Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day tonglen

I have had a rough day today. Lots of tears. Lots of sadness. Lots of suffering. And in the midst of the swirling suffering, I thought I would look for a tonglen meditation. Tonglen is a meditation that is supposed to be a meditation of compassion. You literally take and absorb the suffering of another. It is incredibly powerful, and difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. I had been thinking a lot about Janis' post on Glow today. It affected me greatly, thinking about my own girls. Her beautiful words, her heartbreaking story...I needed to get beyond my own suffering. Anyway, I found this beautiful Memorial Day tonglen with the Honorable Pema Chodron. A most apt meditation for today.

My father is Vietnam veteran. My grandfather is a veteran of both WWII and Korea. We are a Navy family on my side. The twentieth century has many Kennas serving. But I also reflect upon my married family. My brother in law and sister in law are veterans of more recent wars. For all of my beautiful, brave family and all of the families affected by war, this tonglen is dedicated.

6 comments:

  1. oh Angie, how powerful, and it only goes to show what a beautiful soul you are. I love Tonglen meditations. You may also want to look up the sa Ta Na Ma meditation on Snatam Kaur's website. I wrote about it once on my blog.
    I am sorry you had a rough day. ((hugs))

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing.

    PS the Sa Ta Na Ma meditation is very healing. There also is a version of it called the Cross Heart Kirtan which is very healing.

    Sa - Infinity
    Ta - Life
    Na - Transformation
    Ma - Rebirth

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful, thanks for sharing. Much love.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a great practice for Memorial Day.

    ReplyDelete
  5. thank you for this angie, its beautiful and just what i need right now.
    i also love the sa ta na ma meditation. i didn't know what each of the sounds mean but now i do thanks to shanti mama. i am going to use it in my kids classes!
    xo lots of love to you angie

    ReplyDelete

What do you think?