to pieces? Right.
Well, we’ll work out something which suits you then. It might be better to do it over two breaths. So you’re breathing it in and then breathe out and breathe in some more, and then the next cycle, you do the sending it out. Oh, yeah. So I say what you do is what works.
There’s nothing absolute. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I tend to have the same problem too. So if I do that, then I just take it over a couple of breaths instead of trying to do it in one breath. Otherwise, you’ll end up hyperventilating or under ventilating. One bit. Listen.
This is all your imagination after all. We do have to distinguish between different levels of reality. So no you’re you’re not actually breathing in any blackness. Not I mean I didn’t see any black smoke descending down as you’re doing this. So as you what’s that?
Yeah. Oh, it was a simile. Alright. Thank you. Well, next time, you get many smogs in Adelaide?
I don’t think you don’t have much in Adelaide, but you have plenty in Melbourne. I’ll take you all over to Melbourne next time we have a smog alert and you can breathe in all the black smoke. That’s right. Yes. Well, you can do it with that.
That’s a that’s a good practice. Help it to strengthen the visualization. You go around waiting for the next big smog to come around so you can increase the visualization. Right. Yes.
Question actually. Because if we try it in situations where we do feel very weak then we can disempower ourselves if we’re not careful. That’s why it’s important to do the purification. But also if I listen to what you say and ask myself what issue you’re trying to grapple with at the moment, it’s this issue of creating boundaries and finding what your limits are and living within that. So you can also do Tonglen practice about that and think of all the other people who are suffering because they haven’t had these boundaries and they’ve got caught up in exactly the same way that you have and experience that feeling of exhaustion in the same way that you have and the fear that comes from all that in the same way that you have.
So do Tonglen practice about that rather than about the issues that you were in at that particular time. That’s more likely to be empowering and that’s more likely to be within your range. Once I asked Geshe Tashi Tsering who’s up at Chenrezig Institute about compassion and because burnout of course, anybody in the helping professions has to be very careful about that particular thing. And he said, Well, it’s like in Tibet when we are trying to clear a field of stones. We ask the big people to carry the big stones and we ask the little people to carry the little stones.
So if a stone is too big for you, pick up a little stone. So we need to be aware of what is too much and what is enough. We need to also be aware of where that edge is. Sometimes we do need to go a little bit across that edge and sometimes we need to step back from that edge because it’s too much. So this is the having compassion also towards ourselves and compassion towards ourselves means knowing who I am, knowing what my limitations are at this particular time, and working within those and saying, Okay, this much I can do.
I would like to be able help all sentient beings but I can’t do that at the moment. So what can I do? I can’t literally take on all suffering of all sentient beings, although we make this our motivation because in the long term we want to do that. I can’t literally do that at this point of time. But I can do little bits and by doing little bits then I strengthen my ability to do that and I can gradually extend it.
So the wisdom in this case is wisdom which is being directed in towards ourselves and what we are in fact able to do. Definitely goes both ways. Very important that we have the compassion towards ourselves. When I talk about this quality of discipline, in these sorts of meditations it’s not this rigid disciplinarian attitude of a dogmatic father, it’s the gentle attitude of a mother. A bit of a male female stereotyping me but we’ll ignore that for the time being.
There’s this gentle compassionate attitude which is gently leading something on. Compassion is not separate from discipline either. Compassionate discipline is aware of the limitations and is helping a child to move just a little bit further but within that child’s range of ability to do things. If we never move beyond our range of ability, then we never learn something new. So we need to step beyond, but not so far beyond that it becomes terrifying.
So if you want to teach a child to swim, you can throw them in the deep end of the pool, but it’s likely to be highly counterproductive because the fear which is generated is too strong. But if you take the child in gradually so that they get used to not having their feet on solid ground and the water is swirling around them and they’re not going to instantly drown if they swallow a mouthful of water. Then they can learn to swim. So the same thing with something like this. It’s a practice which is a very potent practice but we need to move into it carefully.
And the analogy with the swimming, the feet on the ground is the purification practice. So when you’re frightened when it becomes too much, come back to the purification practice. Purification practice is about having compassion towards yourself. That’s what it is. Yes.
