Buddhist Advice Column: How can I come to terms with the bad things I did?
The idea for this post came about when a reader emailed me with the following question. It wasn’t the kind of email to which I could dash off a two line reply. And I felt it needed to be answered. But how to find the time among my other commitments?
This was when it occurred to me that over the years I’ve received other, very similar emails. And there may well be readers who, although their life experience has been different, would also value a Buddhist perspective on this matter.
Thus was born the idea of an advice column founded on the directions I’ve had from my own lamas, or that I have encountered in my own Dharma journey. If you feel this idea has merit please let me know.
And if you have questions you’d like to have answered in future posts: please, ask away!
Q
I grew up so scared of my Mom that I kind of shut down, and closed off from everyone. When I married and had kids I still couldn’t handle emotions. I took drugs to escape, which made me treat people around me in ways I truly regret. I later met a man with a big heart who completely changed my life. His compassion is amazing and has made me a much better person. But how do I come to terms with what I did before? I did so many dumb and damaging things and I was in a kind of trance. But I need to reconcile myself with what I did.
A
One of the privileges of growing older can be an evolving clarity about our earlier life, and perhaps an opportunity to resolve the unresolved. Looking back, hopefully from a wiser and more compassionate perspective, it can be hard not to feel regret, even profound remorse, for the actions of our younger selves. Even understanding the reasons why as hurt people we hurt people, doesn’t necessarily absolve us of the pain that we caused.
How can we make peace with the fact that we said and did things that were emotionally insensitive, Â self-destructive, or perhaps deeply harmful to others? As you say, how can we reconcile our current, somewhat more enlightened selves with the actions of our former, more damaged one?
The first option, if available, is direct, practical action. When it’s possible to make a sincere, unreserved and considered apology to those whom we hurt, and to seek to make amends however appropriate, this is the best thing we can do. We have no control over how the other person may respond. But from our side we can try.
One of the most moving responses to my book Buddhism for Busy People was from a reader who told me that after considering the messages in the book he made a call to his long-estranged brother. They had an awkward conversation. Followed by a difficult but unburdening meeting. And subsequently, family gatherings that have been especially treasured by everyone because of the knowledge that they could so easily never have happened.
Nowhere in the book did I suggest that people should call their estranged siblings. But the Dharma offers a powerful motivation for exactly such actions. Teachings about how death is certain, the timing of death is uncertain and our minds, with whatever is imprinted on them, are all that moves on, offer a compelling reason to avoid dying with regrets.
If it is pride that’s holding us back - the feeling that both parties share the blame for whatever happened, and it’s up to the other side to make the first move - a lama would ask us where, exactly, is this ‘me’ who occupies the moral high ground? Why invent such a lame and insecure persona? Traditional mind-training (lojong) verses, tell us: When, out of envy, others mistreat me with abuse, insults or the like, I shall accept defeat and offer the victory to others. Letting go of the need to be right, of a self that deserves to be treated this way or that, frees us to be authentic in our actions. To offer heartfelt apologies, where that is the right thing to do, irrespective of how other people may or may not respond.
Most of us would recognize that, even if our attempts to resolve past harms are likely to be rebuffed, that shouldn’t stop us from trying. The other party involved may, or may not, come to review their initial rejection of our efforts. More important to our peace of mind is that we know we did our best.  Our effort to heal was genuine and open. That, in itself, can help us let go of the burden of our regret.
THE PRACTICE OF GIVING AND TAKING
This direct approach may not be possible. Perhaps the person we most wish to contact has passed away, or we have completely lost contact with them, or they have already made it abundantly clear that they have no wish to hear from us. In such cases, a powerful practice for resolving the unresolved is tong len, Tibetan for ‘taking and giving’. This is a meditation in which we visualize taking the other being’s suffering and giving them happiness.
The essential instructions are as follows:
Posture and motivation
We adopt an optimal meditation posture both physically and mentally, by taking refuge and generating bodhichitta. Refuge and bodhichitta are summarized in this verse, which is a powerful way to begin any meditation practice:
To the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha
I go for refuge until becoming enlightened.
