A Classic Transformational Meditation
on “Taking & Sending”
Opening Our Hearts to Infinite Compassion for All Beings

Of all the meditations for healing that we know of, this meditation of energy transformation is without equal in its universally practical applications. Its power lies in reaffirming our dynamic interrelationship with all of life, awakening our generative capabilities, and activating a genuine heartfelt concern for the well-being of others.

The first time we encountered this meditation was at a large international conference on energy healing. As we approached the meeting room we began to hear someone chanting in a beautiful, deep tone—slow, and from the heart. The melody sounded ancient, and although we couldn’t understand the words, it stirred the depths of our souls. The workshop leader was a Tibetan lama named Geshe Gyaltsen, and the prayer he was chanting accompanied one of the most profound healing and balancing meditations of his tradition. In Tibetan, the name of this meditation for transforming energy is called tong-len, which means “taking and sending.” We were soon to learn that it was also one of the most profound meditations that we would ever experience.

The meditation practice works by reconnecting us to a larger field of relationship and a vaster sense of ourselves. Oftentimes we get out of balance and experience pain and suffering because we’ve become fixated and overly preoccupied with our own contracted and narrow view. When we are physically, emotionally, or mentally suffering, there is a strong tendency to withdraw from the world and to implode into a very self-centered and self-protective state. We lose perspective of the larger picture and identify too much with the melodramas that we are immersed in at the time. This contraction cuts us off from the very healing and balancing energies that we are actually most in need of. The greater our sense of isolation, the greater our suffering because self-isolation cuts us off from the flow of healing energies that are available to us. The prayer that the lama was chanting poignantly depicted this predicament and, out of compassion, called for a transformation of this painful habit of narrow self-focus.

The practice of the following meditation helps build our capacity to transform every experience that we may have into an affirmation of loving concern for ourselves, others, and the world. The beautiful paradox is that in opening our hearts beyond our own limited sense of well being, we also receive benefit ourselves! In the very moment when we generate and extend a genuine energy wave of loving concern for the well being and happiness of others, our compassionate attitude produces an immediate effect of healing and blessing within our own minds and bodies at the same time. Although the melodious tones of the lama’s chant definitely facilitated the opening and softening process, this meditation works effectively on its own and is complete by itself.

To begin, breathe gently and mindfully for a few minutes, simply noticing the rhythmic movements of your chest or abdomen rising and falling in resonance with your inhalations and exhalations. Allow the area of your chest around your heart center to relax, open and soften, and establish a clear sense of your inner spaciousness, like a vast open sky. Imagine or feel yourself as hollow and empty inside of all dense or solid organs, like a big body balloon!  Totally open and pervaded with light, there is nowhere for anything to stick. The space within you is continuous with the space outside you. It is as though all the pores of your body are totally permeable to the flow of air and currents of energy that pass in and out through you, and you feel almost as if you can breathe in and out of all of your pores. (See Hollow body meditation on pp. . . for further guidelines on doing this visualization.)

Pause and rest here until you can clearly establish this feeling of open, unobstructed, inner spaciousness.

Then, in the region of your heart chakra, in the center of your chest, imagine a transformational vortex. You might visualize this as a volcanic fire of wisdom burning away the dross of illusions, a black hole in space, a chunk of coal that transforms into a brilliant diamond, a crystalline matrix, or any other metaphor of transformation that suggests itself to you.

Now comes the part of the meditation that Geshe Gyaltsen called “Hoover vacuum cleaner meditation!” Using the power of your inhalation to work like a “Hoover” suction, gather up and draw into this transformational vortex any pain or negativity that might be present in your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual continuum. If you don’t feel any particular discomfort anywhere at the present moment, let your inhalation draw in any seeds or latencies that may be lying dormant—potentials of future suffering that could ripen if conditions became right. You can envision these as heavy, hot energy, or dark smoke.

With the motivation of compassion—the desire to reduce or remove suffering—as you inhale, imagine drawing any of these negative energies or potentialities into this vortex. . .  and just as the darkness in a room disappears completely and immediately the moment the light is turned on, imagine that the negative energy is completely dissolved and transformed. Instantly, the dark lump of coal is transformed into a sparkling diamond. . . the fire blazes more brightly. . . the black hole of self-absorption turns into a white hole of radiance . . . and the limited sense of yourself is consumed and transmuted into a reservoir of limitless healing power and creativity.

