Tonglen Meditation: Breathing In Suffering, Breathing Out Compassion

In this article: A practical guide to tonglen meditation, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of breathing in suffering and breathing out compassion, with clear instructions and important cautions.

Of all the meditation practices I have encountered, tonglen is the most counterintuitive. The instructions sound almost backwards. Breathe in the suffering of yourself or others. Breathe out relief, peace, and wellbeing. Our every instinct tells us to do the opposite, to push pain away and pull comfort toward us. Tonglen asks us to reverse that, and to discover that doing so does not poison us, it frees us.

Tonglen is a Tibetan Buddhist practice. The word means “giving and receiving” in Tibetan. It was made famous in the West by the teacher Pema Chodron, who learned it from her teacher Chogyam Trungpa, and who has taught it for decades as one of the most powerful methods for working with fear, grief, and the suffering of those we love. Unlike many meditation techniques, which are quietly internal, tonglen is explicitly a compassion practice aimed at the relationship between self and world.

I first encountered it at a Chan temple, where it was less emphasized, and I dismissed it for years as a strange Tibetan practice that did not suit me. Then a close friend went through a long illness, and I found myself wishing I could do something, anything, beyond sending messages and waiting. Tonglen was the only practice that gave me something real to do with that helplessness. It changed how I think about compassion. Let me share it honestly, including the cautions that matter.

The Core Idea Behind Tonglen

The logic of tonglen is simple once you sit with it. Suffering is universal, and our usual response is to contract away from it. We brace against our own pain. We turn away from the pain of others. This contraction, more than the pain itself, is what makes life feel narrow and isolating.

Tonglen trains the opposite movement. On the in-breath, you willingly open to suffering, your own or someone else’s. On the out-breath, you send out whatever would relieve it. The visualization is symbolic: dark heavy smoke coming in, light cool freshness going out. The point is not literal energy transfer but a profound reorientation of the heart. You are practicing the willingness to be with pain and to respond to it with care.

This reorientation has measurable effects. Compassion meditation practices, of which tonglen is one form, have been studied extensively by Richard Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin. They found that even short-term compassion practice increases activation in the insula and temporal parietal junction, brain regions involved in empathy and emotional regulation, and improves people’s responses to the suffering of others. Tonglen is essentially loving-kindness meditation turned inside out, with the focus on receiving pain rather than sending goodwill.

How to Practice Tonglen, Step by Step

Pema Chodron teaches tonglen in four clear stages. Here is the method, simplified for practice.

1. Rest in open awareness. Begin by sitting quietly for a minute or two. Rest your attention on the breath, or in a sense of open space. Settle the mind before beginning the formal practice. This grounds you so that you can meet difficulty from steadiness rather than reactivity.

2. Visualize the in-and-out breath as light and dark. Breathe in a sense of dark, heavy, hot smoke, representing suffering. Breathe out a sense of bright, light, cool freshness, representing relief. Do this for several breaths just to learn the rhythm. The dark comes in; the light goes out. You are not damaged by taking in the dark; it passes through you and transforms on the out-breath.

3. Apply tonglen to a personal situation. Bring to mind a specific suffering. Start with your own, something manageable rather than overwhelming. As you breathe in, open to the pain of that situation. As you breathe out, send relief to the part of you that is hurting. If you are using tonglen for meditation for anxiety or fear, you breathe in the fear and breathe out a sense of safety and ease.

4. Extend tonglen to others. Once you are comfortable, apply the same practice to the suffering of someone else. Picture a friend in pain. Breathe in their suffering, and breathe out wellbeing toward them. Over time you can extend this to groups, to strangers, even to people you find difficult. The most expansive form is to breathe in the suffering of all beings and breathe out relief to all beings.

The whole practice usually takes ten to twenty minutes. You can also do “on-the-spot tonglen” in daily life: when you see someone suffering, when you read difficult news, when you are stuck in traffic and frustrated, pause for one conscious breath in and out with the same intention.

Why Anyone Would Do This

The first time most people hear the instructions, the response is some version of “Why would I do that to myself?” The fear is that breathing in suffering will make you more burdened, more depressed, more crushed by the pain of the world.

In practice, the opposite happens. The suffering you take in does not accumulate. It moves through you and is transformed by the act of breathing out relief. What accumulates instead is a growing sense that you can face pain, your own and others’, without being destroyed by it. This is one of the deepest sources of confidence a person can develop.

Tonglen also dissolves a strange kind of isolation. When you are suffering, you tend to feel uniquely broken. When you breathe in the suffering of others in the same situation, your pain is recognized as part of the shared human condition. The contraction around “why me” softens into a quieter “this too.” Many people who work in caregiving, medicine, or activism use tonglen specifically because it prevents burnout by reframing the encounter with suffering as a path of compassion rather than a drain.

Important Cautions

Tonglen is powerful, and like any powerful practice, it should be approached with care.

Do not start with your deepest trauma. Begin with smaller suffering and build capacity over weeks. Tonglen requires some stability of mind; if you are in acute crisis, it may be too much. Meditation for depression and other gentle practices are better starting points.

Stop if it overwhelms you. If taking in suffering makes you feel flooded, panicky, or hopeless, stop. Open your eyes, ground in your senses, and return to a simpler practice. Pushing through distress in tonglen defeats the purpose.

The visualization is symbolic. You are not literally absorbing other people’s pain. If you start to feel responsible for fixing their suffering through your meditation, you have misunderstood the practice. You are training the heart, not performing magic.

Common Questions / FAQ

Q: Is tonglen religious?

A: It comes from Tibetan Buddhism, but the practice itself does not require belief in any doctrine. Anyone can use it as a compassion training. See our article on is meditation religious for more on this.

Q: Does tonglen actually help the person I am breathing for?

A: There is no evidence it changes the other person’s circumstances directly. What it changes is your relationship to their suffering, which often changes how you show up for them in real life.

Q: Can I do tonglen for someone who has died?

A: Yes. Tonglen is commonly used as a grief practice, breathing in the pain of loss and breathing out love toward the person who has died.

Q: How is tonglen different from loving-kindness meditation?

A: Loving-kindness sends goodwill outward. Tonglen also takes suffering in. They are complementary, and many practitioners alternate between them.

The Bottom Line

Tonglen meditation is the practice of breathing in suffering and breathing out compassion, a counterintuitive Tibetan method that dissolves our usual contraction away from pain. By willingly opening to difficulty on the in-breath and sending relief on the out-breath, you train the heart to meet suffering without being crushed by it. Start small, build capacity slowly, and stop if it ever feels overwhelming. Done with care, tonglen is one of the most transformative compassion practices available, both for your own pain and for the pain of those you love.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health treatment.