Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this final session of the Heart Advice course, Ven Sanghy Khandro teaches tonglen practice adapted for helping others who are dying, sick, or in pain. Building on the previous session’s practice of tonglen for one’s own difficulties, she guides practitioners in directing the technique toward another person—someone you know and care about who is suffering. The practice involves imaginatively taking on that person’s suffering to weaken ego and self-centeredness, then offering back your positive qualities and spiritual resources, imagining these transform into whatever that person needs for happiness. Practical guidance for those likely to encounter dying friends or family members.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 5.02 Tonglen for Others.mp3
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~310
In this session, the final session of the course, we are going to look at what we can do to help others who are dying. Because most probably, before we ourselves die, there will be people in our life, family members, friends, or just people we come to know. And we might be in a position of being able to offer them help as they are dying. So one practice that’s very helpful for someone who’s dying as well as for someone who’s sick or in pain or going through difficulties is the practice of Tom Len. In the previous session we did this Tom Len practice using a problem we ourselves are experiencing.
Learning how to have a more courageous attitude with regard to our own problems and take on our problems with the wish to benefit others. So, now let’s do a slightly different practice of Tonglen using someone else’s problem. So in this meditation we’ll imagine another person, someone we know, someone we love, we care about, who is suffering in some way. And then we’ll do the Tonglen practice imagining taking on that person’s suffering, using it to overcome or eliminate our ego, our selfishness, our other negative attitudes. And then giving to them all our positive qualities and positive energy, all the good things we have.
And imagining those transforming into whatever that person needs in order to be happy.