When we practice tong-len, we take away all the sufferings of each of the realms—the hells, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. There is so much described about all these sufferings.
We take all the sufferings into our heart and we also take the cause of the sufferings, karma and delusions and even the subtle negative imprint, all together. Take these in the form of smoke and pollution. Take from everyone—from the numberless beings. We receive the suffering from everyone, then it goes inside and destroys the ego, self-cherishing thought.
It is the ego, the self-cherishing thought which causes all the suffering from beginningless rebirth—the general sufferings of samsara and particularly the sufferings of the devas, human beings and the beings from the lower realms—hell beings, hungry ghosts and animals. The self-cherishing thought causes not only the past sufferings but also endless suffering in samsara. So, that time, not only the ego, the self-cherishing thought is destroyed, completely smashed, but also ignorance, the root of samsara—holding the I as truly existent—is totally destroyed and becomes non-existent.
So same thing, the object of that ignorance—the truly existent I, the real I, the I appearing from there—is completely gone. We see that it doesn’t exist; it is empty right there, it has never existed from the beginning. Stay there a little bit in meditation on emptiness; emptiness only, tong-pa-nyi. Trying to meditate on this is very good. Do not just meditate on bodhicitta wishing to achieve enlightenment; also meditate on emptiness.
After taking the suffering of all sentient beings, we give them our happiness. Give temporary happiness to those who don’t have temporary happiness, and give ultimate happiness to those who have temporary happiness but don’t have ultimate happiness. Then give peerless happiness, full enlightenment, to those who have ultimate happiness, who are free from samsara, but don’t have that peerless happiness.
By generating loving kindness, we give all our past, present and future merits and the results of all the happiness, all the skies of temporary happiness of samsara, ultimate happiness and peerless enlightenment. Give all of this completely to the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings, so they all achieve the dharmakaya mind and their bodies became rupakaya.
Then we give our own body in the form of wish-granting jewels. We make charity with our own body to numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings. Think that they receive everything, even enlightenment.
Next, we give all our enjoyments. However many hats we have: hats for the summertime, hats for the wintertime, hats for the spring, hats to wear outside, hats to wear inside. Give away all these things, from our hats down to our socks. Also, give away however much money we have in the bank, our house, car and the people around us. Give all of this to numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, suras, asuras and intermediate state beings.
When we take the suffering of others we collect unbelievable merits and purification. Numberless past life negativities get purified each time we do tong-len. Unbelievable, unbelievable obscurations get purified.
When we do the practice of giving, there is unbelievable merit. Each time we give temporary happiness, ultimate happiness and enlightenment to each sentient being, so many times skies of merit are collected.
Each time we give our body, skies of merits are collected. Even by giving our body to numberless hell beings, skies of merit are collected, because they are numberless.
We give everything from our hats down to our socks to each hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura, asura and intermediate state being, so there are skies of merits. Then we give away all the people around us. Each time we collect skies of merits.
Wow, wow, wow! Our lives are so meaningful and rich. Wow, wow, wow!
