Once we have practiced Equalizing and Exchanging Self and Other, we can meditate on Giving and Taking, a practice which strengthens the attitude explained in Exchanging Self and Others.
The first step is to take or remove the suffering of others. Start by developing compassion for the other(s), who you can see as mother beings (Remember the meditation on seeing everyone as your mother. The lamrim, again, is a progression, each meditation is preparing for the next.) Then imagine that you actually do remove their suffering by visualizing that it separates from them, appears in the form of black light and then dissolves into the self-cherishing mind that resides in your own heart. There is a diamond light in your heart, far deeper than the self-cherishing tendencies. This diamond light in your heart destroys the pain of the person or people who you are meditating on.
If this is scary, that's a good sign that you are actually really trying. It's ok. It's natural for fear to come up in this meditation. There are many levels of ability amongst practitioners. Often beginning practitioners cannot meditate on Giving and Taking right away. For this type of person, the scriptures say, "The order for taking should start with yourself." In other words, if you are mediating in the morning, you can use your meditation to take upon yourself, the difficulties you may experience later in the day. Then, extend the practice by taking upon yourself today, the sufferings of tomorrow, and then gradually increase the visualization to include the sufferings of the next month, year, etc.
Eventually we develop the practice by then focusing on people close to us that we love, and then people we feel neutral towards, and then to people we dislike. In the scriptures it says that the only objects you should not choose in your practice of Taking, is your Guru(s), Buddhas, or any enlightened Being.
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The practice of Giving is done by mentally giving away such things as wealth, health, anything. The focus is on generating loving-kindness by reflecting on the various forms of happiness that beings lack. One way to practice this is to mentally transform your body into wheatever object the being needs and then give them to those beings. For instance you can emanate your body in the form of rain or a beautiful house or sunlight, clothing, food, drink, wealth, virtue, patience, wisdom, anything, and then visualize yourself giving that object away.
A common visualization is to see yourself giving away one or all of the "six perfections:" generosity, ethics, patience, joyful actions, concentration, wisdom. Remember each meditation in the lamrim is a lifetime practice. You can spend years mastering Giving and Taking or any of these meditations. This is just an introduction!! For more on this, read 169-230 in Part 3 of Pabongka Rinpoche's Liberation In Our Hands.
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Meditation:
Once you achieve some proficiency with the Giving and Taking practice, perform the visualization of 'Giving' in conjunction with each exhalation of breath and the 'Taking' visualization in conjunction with each inhalation.
"Let these two practices ride on your breath"
By practicing the visualizations, you will gain the ability to let your thoughts ride on your breath. Your thoughts ride on the winds which run through your subtle body; your inner channels (nadis and chakras). Ill-thoughts towards others create blockages in your inner channels. Loving thoughts create openings for prana to run smoothly through your system. Your yoga asana will work so much better when incorporating such meditations into your physical practice. You have to try it and try it for at least 6 months to feel the benefits.
This is a powerful exercise to generate enlightenment mind which is the cause to have pure prana run through your central channel and experience complete bliss. This bliss is normally only experienced three times in your life: at the moment of death, the moment of orgasm and when you are doing these practices. But, as you generate enlightenment mind and have pure prana run up your central channel (awakening kundalini), you will feel bliss all the time. More on this later.
Dedication: May my studies and practice today lead towards my quick enlightenment so I can help others achieve the same.
Subsequent Practice: Start to get in the habit of practicing Giving and Taking on the subway, in your car, while you wait in line at the grocery store. Fill your mind with beautiful loving thoughts and feel how this changes the way the winds move in your body.
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We do asana, mantra, pranayama for the same reasons - to move the prana into the central channel and feel good. We know that the mind is connected to the body, but do we bring this awareness into our practice?
Much love,
Reema
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