Ep 38: Dr. Erika Rosenberg: Buddhist ‘Tonglen’ meditation—compassion in action

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Welcome to Swishing Mindsets. This is Anaradha and today
I'm speaking to doctor Erica Rosenberg, a psychological scientist who
integrates traditional Buddhist practices with key concepts and techniques from
Western psychology. She's the founding faculty at the Compassion Institute,
a nonprofit devoted to promoting compassion education worldwide. She co

(00:22):
authored the Compassion Cultivation Training Program with Houpten Jinpa and
others in two thousand and nine at Stanford University. Doctor
Rosenberg is also the faculty at the Ningma Institute in Berkeley.
She's also a world renowned expert and facial expression who
trains and consults on facial measurement using the Facial Action
Coding System FACS. But today we'll be speaking to her

(00:45):
about the practice of tong Len, a profound meditation practice
that seeks to cultivate compassion. So, Hi, Erica, it's wonderful here.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thank you for having me. I'm really really happy to
be with you this week, morning, this morning here.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
It's yeah, morning, day, evening here, late almost late night here,
but it's wonderful months. Yeah, So I'm very excited to
speak to you, and you have such a wonderful long profile,
and I couldn't do justice. So why don't you tell
us a little about your journey into this.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
My journey into Yeah, so focusing on the meditation and
compassion and in particular since you did mention the variety
of things that I do, including the work on facial expression.
But I started. I actually got my first brush with
meditation when I was a teenager and read Saddhartha for

(01:43):
the first time. But that was my first you know,
that was by reading a book, and that's not it
was really instruction. I tried it once or twice, but
it wasn't until I was actually a graduate student at
the University of California, San Francisco, studying psychology and facial
expression with Paul Ekman at the time that I was

(02:05):
not related to him, actually, but in my own personal
life seeking tools for stress reduction, you know, starting to
deal with the burden of a heavy workload and being
a grad student, which at the time seemed very stressful.
Of course, retrospectively, I had it easy then, right, but
you know, at the time, it seemed like a lot.
And it was recommended to me at the time actually

(02:26):
by a therapist I was seeing that I might want
to try meditation for stress reduction. So I was looking
at this very practical level, you know, like maybe this
will help me. And at the time a good friend
of mine told me about Nina Institute in Berkeley, where
I'm now faculty, was offering, you know, had great meditation programs,

(02:49):
and she had gone there, and I tried that out.
I also at the same time read sulkial Rimpichets, the
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which was made accessible,
you know to especially Western audiences and people around the world,
some of the deep teachings in Tibetan Buddhism, and it
was sort of a retelling of the Tibetan Book of

(03:10):
the Dead on some level, plus a basic manual. So
I learned how to meditate, you know, way back then.
This is you know, I was in my early twenties.
I was just you know, trying it out, and I
was so really blown away, you know, by how well
it worked, how much it helped me for just reducing stress.

(03:31):
And this was just basic, simple like shamata breath meditation,
stabilizing mind that I got curiouser and curiouser about the
system of thought behind it. You know, I sort of
like I wanted to learn more, especially as someone who
was studying psychology. The more I learned about Buddhism, the
more I learned about how it really was about the mind.

(03:53):
It was so psychological about how to work in the
mind and be in the mind, you know, with the
meditation techniques offered tools for navigating mental life, and so
I kind of dove in, you know, And for many
years meditation practice was and all my work with Buddhism
was very much in parallel with my professional development. I

(04:13):
was an academic. I was doing my research on facial expression,
and I was, you know, a young professor, first at
the University of Delaware and then at the College of
William and Mary in Virginia. And at the time, and
this was in the early to mid nineties, the mid nineties,
mid to late nineties, because I got my PhD in
ninety four, meditation was still kind of taboo in academic psychology.

(04:39):
Mindfulness was starting to get you know, we take for
granted now that everybody uses the word mindfulness. It's in
daily life. It's now actually even like a little me
on TikTok I, you know, mindful, mindful, you know, it's
it's become so much a part of our culture. But
back then, you know, I remember having while I was
doing my facial Russian research in the laboratory, I had

(05:02):
one Honors student who was studying mindfulness, and I felt
like we had to do it in the closet. We
had to hide that work. I was doing so for
many years. It was a parallel trajectory for me, and
with my academic work. They did come together around the
turn of the century. But just to make another point,
because I was being schooled in Tibetan Buddhism, and especially

(05:24):
the Ning Millenniage, which is one of the oldest, is
the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Lojong teachings, the
teachings for cultivating compassion are right in the middle of it.
They're very central to practice, and I learned those very early.
You know, It's not something that I came to later.

(05:44):
So in fact, I learned a tonglin, which is the
topic of our conversation today, probably before I was ready to,
you know, I mean, because I think it takes some
preparation to learn that practice, and so I sort of
dove into that. And I've been practicing it then for
over thirty five years and or thirty five years, because

(06:04):
nineteen eighty nine, Yeah, thirty five years. But I'll tell you, no,
is that forty five years? Well? No, no, no, thirty
five I was like, no, I wasn't. I wasn't a teenager.
I was an adult. But I've learned so much about it,
and over the years of practicing it and then ultimately

(06:26):
teaching it, I've one of the things I've learned is,
I mean, I always liked the practice. It's a very
energetic practice. I always felt kind of glowing and good
after doing it. It has a nice place in life
on when to do it, and we can talk about that.
But as I developed and as I got older my

(06:47):
both my training in psychology and my teaching of meditation,
one of the things that I've really enjoyed doing so
much and helping people with is demystifying the practice and
making it access because there's certain aspects of it, especially
as it's traditionally taught, that can be imposing for people,

