Tonglen in Nature

The instructions for this practice are simple. They are different from the practice of tonglen found in the Bodhisattva Path. This is a dzogchen rushen level tonglen practice.

Go outside and find an animal that is experiencing some form of distress. This is not difficult. Most wild animals are either hungry or afraid of becoming someone else’s food. You might find a bug caught in a spiderweb. Or even a spider waiting in an empty web. Go outside. Find something real.

When you find the animal, stand in a relaxed stance. Do not lock your knees. Let your channels be aligned, your posture steady but comfortable.

Now imagine the suffering of the animal. Exchange yourself with it. Feel as though you are in two places at once. You remain in your own body, standing there — but you are also inside the body of the animal. Feel what it feels. See what it sees. Sense its fear, its hunger, its confusion.

This is called exchanging self and other.

It may feel like double vision. You are inside the animal, yet aware enough of your own body not to fall over.

Now, from the perspective of your ordinary body, perceive that suffering — the suffering you are feeling as the animal — as black smoke, like the exhaust of a bus.

Inhale it through your nose.

As you inhale the black smoke, you draw the suffering back with you fully into your own body. Let it come to the place where you maintain separation — the holding bubble that keeps you separate from the universe. Call it your ego bubble. Call it your sense of self. Imagine it however you like — as an aura, a membrane, a sphere.

The black smoke strikes that bubble.

The bubble pops.

The smoke and the bubble annihilate one another, like matter and antimatter meeting. They destroy each other completely.

What remains is only pure, clear, transparent light. No you. No animal. No suffering. No boundary. Just luminous presence filling everything.

Do not imagine yourself sending light out.

You are not sending anything.

The light simply is.

Rest there for a few moments.

Then gently return to your ordinary sense of self. Walk on. Find another animal. Repeat.

That is the entire practice.

There is no suffering left. No ego left. Only the natural light of awareness.