Alternately Practice Sending and Taking


To understand what this next verse of the root text means, let's simply follow Sechibuwa's commentary. He suggests that we sit comfortably on a cushion and while clearly visualizing our mother, cultivate loving kindness and compassion for her.
It seems crucial, and profoundly beneficial, that he chooses to begin with our own mother. If we do not have a loving relationship with our own parents, something is going to be awry at the very core of our spiritual practice, creating disharmony throughout our lives. I say this not naively, but knowing that some parents abuse their children sexually, physically, and psychologically. Those of us with ill-feeling towards a mother or father may be tempted to say: "This is hard for me because I had a rotten childhood. I'll skip my parents and begin instead on firmer ground, with a close friend, or my wife or husband."

There is, of course, no law against this. But as long as our feelings remain unresolved towards our own parents, we lack a firm foundation for other relationships. Regardless of how our parents have treated us, it is crucial for a balanced and harmonious life that we come to terms with any resentment we feel, and so bring insight to bear on the relationship that loving kindness and compassion can arise from our heart. By beginning with our mother, we establish a root to let this compassion flow out to our father, to other relatives and friends, to people about whom we feel indifferent, and finally to our enemies.

Sechibuwa encourages us first to reflect that our mother has given us this precious, fully endowed human life, which means, in essence, that we have time for spiritual practice if we do no more than shift our priorities. Regardless of how she might have treated us afterwards, it is because she gave us birth that we have a wonderful potential for spiritual growth in this and future lives.

Think too, says Sechibuwa, that while our mother has cared for us so long in this and previous lifetimes, sometimes even sacrificing her life for her children, she has meanwhile suffered grief, anxiety, fear, and physical pain. Not only because of her children, but throughout the course of her life, she has experienced the suffering of mental afflictions, aging, sickness, and death. As we ponder this, a feeling of compassion for our mother arises without much effort. Compassion, in this case, is simply the wish, "May you be free of suffering."

Take the example of a mother who is a drunkard. We can reflect upon the unhappiness, the lack of satisfaction and meaning in life that gave rise to a habit of drinking and made her dependent on alcohol to get through each day. If a mother is an alcoholic, it naturally follows that sometimes she is not a very conscientious mother; and thirty or forty years later the child may still suffer resentment. But as we feel compassion for her, we can empathize with the sorrow and anxiety that gave rise to the affliction of alcohol dependency. And we can wish from our hearts, sincerely and without hypocrisy, "May you be free both from the dependency, and from the unsatisfied need that gave rise to it. May you be free of the suffering as well as its inner source."

Imagine now the suffering that your own mother experiences. For this potent practice to be done correctly, it must become a very personal meditation on your own mother. Bring to mind the suffering you have seen her experience, physical or mental, related to her internal condition or external circumstances. Go right to the source of the suffering, the basic mental afflictions themselves: attachment, hostility, ignorance. Imagine her own experience of the suffering, particularly if you have a mother who is handicapped by a problem such as drinking.

Practice "taking" this suffering. Imagine taking upon yourself your own mother's suffering together with its sources: all the mental distortions and the instincts for their arising. Imagine that you are peeling this off her, removing it from her continuum. As Sechibuwa says, "Slice it off with a knife." Imagine it as dense, black smoke; draw this black smoke from her and bring it into your heart. Visualize a blackness there in your own heart, like a black egg or sphere, symbolizing your own self-centeredness. Draw in the black smoke of suffering and its sources, and dissolve it into this blackness at your own heart. The point here is not to imagine yourself experiencing your mother's anger, pain, or confusion. Instead, imagine that the suffering comes directly into your heart, specifically to the self-centeredness in your heart, and totally annihilates it, leaving not a single trace.

As you draw in the black smoke, see your mother in your mind's eye arising from the suffering and the mental afflictions that are its source. For example, if she suffers from arthritis, imagine her looking at her hands and her joints, moving them freely and delighting in the experience of the full and proper use of her limbs, her back, her neck. Imagine her regaining vibrant health. If strife or anger plague her, imagine the anger quelled, the strife pacified. Imagine her serene, content, at peace with her surroundings. If she is anxious by nature, see her face becoming calm, relaxing as you draw out the black smoke of her worries.

In this way, imagine taking off layer after layer of internal and external unhappiness and misfortune, and dissolving them into your own heart. This is the practice of "taking" as applied to our mother, the first half of the practice for the cultivation of relative bodhicitta.

The second half of the practice is known as "sending" or "giving." Let the aspiration arise: "May I bring about all happiness for my own mother." Imagine that you are giving your body, your possessions, and all your virtue, without any sense of reservation, to your mother. Imagine sending this in the form of a white light that radiates from a precious jewel at your heart, a jewel from which all favorable circumstances for your mother come forth: food, clothing, dwelling, helpers, and spiritual guidance. Imagine her being endowed with everything she needs for the realization of full awakening.