What happens is that you experience things. More and more often you begin to experience the ability to give in a compassionate way to people in ways that you haven’t been able to do before. Then you get the response back too, People saying nice things to you and people appreciating it. It doesn’t guarantee that they’ll appreciate it of course but that does happen. And we do have egos after all.
We haven’t got rid of them yet. And if we’re going to feed our egos in any way at least we might as well feed them with something which is going to help develop wisdom and compassion. Because that will in the end get rid of the ego even though we’re boosting it up a little bit at the time. I’m not quite sure what you mean because every time I lead a meditation, I do it slightly differently in any case. Are you asking me what it compassion within yourself.
Yeah. That that that’s one way of understanding what purification is. It’s having compassion towards yourself. The desire to relieve your own suffering. And we relieve our own suffering by opening ourselves to wisdom and compassion.
That opening ourselves to wisdom and compassion that is what purification is. So that compassion directed towards ourselves allows us to, or it doesn’t allow us to, it shows us the necessity of purification practice. Now other purification practices besides the white light purification practices, are different prostration practices that you can do as well within Tibetan Buddhism which is another form of purification practices. So there are many different ways in which to purify. It’s just that I’ve used that particular one because it’s easy to use and easy to remember and doesn’t require any sort of Buddhist background to do it.
Well, it can just explode in terms of again, I mean, we’re using a we don’t have to take it literally in the sense that it’s got to go somewhere. With matter, it can be converted into energy. Just convert it into some sort of energy, if you like, if you want to take it in a more literal way. Again it’s the black ball at your heart and you’re exploding this black ball. So our ego, our self-cherishing, we visualise as this black ball at the heart.
So when we breathe in the black smoke it comes down to the black ball and it also explodes the black ball in the same way that the white light did in the purification practice. This time we’re using the black smoke from other people to explode our self-cherishing. Well, allow yourself to just enjoy the joy and relief of suffering of your own and then give it back. Right? As I say, you Yes.
Tended to get the great big Oh, I see. I see. Floating out of being yourself away. Right. Yes.
As you can imagine, this is instantaneous. But, again, I mean, work out something which Yes. Mhmm. Right. Mhmm.
Right. Mhmm. Right. Yeah. Yes.
That’s right. There are many, many different practices and as I say we can be creative about this as well provided that we know the structure that we’re being creative around. Once we know that structure then it’s easy to be creative and flexible and adjust it so that it’s actually working for you. As long as you know that structure, then then, yeah, just work around that and build on what is going to work for you. Yes.
Or you can visualize it, you know, going onto a compost heap or something like that if you like. So it becomes something which is positive. And put it on flowers then? Yes. And put it on the flowers.
Precisely. Mhmm. Yeah. Is that true also of emotional pain? Pain.
Mhmm. I think that’s or maybe you can do it on on on the inability to express emotions. Yeah. Yes. So that quality of being blocked.
Is that what you mean? Right. So doing it with respect to your limitations then. Yes. Or just this awareness that there are limitations.
I mean we all have limitations, one sort or another. So just this awareness that there are limitations. I have limitations and this causes me some difficulties because I’ve got to deal with them. Everybody has limitations so you can do it on that basis. Or you can simply send your ability to control pain.
As I say, this is about being creative, being flexible, adjusting your meditation around so it’s something which is potent. I’ll stop for some afternoon tea and come back here about quarter to four. Oh, yes, Chris. Yep. The way in which the mind is understood is very practical and straightforward and conforms to the ways in which we understand the mind in the West.
It’s only when we get to the subtle minds that we get these major differences. So we can look at the powers which are described within Buddhist practice. I mentioned these on Thursday night. These are the six powers which are used to achieve calm abiding meditation. But when we look at these six powers, these are in fact the qualities if you like which are needed for all forms of learning not just for achieving calm abiding.
So they’re as relevant for learning mathematics as they are for achieving calm abiding and they’re as relevant for developing compassion or any other skill. So the first one of these is hearing. In other words, we need to have our minds opened by a teacher. The exception to that is when we’ve built up imprints from a past life over something and we don’t necessarily then need a teacher to open our minds. Sometimes it can be something