(07:09):
and because it's it's a practice that very much and
puts you in contact with suffering, which all compassion practice does.
But also willing to help somebody you know, and help
relieve their burden. And so being ready for that requires
some preparation. And as I said, some of the traditional

(07:30):
language and imagery that's offered in this practice can intimidate people,
and I like to make it accessible because it's very,
very practical. So I kind of jumped from my development
to that practice itself. But just to say, compassion cultivation
first via tonglan and other practices that work with compassion
has been part of my practice for years. And in

(07:51):
the early two thousands I was invited in because of
some of my research and in emotion and my practicing
of Buddhist Tibetan Buddhist meditation. I was invited to be
part of the Mind and Life Institute, which is the
organization that supports the meetings with His Holiness to Dalai Lama,

(08:14):
you know. Every They started in the nineties and so
I got involved with them. So these two branches of
my life came together, which was incredibly satisfying. There's nothing
that feels better than integration, right, you know. And then
in two thousand and eight I was invited by Teb
Tim Jimpe to be a part of a small group

(08:35):
of people working with him to develop this new compassion
training program that he was starting to develop when he
was a visiting professor at Stanford University. And you know,
this was partly in response to a suggestion by his Holiness.

(08:56):
You know, Jimpa is a primary Western translator for his
Holiness to Dalai Lama and to scholar and former monk.
But at the time his Holiness the Dalai Lama was
very interested in making you know, helping people become more compassionate.
Can we create some kind of program that is similar
to some of these mindfulness programs that are out there

(09:18):
that take it out of you don't have to be
a Buddhist, right, There's something here that we can learn.
And yes, we all have some compassionate nature in it
in us, you know, and in fact we kind of
build on that notion that we all have some we
take for faith and and and there's evidence that we
all have compassion. So we all have compassion in us.

(09:40):
But conditioning, life, culture, all these factors, can you know,
our experiences, especially adverse ones can learn we can we
can bury it, or we can make it less accessible,
or we can build a shell around it. And so
the training that we developed, which is called the Compassion
Culturevation Training Program or CCT for short, was designed to

(10:06):
help people uncover their natural capacity to care and growing,
you know, using tools meditation tools, a lot of which
are taken from Tibetan Buddhism, plus some tools from Western wisdom,
Western psychology, and also techniques like though I'm not sure
sure if you're familiar with the work on nonviolent communication

(10:27):
that Marshall Rosenberg has done, this is really designed for
interaction and language, to make conversation, and to cultivate reflective
and compassionate listing, listening, and to help people learn how
to speak in ways that are kind even when dealing
with conflict. So some of those tools are in there

(10:49):
as well. So this and the culminating practice of the
eight week program that we created is tongulin. You know,
it's what takes you from being in your head and
maybe heart hopefully your heart too about compassion, to being
on the brink of action. And so that's a little background.

(11:10):
And so I've been working in and I also teach
classes in tongland and other things. But it's an amazing
practice that has sustained me and been present through my
whole life. You know, at least since young adulthood. And
uh yeah, so I mean, I'm happy to talk to
I could just go on. I could spend an hour

(11:31):
just answering that one question. But that question was about me,
So maybe if you want to ask something more pointed
about any of the you know, I just offered you
a lot.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
So no, of course I'd love to hear because you
said that it was transformational for you, So maybe we
can start with that if you're comfortable talking about that,
Like how how what did you mean when you say
that you know it's a transformationer.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well, first of all, tongland is a practice of transformation.
So what you do in this practice and this is
good as good as any time to define it because
I've been using the phrase, and you've been using the phrase.
But in case any of your listeners don't know that
the word tonguelin and you know you'll have it in
the title so to be spelled out, is actually a
Tibetan word that has two parts to it. It means

(12:19):
sending and receiving or giving and taking. There's several ways.
You know, on some level personally it's a letting go too,
but it is a transformation it's a transactional practice in
that what you are doing is you're working. You know,
you're coming into contact with suffering in yourself or others

(12:42):
or all beings or situation. Even right there's suffering in
the world. We usually work in this practice with a
particular target. So that target would be an individual you know,
maybe that you know who's suffering. It can be yourself,
it could be a loved one, It could be people
who you know just went through a difficult you know,

(13:02):
natural disaster, war, whatever, you know, those are the big targets,
you know. But you pick some kind of target and
you feel, you notice, you know there's suffering you and
you are motive, you know, compassion brings you to want
to help relieve that suffering. And this is why I
say it's useful to have some preparation before you dive

(13:22):
into that practice, because the idea of wanting to relieve
suffering in others, you know, makes sense on a value idea.
But some people like, wait, I have enough of my own,
How can I I can't deal with my own. I'm
not ready to take on anybody else's. So the preparation's important.
So we will get to that. But you notice the
suffering in another, and you're bringing to that situation. You're

(13:47):
super wonderfully compassionate heart. And even if you have, even
if you have problems like we all do, or ways
in which it's covered up and conditioning has made that
less accessible to you or obstacles, you have this good.
You know, the fact that you're even trying to embark
on this is a sign of your compassionate heart. And

(14:08):
so we spend some time kind of feeling the warmth
of that, you know, the glow of that, the brilliance
of that. And as you know, in Buddhists, in philosophy, psychology,
however you want to put it, compassion is one of
those qualities that's considered boundless. Is one of the Brahma
of a hoahs, which these are qualities of mind and

(14:31):
heart that are limitless. And so just to go through
those four Brahma of the horrors in case anybody or
four boundless qualities or immeasurable qualities. There's different names for these.
There's loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, and empathetic joy. So all
of those are the brahma AHAs, and compassion is one

(14:52):
of them. So we you know, so we have this compassion,
we have a compassion of heart. We see, we see something,
so we want to use some of our compassion and kindness.
And that's where the loving kindness comes in because tongle
in works with both compassion, meditation and loving kindness, you know,
to help alleviate suffering in another, yourself, in the world.