Through the practice of giving and so on,
May I achieve Buddhahood to benefit all beings.
Visualize the person/people we harmed
We imagine that the person who we harmed is sitting a couple of yards away. You can begin with them side on to you if you like. Through successive sessions we will work to the point that they are facing us directly, meeting our eyes.
Mentally, or aloud if you enjoy privacy, say what you would most like to tell them. Make it heartfelt. Get it all out there as briefly or extensively as you would like, with no excuses or justifications. Be real.
Taking away suffering
Having expressed our profound regret for the pain we caused, visualize taking away whatever unhappiness the other person is feeling, whether through our own actions or for any other reason. We do this by visualizing that their pain, visible as smoke-coloured light, leaves their body and enters ours as we breathe in. At our heart is a small, shiny black ball the size of a marble. As we inhale, the smoke comes into contact with the black globe at our heart, causing both instantly to vaporise.
The shiny black ball represents our self-cherishing mind. That aspect of ourselves that’s all about me, myself and I. The part that led us to do harmful things in the first place. In breathing in smoky light, and having both that and the self-cherishing mind dissolve, we are seeking to do two powerful things at once: removing the pain we caused the other person, as well as the source of our own pain. We are using the power of our regret not only to seek resolution with the other person, but also to release the hold of that part of ourselves that is the cause of all our suffering.
We keep on taking breaths of smoke-like light. With every inhalation, we imagine the smoke coming into contact with the shiny black sphere and them both instantly dissolving.
I personally find it useful to be methodical about this. I might write down a list of all the forms of suffering I’d like the person to be free from and devote four, seven or ten inhalations to each item on the list. After a while, I am so familiar with the list I don’t need to read it. I know what comes next. And the list can always be updated as new elements come to mind.
If there is a group of people you are dealing with, rather than only one person, you may visualize them seated/standing in a particular way and work through each group member, one by one. Perhaps, you can combine the list and the person by person approach.
Sometimes people want to know ‘will this practice damage me?’ ‘Will I start suffering by imagining taking on the pain of others?’ In a word, ‘no!’ Not only will you be just fine. If you follow these simple instructions you will begin to sense a spaciousness, even a lightness in relation to the people and circumstances that once may have felt quite suffocating to you.
Beneath the simple process, tong len is healing because we are working on our minds at a profound level. Creating the space to express what we may otherwise have felt to be inexpressible. Dealing directly, yet safely, with the source of our pain, whatever that pain that be. Using tools to let go, as if peeling away different layers of an onion until we reach the point when we discover there is no longer an onion to be found.
Giving happiness
Halfway through our practice we let go of our focus on inhaling and concentrate instead on each exhalation. This time, we breathe out radiant white light, which the other person inhales and responds to, becoming visibly happy in our mind’s eye.
Whatever resources they need to find joy, we offer them. Again, a list approach is helpful. Let’s be specific. What exactly do they need? How best can we contribute? Even if they have passed on, knowing their mind to some extent, what qualities would they most benefit from – such as generosity, ethical restraint, tolerance, patience, contentment, determination, focus, courage? Offer them whatever qualities they need in unreserved abundance. Observe their reaction as they become more and more imbued with all the virtues of a beautiful, compassionate and inspiring being.
Tong len – broader applications
Although the focus of this column has been on using tong len to deal with regret, the applications of this technique are very much wider. We can apply it to any situation in daily life where there is suffering or unresolved feelings of pain or aversion.
For animal lovers, tong len offers us a way to be with a pet, or any other creature, who suffers. After we have done all we can using conventional reality, we can use this practice to take away pain and give happiness. And it’s my personal conviction that, as non-verbal beings, many animals are more tuned into our state of mind than is generally understood, and may well find comfort in our practice. We can do this while cuddling our pet, or even directed towards that one-legged pigeon in the park. Why not? We can also do it after the fact, when our beloved pet has died and we are seeking closure.
