Summary: This weeks podcast features a lecture by Ethan Nichtern on the practice of Tonglen. The lecture was given on October 24th 2011 in New York City. This is the first of a two part podcast. Translated as "giving and taking" Tonglen is practice where one visualizes taking on the suffering of others and offering happiness in return. A training in dissolving the boundaries we normally place between the "self" and "other," this powerful practice focuses on opening the heart to new possibilities of relating with the world. Shastri Ethan Nichtern is the founding director and Senior Teacher in Residence of the Interdependence Project. For the past eight years, Ethan has taught ongoing meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and retreats in New York City and around North America. He is on the part-time faculty at Eugene Lang College at New School University and lectures regularly at Brown, Wesleyan, and New York Universities. His new book "Your Emoticons Won't Save You" will be released in January 2012.