(15:17):
So then are four stages, right, So let me break
down on the process.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
How many ages there are just sort of depends on
how you break it down. But the way I like
to talk about it simply is, you know, first, I
like to this is not necessarily traditional, but just to
encourage people to feel their own warmth and their you know,
tune in with their natural capacity to care and their
willingness and their wish that this person, this target be

(15:47):
free from suffering. And when you're doing this practice, it's
really important to I use the word t trait who
you choose as a target, like you be careful, like
don't put in the most difficult nemesis in your life. Life. First,
you know, start with someone who you know you really
care about, and those feelings are easy. You know that

(16:07):
you love them and you care about them and their
suffering and feel how it feels to notice that they're suffering.
Let that hit you a little bit, that wish that
they be free of it, right, and that you're going
to want to do something about it. Because Tonglan and
this is related to this transformation part Tonland's very active
because what you're doing is you're visualizing the suffering, imagining
the suffering in the other and you are using your

(16:30):
compassionate courage really to say, let me help alleviate your burden,
you know, so that that you're imagining that you can
scoop off a little of their suffering and use the brilliant,
compassionate energy of your heart to transform it, to eradicate it.
Because on a simple level, you're taking in their suffering
and eradicating it and sending out ease, light, whatever will

(16:53):
help them. So that's the compassion is the taking on,
the loving kindness is what you send out. But what's
important is to remember that you are transforming the suffering,
You're not taking it and making it yours. That's where
people hit. That's an obstacle that a lot of people
hit with this practice is they think that I got
enough suffering in my life. I'm not going to open

(17:14):
myself up, like put some of their suffering.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Here on me.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
No, your heart is like this, There is a little
bit you have to check your rational mind at the door.
I think with with Tonguelan, you're using imagery and breath
to kind of imagine the scenario where you have this
brilliant energy in here that when you take out take
a little bit of their suffering, it just dissolves when
it comes into contact with the energy of your heart.

(17:41):
That the huge compassionate act that you just engaged in
by offering to help them. And then you breathe out
on the outbreath you send them healing light whatever might
be a benefit to them. Usually it's some glistening healing
light and the traditional imagery, but I really invite my
students to use their imaginations about what they send out.

(18:01):
And then in the next in breath you scoop off
a little bit more of their suffering, you know, and
and it comes into content, gets eradicated, send out lights.
So what happened. So what happens is eventually you're gradually
you're gradually removing all of their suffering and giving them
whatever they need. And sure this is happening in your

(18:23):
mind and it's imagination.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
And but what you're doing I really like this phrase
that tup Tim Jimpuk offers in his book Fearless Heart,
about what you're actually engaging in when you're practicing Tonklin.
He said, you're reinforcing altruistic resolve. So that's a lot

(18:51):
of syllables. But another way of thinking of that is
that you're practicing helping. And this is where I want
to put my scientist on for a minute. Think about
what we know from neuroscience is that when people practice
in their mind certain actions, they actually like you're a dancer,

(19:13):
Let's say you're dancing, you're learning a dance routine, and
you go through the moves in your mind mentally preparing that.
We know that that mental rehearsal of movements actually reinforces
the neural connections that support those actual movements, so that
when you rehearse things, and even when you like repeat
numbers in your head to try to memorize them, or

(19:34):
any kind of rehearsal does work with you know, the
synapses in your brain. And so you can think about
something like tongulin when you are actually engaging with imagery
and breath and intention to practice helping someone out. I
am practicing lightning your load. I am taking you in
my mind and seeing how I can help, and so

(19:58):
it reinforces.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
In you there muscles. Compassion is a muscle that you're
working on.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Right, right, right, right, I mean muscle metaphorically, yeah, and
of course neural connections. Yeah, but I think it's important
to you know, I actually, you know, can't say that
there's been research on tonglin and the synapses, but because
it's a rehearsal of an action, there's it makes a
lot of sense. And there is evidence that when people

(20:27):
engage in compassion practices, they're more likely to help. So
it's it's consistent with that, right. And you know you
asked me why it was transformative, Well because it It
has helped me fundamentally, as has a lot of compassion practice,
but this one in particular with dealing with very difficult
situations in which in the moment I can't do anything,

(20:50):
So what can I do? I can practice for it,
and that's totally shifted how I engage with that situation.
Because and I can give you several examples of that.
I'd like to pause in case you have any other questions. Yeah,
I just want to I'm just curious another power.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, no, no, no, please ramble because you have a
lot to say and we have a lot to learn.
But I'm just curious to know. You know, this is
when you don't get visualizing the other person suffering and
you know, trying to ease it. So is this all
about developing my you know, for lack of a better word,
compassion or kindness muscle. Is it about reaching out to
them as well?