If we find ourselves in the presence of a person who is in pain and who we’re unable to help – same again. My wife does part-time retail shifts and uses tong len on customers who come into the store and seem unhappy or disgruntled. Better to use a rude person as a spur to practice than to reactively allow them to make you angry.
On a much broader scale, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when following global news. Right now, the world may feel like a scary place to be. Instead of turning into helpless mush, however, we can practice tong len. For both sides of any conflict. Take away suffering and its causes. Give happiness and its causes. At the same time, erode that ever-present, pain-inducing, concretized sense of a me.
Tong len is also the perfect device for dealing with politicians who cause us pain. Imagine them sitting right in front of us. Think about all the things that cause them to suffer – not only the immediate, perceived external causes, but the real causes that go to their upbringing and psyche. The reasons why they perceive reality the way they do. Now imagine that we could take all those causes of pain away from them, breath by breath, at the same time, eradicating our own self-centered grasping.
Focusing on our outbreaths, imagine giving them all the qualities they needs to be wonderful human beings and enlightened leaders. Visualize transformation!
Will we wake up tomorrow and see something on the headlines that proves our tong len has worked? Unlikely. But will we feel differently about them? Over time, that’s very much more probable. We’ll almost certainly feel a lot less up-tight and prickly and experience a far greater sense of equanimity about them than before. Because even that most appalling of politicians possesses no inherent existence either. They exists conventionally, but how they exist depends largely on our mind.
I personally found tong len a powerful way to help my feelings about the late former President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. A man about whom I initially had less than charitable feelings, the practice of tong len helped me better recognize him on a human level. See him not so much as a tyrannical monster than a deeply flawed, disappointed and miserable man, someone who began his adult life with extraordinary potential, but who ended it, shunned and loathed by almost everyone whose recognition he craved. A man who was ultimately quite pitiable.
As well as tong len, Buddhism offers many other tools to deal with regret, suffering and negative karma. There area a variety of purification practices to explore. But my sense is that tong len may be the most helpful in responding to this particular question
Summary
In time, our objective is to become such a seasoned practitioner of tong len that we can combine in-breaths and out-breaths in a perpetual cycle of taking suffering, ending self-cherishing and giving happiness. On and on, breath by breath, subtly but powerfully working on our minds. Thereby not only becoming reconciled to the stupid and insensitive things we once did, or others have done, but also better able to manage whatever suffering we encounter. To use those very things to empower our journey to transcendence. To turn mud into a lotus.
We often can’t change reality, but we can change the way we experience it. For me, this was one of Buddha’s most promising messages.
Other posts relevant to this one you may like to explore are:
Some kind of understanding of shunyata is useful when practicing tong len, especially in relation to the self-cherishing mind. If you’d like a short video refresher on shunyata, you can find one here.
About half the money you help me raise through your subscription goes to the following four charities. Feel free to click on the underlined links to read more about them:
Wild is Life - home to endangered wildlife and the Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery; Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary - supporting indigenous animals as well as pets in extremely disadvantaged communities; Dongyu Gyatsal Ling Nunnery - supporting Buddhist nuns from the Himalaya regions; Gaden Relief - supporting Buddhist communities in Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal and India.
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Thank you for telling us clearly about Tong Len. It has taken me most of my life to free myself from my parents (now both deceased) criticism. What a wonderful way to come to terms with them as humans with their own struggles. The collateral damage to us children was huge. But maybe this is the struggle many of us have. It also helped me to understand my own complicity in this cycle, and see a more rounded picture.
Hi, David,
I want to thank you for this article. For the last few years, I have been barraged by memories of when I was mean, rude, foolish, mendacious, self-serving, etc., with and to other people. It has been unceasing and I have been stymied as to how to deal with this, to make things as right as I can now, even when I have no idea what became of the person/people. It has been a burden in my later years. I have been working to be humble, accepting and loving. I feel this has not been enough and I shall give Tong Len a try. Thank you so much!