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Tonglen meditation in prison
Evan R.
On page 106 of The Book of Visions (Institute for Social Inventions, 1992), the Prison Ashram Project, started by Bo Lozoff and colleagues, is described. This aims to help prisoners who want to use their time in prison as an opportunity for spiritual practice and reflection. Here Evan R., himself a serious practitioner of Buddhism in jail, explains how he adapted one such form of meditation, 'Tonglen', to the penal environment. This is summarised from an article in the excellent Human Kindness Foundation newsletter (Spring 1995; available for a donation from The Human Kindness Foundation, Route 1, Box 201-n, Durham NC27705, USA, web: http://www.humankindness.org/).
Literally, 'Tonglen' means 'giving and receiving' in Tibetan. 'Tong' means to give; 'Len' means to receive. Although I have read many instructions for doing this form of meditation practice, as an incarcerated practitioner I have developed my own method that works very well for me.
It is important to have a clear state of mind before starting Tonglen, and ending the practice with the same clarity of mind. When practising for thirty minutes, I like just to sit for ten minutes, do ten minutes of Tonglen, and bring the mind back home for ten minutes. I also break the Tonglen practice into four separate parts as follows:
(1) Before you can benefit others, you must first have your own peace of mind. I start out by inhaling all of my own pain and confusion, filtering this 'muddy' energy with love and compassion, and exhaling the pure white energy that is inherently stashed away deep in our hearts.
(2) As we all know, there is an enormous amount of suffering in prison. I like to focus on one noisy voice in the hallway or on the tier that is obviously driven by ego-ridden pain and confusion (I've yet to have trouble picking out such a voice). I'll also sometimes think of some trivial altercation that recently occurred in the chow line, the TV room, etc. As I inhale, I concentrate on taking in all of the pain and confusion that feeds such altercations and noisy folks, and replace that pain on the exhale with warmth and compassion. With each new breath, I move my concentration throughout the prison, even sharing some of this warmth with the hacks, who sometimes appear to be the most confused of all.
(3) I then move my focus beyond the prison walls to my family and friends, and to others that I may have hurt along the way. I usually end up thinking about my young son, laying in his bed at night, wondering when I'm coming home. Once again, on the inhale, I focus my attention on the muddy, smoky suffering, and I try to exhale pure white light bliss energy.
(4) Finally, it's time to shoot the moon. I give a moment's thought to all of the confusion and pain in the world - from the guy in the next cell to the starving children of Rwanda, and everything in between. Once I have a clear picture of this darkness, I again inhale the pain and confusion, filter it with pure unconditional love, and exhale compassion and warmth.
As stated earlier, I spend the last few minutes of my meditation practice just focusing on my breath, and bringing a sense of clarity back home.
The really neat thing about this practice is that it's a complete tear-down of the ego. Rather than 'looking out for number one', we are looking our for everyone else, using our heart as a filter.
The one warning I would give with the practice is not to get caught up in feeding the ego. It would be easy to give yourself praise for taking on such a practice at your own 'expense'. I think it's important not to conceptualise the possibility of any merit gained, but to just treat it for what it is: a practice of compassion - in the truest sense of the word, a practice.
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