Whenever you become aware of suffering, you can practice tonglen. You might see on the TV news a family who has just lost their home in a flood or fire. You might be traveling on the freeway and see a car accident. You might be at an AA meeting, listening as someone describes his or her struggle with alcoholism. Right on the spot you can breathe in, letting yourself feel the immediacy and sharpness of that hurt and fear. Exhaling, release the pain into the openness of awareness, with a prayer for relief. After spending some minutes in this way, enlarge the field of compassion, breathing for
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