Once again, let the full wealth of your imagination be brought to bear in this practice. Visualize this jewel fulfilling her wishes, so that she can put them aside. If we really long for something worldly, it may well enhance our spiritual practice to satisfy that mundane desire and thus dispense with it. Imagine her desires fulfilled so they no longer nag at her mind. Contented, she recognizes this as insufficient and longs for full awakening. Imagine her meeting with all favorable circumstances for her spiritual growth, the purification of her mind, and cultivation of wholesome qualities. If your mother is a Christian, imagine her meeting with a Christian mentor, her devotion deepening, and her life more and more emulating that of Jesus Christ. Imagine her receiving the fullest possible benefit from this spiritual path and following it more and more deeply. Imagine her attaining full awakening. Imagine the qualities that would arise; how her personality would be transformed. Imagine the loving kindness, the wisdom, the ability for serving others that would arise, and then, finally, imagine her attaining full awakening.

Gain some familiarity with both taking and sending in this practice. As you become familiar with them separately, practice them alternately, first taking and then sending. Let them enhance and enrich one another. At times go back and simply allow the affection for your mother to arise with a heartfelt concern for her well-being. Then once again, on the basis of loving kindness and compassion, practice taking and sending. Sechibuwa writes: "Truly long to be able to give her all happiness, even offering her your body, your own possessions, your own virtues."

Virtue in this context means the wholesome imprints on your mind stream. Keep in mind that this is the very source of your future happiness, what brings you success in mundane as well as in spiritual matters. Imagine offering this up to her as well. The point of the practice is to release the attachment we have to our own body, possessions, and virtues - not only to detach ourselves from them, but also to offer them sincerely for the service of others. So we start with our mother to experience the longing, "If I only could offer you my merit, my body, my possessions."

To some extent of course we can. If our mother is in need and we can in fact help her, then the meditation must manifest in external activity and not remain on the level of imagination. Let the compassion that arises be not simply an armchair compassion, such that we sit here and think these very nice thoughts and then treat her thoughtlessly or repeat old, unwholesome patterns. Rather, let the meditation while we are in solitude arise into our aspirations and, as in the previous meditation on ultimate bodhicitta, let it then be integrated in our actions following meditation so that we really develop the intention to serve our mother.

This practice of sending and sending with regard to our mother can constitute the first session of meditation. We might want to take a break before expanding this practice in a second session to focus on other people: our father, for example, or close friends. Then gradually move on to indifferent people and finally to those whom we really dislike.

In each case, it is very helpful to meditate first on the kindness of these other beings. Meditating on our friends' good qualities is an easy beginning. Then take one friend to mind and think of this person's misfortunes and the specific kinds of suffering to which he or she is subject. Place yourself in this person's shoes and imagine experiencing her anxieties. Then begin the practice of taking: take into your heart as a black smoke the mental and physical suffering of this person, as well as the mental distortions that give rise to such suffering.

Repeat this with one, two, ten, or twenty different people, from session to session, day to day, until the practice becomes very fluent. Gradually include people whom you regard with indifference. Here the practice becomes extremely potent. Focus again and again on such people, recognizing that just like us they wish to experience happiness and be free of suffering. This is the bottom line. Regardless of whatever kindness they may or may not have rendered to us in any observable way, we are kin. We belong to the same family of sentient beings.

The practice is the same in each case: taking suffering, taking the sources of suffering, then offering your body, your possessions, and your merits. just as you did with your mother, send them all causes and favorable circumstances for their spiritual growth, so that they can recognize the inner source of their discontent and not mistake it for some external situation. Send them the circumstances that will enable them to follow the path of their choice, purifying their minds of the sources of misery, confusion, and strife, and bringing them to joy that arises from the essential nature of the mind itself, rather than from some pleasant stimulus.

We are working up to the enemy. Don't postpone this facet of the practice, thinking you are not ready; it is worth entering soon. Plunge in and bring to mind a person you really cannot stand. Perhaps someone has treated you contemptuously, abused you, or taken something that you really cherished. For whatever reason, repugnance may arise toward a certain person. Perhaps they have really done nothing wrong at all, but something about their personality or behavior gives rise to abhorrence.

Because it is a mental distortion, hostility towards another person tends to be fundamentally stupid. As we look at a person with objectionable qualities, hatred invariably grasps onto that person as existing intrinsically. Because hatred itself derives from the ignorance of grasping onto such intrinsic existence, it naturally carries that same characteristic of ignorance with it. Hostility is stupid in the sense that it ignores the manifold causes and conditions that have given rise over years and years, lifetime after lifetime, to the present characteristics of the person in question.

To some extent we may be free of the qualities that we find so abhorrent in another person, especially if we have had the benefit of excellent teachers and a background in dharma. Has the other person been so fortunate? Has that person had close and meaningful contact with authentic spiritual guides who can show them the source of their suffering? Or have they been deprived of this precious guidance?

