Welcome to this Tonglen meditation.
Let's start by getting into a comfortable position and slowly closing the eyes.
Go ahead and take some deep breaths,
Observing how the air feels as it travels into the body and out of the body.
Now allow the breath to resume its normal rhythm while keeping your attention on the experience of the breath as it flows through you,
In and out.
And if thoughts or feelings arise as you attend to the breath,
Know that that is completely normal and just kindly and gently return your focus to the breath.
Now I invite you to bring to mind someone in your life who is suffering.
It could be a family member,
A friend,
A colleague,
Or even a pet.
Picture them right in front of you and imagine that with the in-breath you can take that suffering away from them for a moment.
You might visualize their suffering as a dark,
Hot,
Thick substance like chimney smoke which you are drawing out of them by pulling it in with the breath into your big compassionate heart.
And next imagine that with the out-breath you can send healing to them.
You might picture the healing as a light,
Airy,
Cool substance like a fine mist that you're sending them with the out-breath.
Go ahead and take a few more cycles of breath,
Imagining that you can breathe in their suffering and breathe out healing for them.
Next I invite you to expand your vision to include your whole community however you wish to define that.
Bring to mind any way that your community is suffering right now or has suffered in the past and imagine that you are breathing in your community's suffering,
That dark,
Hot,
Thick substance and breathing out healing for them as a light,
Cool,
Airy substance and continue with that practice for a few cycles of breath.
Finally I invite you to expand your vision to include all beings near and far across the planet and imagine that you are breathing in the collective suffering of us all and breathing out healing to us all.
Trust that your heart is vast enough to hold all of this suffering and that your compassion is powerful enough to send out healing and continue with that practice for a few cycles of breath.
Now go ahead and allow the breath to simply return to being breath and notice without judgment what it felt like to do this Tonglen practice.
You may wish to place your hands on your heart and send yourself loving kindness and gratitude for showing up here and connecting deeply with the suffering of others and whenever you're ready you can open your eyes.
Thank you for meditating with me today.
