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Awakening Heart
Daily Bodhicitta Practice
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Awakening Heart

Daily Bodhicitta Practice

🌅 Today's Practice

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✦ Today's Teaching
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10:00
minutes
🫁 Tonglen — Giving and Taking

Tonglen (Tibetan: གཏོང་ལེན་) is the practice of "sending and taking." On the in-breath, you take in the suffering of beings; on the out-breath, you send out your happiness, virtue, and merit. It directly reverses the self-cherishing mind and cultivates immense compassion.

Originally taught by Geshe Chekawa (1102–1176) and elaborated by Pema Chödrön and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the West, Tonglen is both an aspiration Bodhicitta and an action Bodhicitta practice.

"The practice of giving and taking should be done riding the breath."
Chekawa Yeshe Dorje — Seven-Point Mind Training, Point III
⬤ Guided Tonglen Session
Preparation
Rest your mind. Allow thoughts to settle like sediment falling in water. Open to a sense of spaciousness.
📖 Tonglen for a Specific Person
1
Bring them to mind
Picture someone you know who is suffering. See their face, feel their pain as vividly as you can. Let their suffering touch your heart.
2
Breathe in their darkness
As you inhale, visualise their suffering — grief, illness, fear, loneliness — as dark smoke. Draw it into your heart with the wish: May I take this from you.
3
Transform at your heart
In your heart-centre imagine a brilliant jewel — your Bodhicitta. The dark smoke dissolves into this light.
4
Send out radiant light
As you exhale, send cool white light — your joy, peace, virtue, and merit — streaming to this person. Visualise them smiling, free, at ease.
5
Expand to all beings
Gradually widen the circle — to all with this same suffering, to all sentient beings in all realms.
⚙️ Seven-Point Mind Training

The Lojong (Mind Training) tradition was introduced to Tibet by Atiśa Dīpaṃkara (982–1054) and systematised into seven points by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje. These 59 slogans are the core technology for transforming the mind and cultivating Bodhicitta. Tap any slogan to reveal the commentary.

📜 Treasury of Teachings

Drawn from the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Lam Rim, Zen literature, and oral instructions. Filter by tradition.

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