Atisha’s Heart Meditation

To learn true compassion, breathe all your tension, pain and suffering into your heart. Inhale pain ... Then exhale peace, blissfulness, blessings, joy …

Do not hold back; your heart can take it.

Breathing in your pain, holding nothing back ... Breathing out peace, blessings ... In this way you are using what has been called "The Alchemy of the Heart": The heart's natural capacity to transform into peace whatever it embraces unconditionally.

After having inhaled your own pain, and exhaled peacefulness for a while, begin including the pain and misery of all beings on this planet, breathing the suffering of this world into your heart, and breathing out peace and blissfulness.

This ancient meditation technique by Atisha, a Buddhist master, was brought from India to Tibetan Buddhism in the 11th century. It was Atisha’s introduction of the principle of compassion into meditation. Over time, Atisha’s Heart Meditations evolved into Tonglen Meditation in Tibet.