Diane

North Wales, United Kingdom

Cathy

Pittsburgh, PA, USA

VTrinity

Berlin, Germany

Marie Wolfe

Marblehead, MA, USA

Dr. Mo

United Kingdom

Teresa Loftus

Oregon, Tucson, AZ, USA

Brenda Simons

Gasselte, Netherlands

Sarena (she/her)

Maine, USA

Wendy Bright-Fallon

New Jersey, USA

Utah, USA

Jenna Hobbs

Indiana, USA

Pat 

Philippa Poppesqou

Johannesburg, South Africa

Marilyn Rose Brown

Linda Bomar

Heidi

Canandaigua NY

Cheryl B

Lisa

Sparks, Nevada, USA

Björn

Lommel, Belgium

Regina McLendon

San Diego, CA, USA

Practice Tonglen to transform suffering into love and find inner peace during times of global or local conflict.

English

When there's conflict in the world, we can often feel affected by it, at the same time as feeling helpless. Join Dali for this guided meditation as he takes you through a practice designed to help you find inner peace whilst also keeping others in your heart and mind.

Cultivating Inner Peace

 Welcome to this guided meditation, Inner Peace at Times of Conflict During this session, I'll share with you a technique based on the Buddhist practice of Tonglen Where we'll be breathing in negativity and breathing out positivity This might initially sound counterproductive Why would we want to breathe in any negativity? As we go through the practice, I don't want you to hold anything in I don't want you to be thinking of this breathing in as consuming any negativity It's more of a cleansing of the energy around you Breathing it in, transforming it into something more positive And then breathing it back out into the world Think of the great forests and all that the trees do for us Taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen, helping us to breathe easier This practice we're going to do is particularly useful when you might be feeling helpless Witnessing conflict in the world When there's perhaps nothing tangible that you feel you can do It's also useful in your more immediate surroundings In your closer relationships when there's perhaps tension in the air Like all meditation techniques, this requires practice And the more we allow it into our daily routine, the more beneficial it will be And I deliberately say daily routine as a common question from meditators starting out is How do I create routine? Or how do I make sure I meditate, even on the so-called good days? I think the Dalai Lama gave a great answer to this in his book The Art of Happiness He said, a tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent of storms But it can't just grow those roots when the storm appears on the horizon I think we can learn a lot from trees He didn't say that bit, that was me And so too the practice We're going to be gently repeating some phrases As we breathe in and out To cleanse that negativity and send it back out into the world as positive energy The more you can really feel it Really genuinely create that energy The more powerful this practice can become So let's start with getting into a comfortable position If not already Whatever comfortable means to you is absolutely fine There's no required posture for this meditation You could be lying down, you could be sitting in a chair Or on the floor, kneeling or sitting on a cushion or a mat You could even be on your couch or sofa surrounded by cushions Just be comfortable, be alert, free from distractions And if you're ready, let your eyelids gently close Let your attention rest on your breath Not changing anything, not forcing anything with the breath Just paying attention to the natural rhythm Now move your attention up to your brow Try and relax all those muscles across your forehead Around your eyes Your eyelids, down through your cheeks to your jaw Make sure your jaw is nice and loose No tension there No gritted teeth A nice soft tongue And then come back to your breath We're going to start with the phrases I want you to gently, silently repeat these to yourself We have one on the in-breath and one on the out-breath The first phrase is I breathe in suffering, I breathe out love I breathe in suffering, I breathe out love Let's spend the next couple of minutes silently repeating that to ourselves And really mean those words I breathe in suffering, I breathe out love I breathe in suffering, I breathe out love The next phrase we're going to use Again, one on the in-breath, one on the out-breath I breathe in conflict, I breathe out peace I breathe in conflict, I breathe out peace And remember we're not holding on to that conflict We're simply cleansing it, transforming it into a positive energy And that positivity is peace I breathe in conflict, I breathe out peace Spend the next couple of minutes just silently repeating that to yourself I breathe in conflict, I breathe out peace And the last of the phrases Again, remembering that we're not holding on to any of these words We're simply breathing it in and breathing it out I breathe in darkness, I breathe out light I breathe in darkness, I breathe out light Again, let's spend just a couple of minutes silently repeating those words I breathe in darkness, I breathe out light I breathe in darkness, I breathe out light And again, just to run through those three different phrases I breathe in suffering, I breathe out love I breathe in conflict, I breathe out peace I breathe in darkness, I breathe out light Thank you for joining me today When you're ready, you can allow your eyelids to gently open I want you to take this practice with you And use it whenever you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed And it feels right When you see suffering, when you see conflict, when you see darkness Breathe it in Transform it And breathe it back out as love, as peace, as light And let me know how you get on Hope you have a good day Take care