Plant-based Meditation: Tonglen
Taking in + releasing, or breathing like xylem + phloem
Earlier this year, I led a series of “plant-based meditations” — plant-inspired dharma talk followed by a 20-minute meditation held outside, in a local plant nursery. More background on that series and the first talk is here. This is the second talk in that series.
Notes from the dharma talk and meditation are below, and further below is full audio of the talk + guided meditation for paid subscribers.
The view—
There was quite a lot going on the time I first gave this talk (Feb 5, 2023) — and there’s a lot going on now. Injustices, suffering, loss, deep pockets of grief that we unexpectedly fall into; continued oppression. Annoying days. Systemic failures, all of it. It was a full moon, like it shall be again. Sometimes (oftentimes… all the times) life is just A LOT.
What is there to do?
How can we both sit with what is, but also pull nutrients from it? Spin straw into gold, so to speak. Find compassion in suffering.
Through breath, in fact.
Plants are magic, as they turn plain rain water and good old sun into new growth every single day.
Plants have a vascular system comprised of xylem and phloem. Xylem brings water and dissolved minerals up from the roots to the leaves. Phloem carries nourishment from the leaves to the rest of the plant and back to the roots. Extra water transpires out through stomata on the leaves and stem. The magic that happens in the space between this interchange is photosynthesis.
Xylem is rigid, impermeable, and unidirectional. Adapted exactly for its very important role. Phloem is loosey goosey, permeable, and multidirectional. Also adapted exactly for its very important role. This is generally the framework plants rely on to receive and release. They stay rooted and use what they have to survive what is.
In order to thrive, plants must use their systems to adapt and respond to the changing environment around them. Nightfall. Cold. Blazing heat. Drought. Transplantation.
We’re the same way.
Our environment, meaning, our circumstances — are very rarely within our control. It’s simply the garden we’ve been planted in and we have to deal. Suffering can arise when we experience delusion or grasping that what is not in our control actually is in our control.
What’s not in our control: what we absorb from the world around us, the quality of the soil we’re planted in, the weather, how many nutrients are available to us.
What is in our control: what we do with those nutrients, how we move them around our systems, and the heart we put into our photosynthesis.
By practicing sitting with what is (difficult emotions, systemic hardship, everything that is outside of our control that can make us feel vulnerable, overwhelmed, etc.) and using our vascular system (our in and our out breath) we find we can survive and even thrive through any weather.
The meditation—
Recommend trying this outside, or placing a plant or two nearby.
Tonglen is a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice. The word translates into giving and receiving. It is often practiced in times of great hardship, whereby the bitter, overwhelming pain of suffering of another (or the world) is breathed in by the practitioner, and compassionate, soothing joy is breathed out. In a sense, the body and breath of the practitioner becomes an alchemical crucible.
What I love about Tonglen is how vivid it can be. You begin by visualizing the suffering, or whatever you want to transmute. You visualize the color, texture, shape, and smell of it. You breathe that in. You see the beauty and shimmer of that which you breathe out. The magic moment of change happening inside of you, between in breath and out breath.
Here, we’re putting a twist on the traditional practice of giving and receiving by using the framework of xylem and phloem. What you take in is up to you; what you send back out is up to you. But the potency of your ability to do so is inherent, your right.
First, take a seat that feels comfy and supportive. Get yourself rooted or grounded in some way. You might take a few breaths to “arrive” if you are somewhere else mentally.
Scan your body, scan your mind and emotions - notice how you’re coming into this practice, knowing it’s perfect whatever it is.
Notice the earth beneath you, a solid companion holding you - so you can let go into it even just a little bit more.
Become aware of your breath in its natural element, coming into the body and filling it, then moving outward. Consider your breath as a close friend, another companion with you.
As you breath in and out, imagine a vast system of steady xylem and phloem in your body: perfectly adapted and attuned to move things in and out, working in harmony and constancy. You don’t even have to really try.
Become aware of your environment and something heavy, or challenging that you may want to work with — transmute. Begin to visualize it, allow that to arise spontaneously. What color is it? How does it smell? What does it look like / taste like?
Feeling the earth and your body resting against it, begin to breathe in this heavy substrate through your roots using your xylem. At the top of the inhale, allow “photosynthesis” to occur changing nutrients into nourishment (you are just that magical!). Begin to exhale out through your phloem - freely and fully moving peace / liberation / compassion (whatever it is you want to turn the heaviness into) out into the air.
Allow the visuals of what you are breathing in and out to be as big or small as you’d like, and even shift naturally. Allow the breath to follow the fullness of the visuals without thinking too much about it.
Continue breathing in through your roots that which you want to take in and photosynthesize. Breathe out through your leaves and stems that which is nourishing to you, someone else, your community, or the world.
Continue for as long as you’d like, using the steady, simple power of your breath to take in and release. Rely on the perfectly adapted structures of your xylem and phloem to support you in this work.
Eventually, when you’re ready, let the breath soften. Come back to an awareness of body on the earth, take in sounds or sensations around you. Slowly bring yourself back into the present and when you feel like it, open your eyes and have some water.
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