Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Online Advice Book

Practice Advice

: Transforming Problems /

Tong-len

By

Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche

at various locations (Last Updated Jan 26, 2010)

•

Tong-len: Exchanging Self and Others

• Tong-len and the Four immeasurable Thoughts
•

Transforming Problems

Four Immeasurable Thoughts

[posted Aug 2009]

Rinpoche gave the following advice on how to do the preliminary practice of the four immeasurable thoughts.

Tong-len and the Four immeasurable Thoughts This is the practice of reciting and meditating on the four
immeasurable thoughts:

The Four Immeasurable Thoughts

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were to abide in equanimity,
free from hatred and attachment, not holding some close and others distant.
May they abide in equanimity.
I myself will cause them to abide in equanimity.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, taking on all the disturbing emotions of sentient beings and giving them to your
self-cherishing thought, thus destroying it.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings had happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they have happiness and its causes.
I myself will cause them to have happiness and its causes.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, transforming your body into a wish-granting jewel that gives every sentient being
every kind of temporal and ultimate happiness that they desire and need.

How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May they be free from suffering and its causes.
I myself will cause them to be free from suffering and its causes.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, taking on the sufferings and causes of suffering of all sentient beings.

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How wonderful it would be if all sentient beings were never separated from the happiness of higher rebirth
and liberation.
May they never be separated from these.
I myself will cause them never to be separated from these.
Please, guru-deity, bless me to be able to do this.

Meditate briefly on tong-len, giving all one’s merits of past, present, and future and their results, including
enlightenment, to all sentient beings.

Recite each verse with meditation – this helps to develop bodhicitta. When reciting the prayer, if you meditate
on the meaning, then you collect limitless skies of merit. With each one of the four immeasurables you collect
extensive merits.

This is why in each sadhana, there are the four immeasurable thoughts before you engage in the three kaya
meditations, because this practice is so essential. This is one of the main causes of being born as a
weel-turning king, and for that one has to collect inconceivable merit.

This is similar to generation stage meditation in the three kaya meditation. It is just visualizing, but through
this one can actualize the completion stage, which ceases ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth,
and, of course, in the same way one can achieve the ultimate resultant state of the three kayas. So, here,
one is doing generation stage three kayas, just visualizing, but each time it plants the seed and purifies
ordinary death, intermediate stage, and rebirth, and plants the seed to achieve the resultant three kayas.

One collects so much merit by generating the four immeasurable thoughts. The main thing is to meditate on
the meaning and generate the mind. This is a great practice to develop and strengthen bodhicitta, because
you do this practice for all sentient beings. Each time you generate the thought, it generates the cause of
enlightenment. It causes you to be able to benefit sentient beings for many lifetimes and to have control, so
that you can benefit sentient beings more, like the Dharma kings in Tibet, or like His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
You benefit sentient beings not just in one country but the entire world.

Include all sentient beings, all those who are suffering and who are devoid of happiness, also you can think of
specific people that you want to help.

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