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Does it help well that well, that's what I mean, helping,
helping is them, But it's just imagine. So that's a
out right right. So here's the question that a lot
of people ask. Doesn't really make a difference to that
persons exactly and that I don't know, But here's the
here's here's my answer. Here's my answer to it. I

(21:47):
don't know. And yes, So here's the here's the yes.
You don't have to buy. I'm not going to speak
at the metaphysical level. I'm not going to say whether
my intention is magically transferred benefits to them. However, any situation,
like like a commonplace where people are encouraged, like you,

(22:07):
when you work with a target who is known as
I'll put in quotes difficult person. That's a standard target
with these various practices. You know, we start with a
loved one, and then we kind of move out someone
we don't know, and then someone who's challenging for us, right,
And I don't like to call someone difficult because that
sort of like puts them in a category that's hard
to break, but rather a person with whom we've had difficulty.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
So let's say there's you know, I encourage people to
work with someone like, let's say there's like, don't pick
someone horrible right off, you know this note who's abusive
to you, or someone where there's been trauma. But maybe
there's a colleague where you just don't see head to
head or someone you just butt heads with. Maybe there's
a family member like that you know, or a former
intimate partner or something where it's like this, right, and

(22:55):
then you start doing this practice for them. And what
that does is, first of all, a fundamental changes your
orientation to that person. There is no way you can
sustain a closed angry stance only if you've opened your heart,
felt concerned for their suffering, and worked with in your
mind and body alleviating their pain. Right, that starts dissolving

(23:20):
the wall that you've built. Here. Now, any interaction, and
I'm going to go more to social psychology than religion here,
any interaction is a dynamic between two people. And if
you're in conflict with somebody, it's alf like your butting
heads a lot, Right, It's like this, if you've been
on your cushion practicing for them, you are not that tight,
little bald up fist anymore. They might see you again

(23:43):
and come like this, but you're like this now. So
I say, it kind of moves into an ikido situation
and eventually they are Are you going to fundamentally change them?
Who knows? Probably not, But you're bringing something different to
that interaction that they're going to have to respond to
what the different you is and they might just give up,

(24:05):
or they might at least you might be able to talk,
you know. And so in my this is where I
want to give you some kind of real practical advice
about when this is a great practice to do, because
you know it will build your compassion, will make you kinder,
it'll change how you relate to difficult situations, et cetera,

(24:26):
and it should make you more willing to help even
when there's difficulty. The other thing that it does is
it really is one of those practices that I like
to talk of as warrior training, because like a lot
of compassion work, you are becoming you're seeing suffering, seeing

(24:46):
pain and staying not flee you know, So it really
builds courage. And then not only that, you're opening up
and saying, let me be of service here. That's why
you have to be prepared and you have to be careful,
but if you're ready, it just has this. Not only
does it make you kinder and more, compassion also makes

(25:09):
you strong. And Roschie Joan Halifax, who runs your hia
Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who I hold
among my teachers, she talks of compassion in general as
creating strong back, soft front And I love that metaphor

(25:29):
because the soft fronts means you're open, you will feel
you're touched, but strong back you're not. You're not you're
not fleeing. Might you get afraid, yeah, you know, but
you're staying anyway, and so I want to give so
so tonklin is a great practice to do when there's

(25:50):
nothing else that you can do.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
About a situation that's wonderful. Yeah, when you're feeling helpless, almost.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Helpless, and it could be some disaster on the other
side of the planet, it could be a loved one
who is dying of a terminal illness, or it could
be a really difficult, more mundane professional situation. And many
of my students have heard these stories before, but I
will I will share with you two stories from real
life where I've brought tonglin in on the spot so

(26:23):
we can do it on the cushion, right, And and
we do it on the cushion, And you might work
with someone who's difficult in your life, and that is
going to change how you engage with them as a
lot of compassion and loving kindness practices. Will was not
the only one, but in particular brought this like on
the spot into two lived situations. One was very more

(26:45):
was more mundane, and it was it was a professional situation.
I was a young professor. I was an added academic
conference and there was a panel up there and I
was in the audience with some other of my young
professors and we're all trying to be hot shots and stuff,
and there was a gentleman up front giving a presentation

(27:08):
where he was basically attacking and taking down the work
of my mentor. He knew I was there, and by association,
everything that I stood for academically was being brutal, really
really ruthlessly attacked. And I was sitting in the audience seething,
you know, like I just you know, and I kept
wanting to say something, but it was inappropriate for me

(27:29):
to interrupt his talk, so I had to kind of
sit on it for forty five minutes until it was
discussion time, and I was uncomfortable. And then I could
hear in my head one of my teachers from Ningma Institute,
Sylvia Gretchen, who has been a teacher of mine for years,
and she said, do tungling, you know, because just just
do tungbling, because because it's encouraged to just do it

(27:50):
for someone who's difficult for you. Right. So I sat
there and I could still listen to the talk because
I was just kind of engaging in breathing in the suffering,
breathing out relief, you know, for him, for this person
who was clearly an adversary in terms intellectually. And one
of the reasons I did it is because I knew
it would make me feel better, and that's okay. Just

(28:12):
having that person it would be better, right, And so
I did that for like forty five minute and then
it was finally discussion time, and I felt so much better.
I wasn't defensive. And then and here's the strong backsoft front.
And then I spoke, and I spoke my mind. But
instead of being defensive and using ill chosen words, I

(28:35):
was clear. I was kind even though I was critiquing.
And we had a and he then wasn't dealing with
this little defensive young professor type, you know, because he
was older than me, you know, and he was and
we had a conversation. You know. Did we become best friends. No,
but it was so much more productive and definitely for

(28:56):
me early in my career not to get all defensive
and avoid you know. So that was one and it
was great. I'm so glad I did it, you know.
And so that and and that was one context. On
the other end of the spectrum, it helped me when
my father was dying, and again this was a very

(29:16):
difficult situation where there was really nothing I could do
to fix it. I couldn't cure his cancer. He was
in his final weeks at home, and he was lucky
to be dying at home in this country. That's a
lucky thing. And we had we were all there with
him a lot of the time. And I was fortunate

(29:37):
enough to be on maternity leave so I wasn't working
and I could spend a lot of time at his
bedside and I with my baby, who was six months old,
you know. So I was with him a lot. And
I remember talking to my teacher and asking her for
advice on what to do, you know, my dad's dying soon.

