I just took a wonderful walk around campus. Enjoying the trees, the cool air, the squirrels… there are hundreds of squirrels busily working to get ready for the winter; feverishly burying nuts all over campus. It is one of my favorite things to watch.
While walking, I just focused on breathing and letting my mind be open. Open to to the world around me and open to my heart. And focusing on relaxing. I need to do this more often. As previously mentioned, I become a much better practitioner of Buddhism when I’m going through a change. Perhaps that is what the change is for!? To get me to refocus on the things that I need to be doing.
There is a beautiful practice in Buddhism called Tonglen. It is a meditative practice focused on taking in the suffering of others. I’ve been doing this for C since this entire mess started. Basically you breath in the pain of others and exhale happiness in an effort to reduce suffering. You can do this for an individual or for a group of people. I encourage you to try it. The beauty of this philosophy is that you are not exhaling bad things from your body, because you don’t create bad things… you exhale things to reduce the suffering of others, because we do have the ability within us to do that.
Amelia's Hope Blog 