Breathe Out Joy
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| Kuan Yin, Buddhist goddess of compassion, Penang, Malaysia |
As we say goodbye to the old year, we cannot help but recall the sorrows of the months past and long for the future to be better. Radical Joy for Hard Times is devoted to seeking ways to hold the sorrowful and the joyful, the suffering and the celebratory in balance, for both are always part of our lives and our surroundings.
A practice of Tibetan Buddhism called tonglen is one way of cultivating this kind of balance. In simplest terms, tonglen entails taking sorrow into ourselves and sending out relief.
Breathing in, we focus on a person or group of people who is suffering, and we voluntarily bring into ourselves the willingness to share that pain for the space of half a breath. As we do so, we feel the armor we've put up to protect ourselves melting away. Ah! It turns out that our hearts are much wider and more expansive than we had imagined!
Now it's time for the exhalation. With the out-breath, we offer relief and spaciousness to that same sufferer . We breathe out health, a bouquet of flowers, fresh air, a smile, love.
Writing of the practice of
tonglen, the venerable Buddhist teacher
Pema Chödrön says, "At the relative level, our noble heart is felt as kinship with all beings. At the absolute level, we experience it as groundlessness or open space."
From everyone at Radical Joy for Hard Times we wish you a year of finding beauty in all your experiences, every day.
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