(29:59):
And I thought maybe she would give some advice on
some Tibetan death meditations or rituals, you know, or something
to do. And she said, do tongulin. Just do tongulin,
you know, And so I did, and I was sitting
at her my I mean, I spent hours, like at
least hours a day sitting at his bedside and he
was in and out of consciousness, just being with him,

(30:21):
kind of silently doing this. And it was one of
the most profound experiences of my life. And it from
in terms of the effects for me, it was transformative.
It took me from this you know, sad, fearful place

(30:42):
to still you know he was dying, and that's that
is always a huge you know, a parent with whom
I was closed. The loss is immeasurable, right, but more expansive.
My heart felt enormous, like and when your heart feels enormous,
there's room in it for the pain and the love

(31:05):
and all of it. And it became this. I really
felt like the room was breathing us, you know, after
a while that I was that it was so expansive.
And I'm sure I think about how it might have
benefited my baby, you know, who's now twenty three years old.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
And and.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Did my dad feel it, I don't know, But what
he did feel was me staying put with an open
heart for days with him, long periods of this practice.
And when he died about a week later, we were

(31:46):
all at his bedside. You know, it was a blessing
to be there for his final breath. And I just
felt it was like, it's surreal, you know, as you
know if anybody who's gone through this, But it was surreal,
but it was also it was right, and it it
and it didn't feel agonizing, you know, And and and

(32:07):
it helped me be there with my mom and my
aunt and my sister. You know, it just helped with
all of that and so and it strengthened me moving
through those days. And I think I was able to
be helpful to the family and and and so it's
sort of like those are two extremes of how it
can be of such benefit. You know, when there's nothing

(32:31):
that you think that you can do about a situation, you.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
Can do that. Yeah. And I think it's beautiful the
way you put it, because it's you were fully present
with your father when he was there.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, right present in a way that you're not like
instead of saying do you do you want a sip
of water? Or can I get you another blanket? Because
you want you want to do something right, So there's
that you want to help, you know, with with with
someone like him, it's benefit. It's easy because I go
in with the desire to be of help. You know,
with others you might be trying to build a desire

(33:04):
to help. This is something you can do. Let's say
there's an important cause that you want to volunteer for
or you think it'd be good, but you're like, you know,
do this practice around it, or a difficult situation in
your life that you wish could find some resolution. You
can just imagine it, you know, And typically we think

(33:29):
of this more abstractly, but I think there's a lot
of practical application for this kind of practice. And you
know Pama you mentioned Pama Children. She is one of
the most I've only done one retreat with her in
my life. Years ago. I did a weekend retreat with
her called Learning to Stay. Her titles are always great, right,

(33:49):
all her books, you know, when things Fall Apart, Wisdom
of No Escape, the places that she's a genius of
being present with difficulty and how to move through it.
But you know, she talks a lot about tongueluin on
the spot or tonguelund as you go in the world,
and that you you can just be in the world

(34:11):
and breathe in suffering and you know, because it's out there,
and breathe out kindness.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, I was reading something she know that it's infinite,
it can just carry on, just.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
Carry you on, and it's it's a really good practice
for for on the go. She has a great little
essay that you could find online called Transforming the Heart
of Suffering. I give to my students. It's like two
pages that essentializes this and and you know, it's important
to make it accessible. It's important to demystify it. The

(34:43):
traditional imagery, which I did not really mention, can be
imposing and put people off, because the traditional imagery is
when you conjure up, you know, you bring, you do
bring to mind. And whether traditionally or you know, the
more modern way or layway that I teach it, you
can bring someone to mind in your your in your mind,

(35:04):
you bring them to mind. You try to make them real,
but then you imagine, you know, they have suffering or
you imagine. You give it some form, and you know,
you give it either a visual image or a texture.
And and in the traditional low junk teachings that they'll
talk about it like a black cloud of smoke, you know,
and then you kind of breathe that in and then

(35:26):
you send out from your you know, and it dissolved.
You know, when it comes into this brilliant manifestation of
compassion in your heart, there's an explosion of energy. You know.
This is more of the traditional thing. And there's great
teaching somewhere about. There's like a whole bunch of infinite
number of avolokita varas. The bodhisoft of compassion that come
from each droplet. I mean, it's it's really beautiful if

(35:47):
you read some of the original texts. But the idea is,
then you breathe out this golden white light, you know
light or white light, and the next in breath you
take in a little more of that dark black smoke.
So you're you're kind of clearing up the air for
them and sending them healing. Some people find the idea
of breathing in the smoke adverse. And then there's even

(36:11):
like when so then I kind of make it like
a rain cloud. I like to make it like a
rain cloud. But even this in black and white thing
can be you know, divisive and has racial connotations. It
has all you know, black bad, white good. It's it
doesn't need to be that. What I like to encourage
people to do is find some imagery that represents that

(36:32):
they are burdened. So sometimes I use the image of
they're carrying a lot of weight, like they have a
lot of bags in their hand, and when you when
you go in there to help with the in breadth,
there's a gesture of may I help, May I take
a bag for you? You know, may I help lighten
your load. And that's and and that sort of on

(36:53):
the inbreath you're saying, may you be free of suffering,
so you're kind of bringing that in. I'm helping you out.
That compassion act just builds the strength here and that
weight or that suffering is eliminated. And then you breathe out.
You can breathe out light. You can make that gift
magic healing energy. It can be golden light, it can
be a rainbow light. I had one student make it glitter,

