Twenty years ago I was drawn to Sue...she has this amazing charisma, and through working with her I have achieved balance in my life. Sue knows how to help you access your inner core, to give you the tools to help you reach a full life. She has helped me to focus my attention on love and it is not an easy lesson to learn and use everyday in your life.

She continues to be a force to help me reach my goals.

Patti Kolbenschlag
Socorro, New Mexico

Spring '09

Embracing Our Life Experience

In order to find peace with the state of planetary, political, financial and spiritual shifts, this is a teaching to meet and embrace reality, using an ancient practice. This teaching is the heart practice of Tonglen. In this practice, we transform the pain and suffering in the world...a powerful methodology that serves the whole. Tonglen practice can help us accomplish this shift of awareness, through training of the mind. Training of the mind is our greatest work. We are either held hostage by the mind's power, or we learn to harness its energy to move our lives and the suffering of all humankind into a healed place of compassion and love.

Tonglen is a Tibetan word which means taking breath in and sending breath out. This practice originated in India and came to Tibet in the eleventh century. When we encounter fear, pain, hurt, anger, jealousy, loneliness, or suffering, be it our own or others, we breathe in with the desire to completely embrace this experience, and on the outbreath, let it go in love.

Tonglen dissolves the armor we create to keep ourselves separate from our own suffering and the suffering we encounter in the world. With this radical shift of awareness, this new way of embracing our life experience, our heart becomes more tender, open, sensitive, and aware. We naturally feel more alive and connected.

While breathing out, our heart's natural response to this suffering is compassion. We breathe in the pain and suffering of this world like a cloud, letting it pass through our hearts. Rather than bracing ourselves against this pain and suffering, we can let it strengthen our sense of belonging and interdependence within the larger web of being.

Breathing in, we allow ourselves to feel the inevitable suffering that occurs in this life in order to transform the suffering to love. Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig) is the Bodhisattva of Universal Compassion. His name means "One Who Hears the Cries of the World." Long ago he vowed not to return to nirvana until all living beings had been liberated from suffering. Avalokiteshvara listens to and feels the pain and suffering of the world. He breathes in, receiving the cries and anguish of the world and responds with the greatest care and compassion. In Buddhism, the traditional vow made by the Bodhisattva is to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings.

The path of the Bodhisattva is to remember our belonging and connection with all of life. When we know in our hearts that we are connected to the insects, animals, trees, the earth, and every living being, we do not cause harm or suffering to any of these parts of ourselves. Rather, we become sensitive and attuned to the cries of the world, and we learn to respond with wisdom and deep compassion. We develop the wish to free all beings from their suffering and its causes; we desire, more than anything, to bring them happiness and peace. Indeed, the practice of Tonglen is an excellent way for us to train our heart and mind so we too can develop universal compassion and help alleviate the suffering of all living beings.