Now as you exhale, imagine that from your heart center waves of clear, radiant healing light pour forth. Imagine these waves filling your whole body and mind, healing, energizing, and transforming you. Allow the vortex at your heart to function as an energy transformer drawing in negativity, darkness, or pain, and transforming it into radiant light and healing energy. For example, drawing in agitation, radiate peace; drawing in anger, radiate patience, and compassion. If you had taken the suffering of fear in with your breath, now send back faith with your out breath. If the pain you breathed in was tension, breathe back relaxation, and so on. “Breathing in hot and heavy . . . breathing out cool and light . . .” With each exhalation send a wave of healing, balancing energy or influence mounted on the out breath to whatever region of your body or mind is calling for transformation. Using the movement of the breath as a motor and compassion as the motivator, direct whatever quality is needed to antidote and neutralize the kind of pain you had gathered in before. Some people find it helpful to visualize a color, texture, image, or sound that carries the feeling of the quality they are sending. Others prefer to simply ripple out a clear wave of intention. The key is to allow each breath to deepen and affirm your energetic nature and transformational capabilities.

Continue in this way, sweeping and vacuuming, removing and transforming, mounted on the waves of the breath, as long as you like or are able to. Remember to keep your breathing gentle and natural, not forcing or holding the breath in any way. As you practice, you may find that the grosser, more noticeable discomforts dissolve or change. When this happens, allow your awareness to be drawn to subtler and subtler messages that call for your attention.

The true healing power of this meditation really becomes activated when you begin to understand that the radius of your transformational influence can be vast in its scope, and that you are able to receive and transform the energies of others in the world around you. The larger the field of interrelationship that you acknowledge and participate in, the greater will be the reservoir of healing energies that you will tap into.

At this level of practice you realize that just as you wish to be free of the pain in your back, your loneliness, or heartache, so too does the person in the seat or house, village or office next to you. And you also realize that it really doesn’t take any extra effort at all as you breathe in, to hold the intention to transform the subtle energy of their pain at the same time as you’re breathing in and transforming your own.

If you are tormented by anger or grief, imagine and affirm that as you transform these energies or feelings within your own life, those same feelings shared by others are transformed as well. Envision and affirm that a radiance of healing energies emanates out through you to be received by anyone who shares the same feelings. Whatever the form of your distress, use it to affirm the universality of your humanity and your relationship to countless others who might share the same feelings or concerns.

So now, if you’re ready, reach out with your heart to someone else, to a loved one, or a stranger in a hospital bed, or to a whole group of people in pain. And as you breathe in, draw in their restlessness or frustration along with your own. Offer this energy with compassion to explode the nucleus of separateness and “little me” consciousness at your heart. And with all the “special effects” you can muster, allow that negative energy to be transformed into its opposite. Send back waves of peace, of patience, and radiant light. Experience the openness and connectedness that come as you expand the radius of your active compassion and caring in this way.

Continue for as long as you like or have time for, allowing each cycle of breaths to further deepen and affirm your energetic nature and transformational capacity. This is a meditation you can do anywhere, under any circumstances. First start with yourself, then let the circle of your compassionate awareness reach out to others yearning for the same quality of inner and outer harmony that you’re looking for.

Practice this method quietly and invisibly–driving or waiting for a bus; during a particularly tense or boring meeting; while watching the evening news; or walking your dog through your neighborhood. This meditation is designed for engagement in the world—an active way of transforming negativity and bringing peace and healing into the world. It’s become something that we regularly do when we pull into a hospital parking lot to visit a patient or go to work. We’ve found the healing process begins before we even get into the elevator, and acts especially to balance the mind we’re bringing in with us!  We’ve taught this practice to tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, and of different philosophical and spiritual inclinations. For some, this practice makes immediate intuitive sense from what they know of the unobstructed flow of energy and information in the natural world. Others will translate this practice into a deeply personal participation in Christ’s love extending into the world. We invite you to practice with it in your own way and see how it speaks to and through you.

Keep in mind that whether you are visibly able to transform the negativities of the world is secondary to transforming the illusion of your own sense of separateness. The real power of this practice lies in developing a deeper experience of kinship with the world, and in breaking free from our preoccupation with our own personal situation. This meditation is essentially a mind training that empowers your inner access to an immense source of transformational potential. It also teaches you to honor and deeply respect the sacred mystery of interdependence by seeing how activating compassionate regard for others works simultaneously to heal your relationship with yourself as well. Taken to heart, each breath becomes a gesture of relatedness and caring, affirming our wholeness and freeing us from the illusion of separation. As we do this, the lama’s chant comes alive within us, its prayer elevated into action through the healing breath of compassion.