Anger tends to ignore a person's history, to reify him, and hold him intrinsically, autonomously responsible for every objectionable quality. Anger does something else: it hones in on small instances in which this person seemed especially obnoxious, narrow-minded, or superficial. On the basis of selected vignettes, perhaps even without direct contact, we build a caricature. In the mind of our own anger, we build a conceptual construct of a human being who has only negative qualities, a person with no Buddha nature. We look at this cartoon of our own creation that has no existence at all as a human being, because no human being can exist totally saturated to the core with repugnant qualities, and we feel, "How disgusting you are! " Of course what appears in our mind's eye is disgusting and repulsive; it is also a fabrication of our own distorted mind.

Let's come back to the real person. I am not suggesting that every disagreeable quality we perceive in others is a fallacy and that everyone, with the exception of ourselves, is pristine pure. People are three-dimensional. Every single person is endowed with Buddha nature, and every single person has a history. As we seek to cultivate loving kindness and compassion for people we dislike, and on that basis to practice sending and taking, it is invaluable to keep their personal histories in mind. Even if we know nothing about them, we can infer that there have been causes and conditions that gave rise to the behavior we perceive. When our minds are settling in meditation, with hopefully greater clarity than normal, we can seek out in the mind's eye occasions when these people did not display repugnant qualities. Anger does not care about those times at all; it wants to sift them out and completely forget about them. Balance anger's view with the dharma view, based on intelligent faith, that each of us - enemy, friend, indifferent person, or self - is endowed with Buddha nature. Each of us at our core is utterly pristine and untainted by mental distortions.

Now integrate the with the practice of taking and sending. In the first act of taking, identify the specific disagreeable behavior or personality traits that you find repugnant in this person. More than likely they are mental distortions or direct expressions of them. Here the term "mental afflictions" is very helpful. Anger, attachment, and ignorance are not bad simply because they produce bad results on some future occasion. Even as they arise they hurt, causing some degree of subtle or gross suffering.

Bring these afflictions to mind, and feel compassion for this person who suffers their disease, recognizing that we ourselves are not immune, although the afflictions may be temporarily attenuated. We are not yet free, and we can imagine future circumstances that might prompt similar behavior from ourselves. This is a brother, a sister, we are dealing with. To be subject to such afflictions, and the actions that derive from them, is indeed to suffer as a victim.

Imagine, in empathy and kinship, taking the black smoke into the blackness of self-centeredness at your own heart. Peel the suffering and its source off that person. As you do so, hold the person as clearly as possible in your mind's eye, and imagine him or her free of repugnant qualities and behavior.

Then, in the practice of sending offer your body, possessions, and merit, so that this person's mind may become clearer and his heart warmer and more open, so that he or she might recognize wholesome behavior and delight in cultivating it. Imagine this person becoming a Bodhisattva and gaining deeper and deeper insight. Imagine your body as a jewel sending out all favorable circumstances for his or her spiritual maturation. Finally, imagine this person becoming a fully awakened being.

Once we have practiced taking and sending in this manner with regards to mother, father, friends, indifferent people, and finally our enemies, we can take a 360-degree approach, and reach out to every sentient being. Saying "every sentient being" avoids the blurry vastness of "all sentient beings," which can become an impersonal "to whom it may concern." Recognize that this includes the animals, human beings of all races, all worlds, and all other types of sentient beings. As before, practice taking and sending on the basis of loving kindness and compassion for each and every sentient being.

Sechibuwa encourages us to practice this not only in purely mental meditation, but also to recite verses verbally to this effect. For example, express in words the aspiration, "May I become a cause of all worldly and transcendent joy for every sentient being. May I become a cause for dispelling the suffering of every sentient being." There are some very beautiful lines to this effect in the third chapter of Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. The idea is to saturate our mind, our voice, and our physical activities in the practice of taking and sending.

APPLY THOSE TWO TO THE BREATH.

The next verse of the root text offers a wonderful extension to the practice of taking and sending. It also adds a new dimension to the practice of breath awareness, though it should not replace straight breath awareness as a substitute. This rich but very simple practice has its own fruits.

As you inhale while focusing on your mother or another person, take in the suffering in the form of black smoke. Then, as you exhale, send out white light offering all you have for that person's well-being. With each in-breath, take in and with each out-breath, send out; taking and sending again and again. You can do this in the solitude of meditation, but also very effectively when the suffering of others confronts you directly. When you see someone who is angry or in pain, when you visit someone in the hospital, or watch the news of some calamity, practice right there on the spot. Since you are already breathing, you might as well make it more meaningful.



Excerpted from: The Seven-Point Mind Training(first published as A Passage from Solitude : Training the Mind in a Life Embracing the World), by B. Alan Wallace. Copyright 1992 by Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York 14851.