Cultivating Mindfulness When Financial Worry (Or A Loss Of Some Kind) Is Overwhelming

“If we are perfect and complete, exactly as we are, ‘lacking nothing,’ as the Buddha says, then why all this emphasis on mindfulness, storytelling and community? Mindfulness, storytelling, and community are where we realize our perfection.” ~ William Alexander

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

What do you do with your feelings of worry? Do you feel them, analyze them, reject or ignore them?

When I worry about not having enough money to make ends meet, I often try the technique of “putting it out of my mind” in the hope that my tidal wave of anxiety will go away.

What about other losses: a partner's job, a loved one, a house you wanted, a school you hoped to get into....

After a few years—just after losing my much-beloved grandfather to a fatal stroke—I began the technique of breathing in the very thing I was afraid of—impoverishment—and, via exhaling, releasing the notion that, “I have exactly what I need for now.”

One day, on my 70-mile commute to work to the University (for the whole ride), I “breathed in the fear” and “released the calm that I was seeking.” I found myself slipping into a warm “tub of peace” without escaping into fantasy or hyper-attending to my worst fears.

Two weeks later, my amazingly-brave-and-brassy grandmother died. I was so grateful to have discovered a practice that helped me grieve the loss of both grandparents and that I could work with for the stress-filled months that followed.

It was a first for me to find non-destructive ways to soothe myself through difficult feelings—something I had never been able to do prior to that point in time.

The name of this mindfulness practices is called Lojong or Tonglen and was first exposed to me through Tibetan teacher Pema Chodron, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s senior Dharma student, who is now head Abbess in Nova Scotia’s Gampo Abbey.

[NOTE: Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (February 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and a Trungpa tülku (an incarnate Tibetan Lama). Widely recognized, both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars, as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training Method. He has also been a prolific translator of Tibetan].

In this particular breathing practice called tonglen one uses “mindful” or “relaxed attention” given to the feelings that arise during meditation without getting overwhelmed by these emotional experiences. It is precisely through working with this feeling-filled, mindfulness practice—carried on the wings of my breath—that I have found the greatest comfort and relief.

No need to rush out of uncomfortable feelings into anesthetizing with food, alcohol, spending, or hyper-fixating on the problems of others to find relief from an anxious mind. We can go into the feeling and witness its transience.

The thing we are each searching for is already within each of us. No drug, well-behaved children, perfect mate, or financial windfall can provide the calm we can create through nurturing it via our mindful breathing.

Breathing mindfully is like listening to waves on an ocean, always available to attend to—the ebb and the flow of our very own, breath-spirit (spiritus in Latin). One thing that I’ve found over the years is that this practice takes practice.

It’s like training a skittish, stray cat to “stay still” and trust that today will take care of itself. To begin this practice, experiment with focusing on what you are dreading right now and work with it in this exercise (below).

Making This Practice My Own:

The Practice of Tonglen

Each of us has a “soft spot”: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain. Often, when we feel that soft spot, it’s quickly followed by a feeling of fear and an involuntary, habitual tendency to close down.

This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and cling to pleasure. In practice, however, covering up the soft spot means shutting down against our life experience. Then we tend to narrow down into a solid feeling of self-against-other.

One very powerful and effective way to work with tendency to push away pain and hold onto pleasure is the practice of tonglen.

Tonglen literally means “sending and taking.” The practice originated in
India and came to Tibet in the 11th century. In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, loving-kindness, freshness; anything that encourages relaxation and openness.

In this practice, it’s not uncommon to find yourself blocked, because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or whatever your personal “stuckness” happens to be at that moment. At that point, you can change the focus and do tonglen for yourself, and for millions of others just like you, at that very moment, who are feeling exactly the same misery.

I particularly like to encourage tonglen, on the spot. For example, you’re walking down the street and you see the pain of another human being.

On-the-spot tonglen means that you just don’t rush by; you actually breathe in with the wish that this person can be free of suffering, and send them out some kind of good heart or well-being.

If seeing another person’s pain brings up fear or anger or confusion, which often happens, just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way.

When you do tonglen on the spot, you simply breathe in and breathe out, taking in pain and sending out spaciousness and relief. When you do tonglen as a formal practice, it has four stages:

First, rest your mind briefly in a state of openness or stillness.

Second, work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy, and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light. Breathe in and radiate completely, through all the pores of your body, until it feels synchronized with your in-and out-breathe.

Third, work with any painful personal situation that is real to you. Traditionally, you begin by doing tonglen for someone you care about. However, if you are stuck, do the practice for your pain and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind of suffering.

Finally, make the taking in and the sending out larger. Whether you are doing tonglen for someone you love or for someone you see on television, do it for all the others in the same boat.

You could even do tonglen for people you consider your business competition—those whom you think could ruin you. Do tonglen for them, thinking of them as having the same confusion and stuckness as you find or yourself. This is to say that tonglen can extend indefinitely.

As you do the practice, gradually, over time, your compassion naturally expands—and so does your realization that things are not as solid as you thought. As you do this practice, at your own pace, you’ll be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be there for others, even in what seemed like impossible situations.

[See more meditation exercises from Pema Chodron in her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times]. For another groovy book on the subject of emotions, addictions and mindfulness, see my book Loving Life As It Is!