(37:15):
you know, or you can have it be whatever you
think might help them, like, may this be the magical
thing that they need to be better? You know, because
there is you know, you work with imagery, you work
with breath, you work with intention, and there's a little
bit of play, magical play to the practice.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
I think.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
So then you're eventually just eliminating more and more of
that weight and giving them more and more of what
they need. So I think you don't want to get
held up with that traditional imagery. There are people who've
especially in this country in the United States, you know,
when a lot of Buddhist practices started becoming more popular,
people go to like these weekend things, this and that,

(37:54):
and they'd learn this and they you know, it's too much.
It's too much, you know, So we first have to
establish help you get comfortable with your insides, help you.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
That makes sense because even for me, I find it difficult,
you know, when it comes to imagery.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
So why and some people don't work well with visual imagery, right,
And so even in a basic even in some of
the most basic compassion and loving kindness practices, you're asked
to visualize a person in your mind. And you know,
and so I always try to accommodate. Well, what if
it's not easy to visualize them, Well, then can you

(38:31):
can you kind of conjure up a feeling of what
it's like to be near them, you know, maybe there's
a feeling in your body, maybe there's a have a smell,
or maybe there's some other sense. The idea is to
it's useful to engage the senses, but we do not
have to rely on vision or imagery visual imagery. There
can be other ways that we can act. The reason

(38:52):
it's nice to activate the senses is because the senses
connect to the body. And a lot of these older
practices and this is one thing I like about the
you know, coming from a tradition of Buddhism that is
very embodied. You know that we work with emotion and energy.
It's not just cerebral that when you engage with the body,

(39:14):
it has a profound it's another way of learning. You know,
there's ideas and there's feeling and we know and now
I'll go back to science. You know, we know from
decades of research and cognitive and learning psychology that the
more different ways we work with information, the better we
learn it. You know. So like if you're trying to

(39:35):
remember something, you can, you can read it, you can
say it, you can write with it, you can you know,
the more different ways, so if you can engage the body,
it becomes part of you, the body memory in a
different way than just the idea.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, that's true, Erica. Another thing for people who may
be listening to this, can one just try it out?
You know what you're talking about, Tongland meditation.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
And try it. And and what I like to give
and you asked me ahead of time, and maybe this
is a good time for it is a little take
home preliminary kind of practice you can do. And there
I mean, one thing I like to do is just
engage on how you can be present with a situation

(40:19):
and bring something good to it. You know, you can
offer a little minor transformation. And so what I'm going
to do is, if that makes sense to you, is
just guide a very brief of course. Yeah yeah, And
this isn't so much formally tonguelin, but it's a preliminary
and then after I do it, I can talk about
how you can expand on it. Yes, that makes it wonderful,

(40:41):
something that anybody can do without a little without a
lot of preparation. And that's I didn't, you know, invite
you to sit always a little calmly. You know, once
you get used to doing this, you could do it
not you know, in a formal matter, but just get
yourself sated, seated and taking a minute to feel yourself seated,

(41:08):
maybe taking in a deep, slow, deep cleansing breath to
kind of open and I really like to reinforce you know.
You can think of the in breath as an opening expanding,
making more room inside, opening around your heart and then
just gradually letting that go, thinking of the outbreath as

(41:31):
a relaxation of the in breath, feeling your weights sink
into the seat. So maybe allow yourself one or two slow,
deep in breaths and outbreaths to settle, and now when

(42:01):
you're ready, just letting go of that deliberate breathing and
just feeling yourself sitting here in a breathing body, letting
your body breathe on its own the way it naturally does.

(42:24):
And then maybe noticing the feeling of breathing, and in
particular the place where the air from the room around
you comes into your body. Whether it's your nostrils or
it could be your lips, I'm not gonna it doesn't matter.
For this simple practice, feel the air coming in, and

(42:47):
then feel the texture the feeling of the breath.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Leaving you.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
So you're breathing in air, just whatever you're naturally breathing,
and you breathe out your breath, and right there is
in exchange. The air from the room is coming in
and the breath from and your body does change it
and sends out the breath. And noticing that I'm assuming

(43:16):
for most places you're seated at least is true for
me right now, that the air coming in from the
room is cooler than the breath that leaves your body.
The breath that leaves your body is warm. Internal body
temperature is what thirty seven degrees celsius ninety eight point

(43:37):
six fahrenheit you know, is warm. So unless your outdoors
on a warm human climate, the breath leaving your body
is going to be warmer than the air coming in.
And just noticing the cool air in, warm air out,

(44:00):
cool air in, warm breath out, and then you can
reflect on the fact that that warm breath out it's
warm because it's warmed by you quite literally by your
circulatory system, driven by your heart, so that that warm

(44:21):
breath out is a little gift of your heart to
the world around you. And on the in breath you're
just taking in what is, and you're sending out a
warm gift from your heart in every natural in breath
out breath breathing in what is breathing out warmth, and

(44:46):
if you like, you can infuse that warmth with kindness,
may it land wherever it's needed. Breathing in what is
is your willingness to be here now and be present,
and that warm breath out just sending out a little
goodness to the world, and you don't even have to
know where it lands, because I like to say there's

(45:09):
a little land anywhere. Everyone, anything, any situation can use
a little kindness. And that's so that sensory, you know,
focusing on that. You know, it's a really simple meditation,
but it's lovely right. You can you can like breathing
in what is breathing out warmth and that's happening with

(45:30):
every breath cycle, you know, and then you can just
that's one of those things that transfers really well to
a tongue on the go kind of tungle in practice,
where you're just you know, breathing in the situation. Here
I am in this world, whatever is present. You know,
this is what this is what we mean by acceptance.

(45:51):
You know, when we talk about acceptance in Buddhism, it's
it's not like it's not letting bad things happen. It's
not giving up on making a difference. It's acknowledging what is.
And I think that's a really different way of acceptance,

(46:11):
a different notion of acceptance than a lot of people have.
And it's sort of like here it is accepting what is,
acknowledging it and then sending some kindness to it. It's
not going to hurt. And I think that these kind
of practices, although we look they do. They make you
feel more at ease, they can build strength and kindness.

(46:34):
But I think they also, you know, play a role
in developing an acceptance of what's present.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Yeah. I think acceptance is a very powerful thing because
you know, then you're no longer fighting the situation or
the circumstance.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Exactly, yeah, exactly, and you can you know, acceptance is
cont it's the first step toward action. And that's why
it's not it's not caving, you know, it's not giving in.
And and again, and I go back to that metaphor
of strong back, soft front. So many people misunderstand compassion
is being a soft thing. You know, it's it's it's

(47:14):
not it's it's it's it's soft, and that it's kind
and that it's open. But it is bold and it
is courageous, and it's such a life affirming practice. I think.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, I love that strong backsoft front. Yeah, it's one of.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
My favorite phrases. And again that's Joan Halifax, and I
think I first, well I think I first encountered it
by hearing her say it. But but she has she's
done some wonderful work with dying and being present with
people who are dying. So I think the first place
I saw it in print is in her book Being
with Dying, which was the really the template for a

(47:53):
wonderful training program that she has called Being with Dying.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yeah, yeah. So I hope that's something that people can
take with them and try. And I think it's a
really beautiful, simple practice. And I encourage people if they
want to learn more about tongueland there are great resources online.
I will echo Pima Chodron as somebody who's a really

(48:21):
accessible teacher of this. And I do teach an online
tongueland intensive. Yes. I was coming to that through the
Compassion Institute, which is a nonprofit founded by Topdem Jimpa
after we did that original work at Stanford and started
teaching compassion cultivation training. A few years after that, he
broke off, as did some of the founding faculty, and

(48:43):
formed a nonprofit called the Compassion Institute. And so I
teach an online tonguel and intensive there. I also sometimes
teach tongland workshops at the Ningma Institute. I may be
doing one in the spring, but I have coming up
and this is where I'll plug my course that I'm teaching,
the eight week Compassion Cultivation Training Program. That's the program

(49:05):
that I mentioned that we were originally developed with toch
with top tem Jimpa at Stanford through the Compassion Institute.
It's an eight week class online and it begins October twentieth.
So I put the link there if you can make
it available if you like, of course I'll do that.
Here you can see about the class and being wonderful.
I think there's still some room in it. And Tonglin

(49:27):
is taught along with but and I'll just say something
about that course. What's brilliant about that class is we
begin with the idea that we all have the inherent
capacity to care, but it might have been it might
have become inaccessible to us, you know, or harder to tech.
And we want to make it. We want to get
more of it, we want to grow it so we
can have more.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, I think it's just so busy meeting on deadlines
and just you know, managing to go through our days. Really,
I don't think we have time to even feel, forget
about feeling compassion or anything else exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
So this is puts right. Puts gives you the task
of growing it right. And so in the we meet
once a week for two hours online where we go
through exercises. There's some it's not an academic class, I mean,
although we might talk about concepts to some degree. It's
really a progression of skill training from stabilizing mind, opening

(50:20):
the heart compassion and kindness for the self, and then
working with growing that our circle of compassion from those
for whom it's easy for us to feel it to
opening up gradually for those for whom it's more challenging
for us to feel it. And then the culminating practice
is tonguelin, which is considered an active compassion practice because

(50:41):
it's putting us in on the brink of action, and ultimately,
compassion calls for action.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Absolutely. So you know, Eric, first of all, thank you
so much for explaining it so well. I I'm so
fascinated by law, so you know, if you could talk
a little about it, and it's almost instructional, I find
and it's it's it's wonderful because I'm just reading what
the definition here, it's basically fifty nine pithy slogans that

(51:10):
remind us how to awaken our hearts right. It's basically
that and each one, each one has a lot of
slogans under it. There are a lot of principles, right,
I'll let you explain it.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well, I'm not I don't know if I'm going to
be able to give you a lecture on low Jung
just a bit, just a bit, because I wasn't. I
think what I would like to say is, here's what
I'll say about low Jung training. Yeah, I encountered it
first very early in my you know, schooling in Tibetan Buddhism.
And what I liked about it is the slogan. So
you get these pithy slogans, you know, and I can't even, like,

(51:48):
off the top of my head conjure one. But there's
some that mean they sound really awful. But sometimes I said,
but one of the means like the enemy is you.
You know, they say things that sound like that. But
it's it's it's more you meditate on these phrases and
you know, and I and they're translated into English sometimes imperfectly,

(52:09):
but it's it's a it kind of turns on it.
It's had a little log the logic. It's not that
you're an enemy. It's just that you will find in
you the resistance to engaging fully in something, and so
that there's like this little jewel of wisdom in each
slogan that will unlock something that is a potential in you.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
The first one is trained the preliminaries.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yep, yeah, that one's easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that
actually what preliminaries mean is a little different in traditional
context versus a lay context, but the but the spirit
is the same. So then there's so into Buddhism, there's
certain things that you have to do before you're eligible

(52:57):
to go on to other meditation techniques. And I think
we lose sight of that in the West. And I
referred back a little while ago about this tendency. One
of the reasons a lot of people are fearful about
tonglin is they came into contact with it too soon, right,

(53:19):
they didn't. A preliminary for that is, first of all,
you have to know how to stabilize your mind and body.
You need to know how to be in this interior space.
And and you know, if you've never you've hardly had
enough time to do simple meditation and get familiar with
the contents of your own mind. I mean one of

(53:39):
the best gifts of even the most like if you
take shamana meditation, which is the concentration meditation, you know,
where you stabilize the mind and you either work with
an object or not. If you work with an object,
it's often the breath, you know, And the idea is
that you know, the mind's going to wander, and you
just stabilize on this and then the other stuff is
there and you're just stabilizing. You know, you're learning how
to be present with what is in your mind and

(54:03):
stabilize and if the mind gets distracted to come back home,
and you're training in this ability to place your awareness
where you want you know, and and what there's all
these mental skills that cultivate with that very simple meditation practice.
You know, think about it. If you're going the mind wandering,
your mind wanders, all these thoughts come up and you
come back, another wise thought comes up and you come back.

(54:25):
You know what, what are you doing there? You're you're
you're reinforcing your training your mind to put your awareness
where you want it to be. Now that right there
is a huge gift in the very distracting world. But
the other thing, and there's all other kinds of and
we and we actually know from cognitiuroscience and contemplative research
that we do improve working memory capacity, we improve attention

(54:48):
when we do that kind of practice. But another thing
that changes is what we call metacognitive awareness, and that's
the awareness of our awareness or what we might call
mindfulness of mind. You still art seeing what's in your mind.
You start knowing, oh, I tend to have these kind
of thoughts and those kind of thoughts. How the mind wanders,
and not just that at wanders, or maybe it doesn't,

(55:10):
but the I like to use the metaphor cast of
characters in there, and you can make a choice about
who's going to be controlling the mouth the words. Is
it going to be a defense of me or is
it going to be, you know, a more stable voice.
So anyway, I was talking about preliminaries. You got to
learn how to work with the contents of the mind.

(55:31):
You got to work with connecting to the heart. You know,
maybe come into contact of those parts of you that
might get a little bit frightened or threatened by suffering,
seeing how you feel gently just when you invite the
idea of a loved one's suffering, getting familiar with all
that before you embark on some of these more courageous practices.

(55:52):
So I'm not talking traditional. The training is do your preliminaries.
That's the standard, you know low Jung phrase. But then
the spirit of that works in a totally non traditional context.
It's like you don't want to dive into it. And
that's what I like about. You know, when I mentioned CCT,
you can look at all of what we're doing as

(56:14):
building up to being able to do the warrior practice
of tongulin, and.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
The warrior of practice sounds is really good.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's what we need. I mean,
and I've really been feeling at this point in my life,
in the world in which we live, I'm moving more
and more into wanting to spread this kind of stuff,
make it as accessible to as many people as possible,
because it's we live. I think our world isn't a

(56:43):
crisis point.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yes, you know, Erica, would you like to talk about
the facial expression thing that you do. There's so much
to talk it's not enough for one podcast, but would mention.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Maybe I'll just give a sentence or two and then
then actually I do to go and it's it sounds
completely unrelated to all this the day to day is,
but there are ways in which I've actually brought these
paths together, which is really exciting. So my interest in

(57:18):
facial expression came from my interest in emotion. I was
early in my graduate career very interested in stress and health.
How stress affected our health, you know, changed our bodies,
made us more vulnerable to illnesses. And in the process
of studying stress, it was natural to get interested in
emotions because you know, when you think about emotions, they

(57:39):
are the vehicle by which we engage with any situation.
And our bodies change, right, you know, our heart's race
when we're nervous. You know our skin might flesh when
we're angry. So emotions are very much embodied, and I
got very interested in studying emotion, and I didn't at
the time seek out to study facial expression. But when
I was in a graduate student at UC University California,

(58:02):
San Francisco, at the medical school, there where a studying
health psychology. Paul Eckman, world expert on facial expression universality,
was on the faculty, and I did not even I
wasn't familiar with his work, and I met him my
second year of graduate school, and he had become you know,
he had built his career on making emotions observable by

(58:27):
coming up with an objective, anatomically based system for describing
observable facial movement, which allowed us to study emotions from
the outside. Something so subjective that feels like you can't
scientifically study it suddenly became observable, right, And so that's
how I got into studying facial expressions and in the

(58:48):
process became an expert in this tool that he created.
He and his colleague, while is freezing, created to study
to measure objectively facial expression, not just emotion, all facial expression,
called the Facial Action Coding System. So I got expertise
in that as a function of my interest in studying emotion,
and then I brought it to my emotion research, studying

(59:08):
emotions and how you know the emotion, how emotions expressions
relate to people's experiences. I was able in the early
part of this century, after I had come back to
California after being a professor and started doing more work
with meditation to be part of a groundbreaking research project

(59:29):
called the Shamata Project, which was you see Davis run
by my friend and Collie Clifford Sarah looking at the
effects of intensive meditation training on cognitive, emotional, and neurophysiological variables.
And I brought into that context and studying whether compassion

(59:50):
training affected how people responded to suffering in others. And
so I got to bring these two things together. We
got to measure their faith that these people faces with
facial coding. So you know, there are places where I've
brought the facial expression into my work, you know, done
into contemplative science. But a lot of my work now

(01:00:12):
and a lot of my work also is in educating
people on how to use this technique everywhere, from people
in the behavioral sciences to forensics to digital arts. And
that's a different application. People who are making digital faces
for video games or movies or whatever. They can use

(01:00:34):
the anatomical information from this tool that we was created
to measure faces can be used to guide facial movement
in digital faces. So that's that was a quick a
real quick summary.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
No, but yeah, but thank you so much, Edica, and
I think we should do another session venual free just
talking about this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Okay, we had to something like that. Has been lovely
speaking with you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Say we headed gone. Thanks so much,

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Ep 38: Dr. Erika Rosenberg: Buddhist ‘Tonglen’ meditation—compassion in action

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