Mariposa Reflections

We are delighted to announce that our Mariposa Reflections and its companion Meditation gathering, have started up again after the summer sojourn. Mariposa Reflections explores Nature Consciousness, ways to connect, commune, and support kindred Animals and Plants. Please join us!

Aman caressing an Elephant’s trunk, a woman nuzzling a Horse, another planting a tree, a child holding a Cat, friends camping under the stars – all are cameo portraits of humanity’s pull to contact Nature. This yearning has intensified exponentially with the dramatic onset of climate change, COVID, and mass extinctions. All of a sudden, Nature – everything that is not human or human-made – has become terribly precious. Precious because the Animals and Plants we have taken for granted are disappearing, and precious because we realize how damaging the now globalized culture has become. More and more people are searching to heal the primal wound of separation and re-connect with Plant and Animal kin.

Re-connection entails more than physical contact. Although industrialized culture strives to physically buffer itself from Nature’s rhythms and ways with things like air conditioners, heaters, fruit and vegetables on demand, and plastic, human life cannot separate from Nature. We cannot escape connection. Every aspect of life is connected – the air we breathe, the soil upon which we walk and live, the wind upon our faces. . . The feeling of separation comes from within, fed by the idea and perception that humans are somehow apart from the rest of the cosmos which has led to a damaging and disrespectful connection. Re-connection, then, speaks to something else, something beyond skin deep of a very different nature.

We know this intuitively when watching Dolphins arc through ice blue waves, Deer float through seas of grass, and Ravens lace the clouds. We feel their seamless oneness. They belong, they are home, they are Nature. How can we become like them? Albert Einstein knew the answer.

The great physicist once said that problems can’t be solved with the same thinking that created the problems in the first place. In other words, to “re-connect,” to feel at home in Nature, means that we have to jettison the ways of thinking that have led us to believe we were separate and better than Nature. Reconnecting with Nature is learning how to think like a Dolphin, think like a Deer, and other Plants and Animals. Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield, describes it this way: “You sit and you sweep the garden and it doesn’t matter how big the garden is. You steady yourself, you quiet your mind, you tend your body and heart until you feel a kind of presence and courage and compassion, love, and then you get up to the garden of the world and you bring that in.” Thinking like Nature is bringing Nature inside.

Nature consciousness has served Animals well. Elephants, Octopuses and the amazing, spectacular diversity of other species have lived and thrived together for millions upon millions of years because they think the same. Each and every one embodies the same ethic. Each and every one follows the same principles which spring from Nature Consciousness. Our path of return to re-connection begins with a practice- the practice of Nature mindfulness.

What does Nature Consciousness mean to you?

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness. – David Bohm

Afternoon sun gilded the room where my friend and I sat drinking tea. Tea – it suited her so well – a golden elixir melding and mellowed by years of natural refinement. We often sat in silence listening to the Songbirds lacing the treetops and blossomed brush. This day, however, held a ghost of blue – some other presence with a Mona Lisa smile.

I reached out and touched her hand, “You seem somewhere else.” She looked over at me and as she spoke, tapped her wooden chair, “At eighty-nine, I am more often elsewhere than here. The unseen keeps gaining ground. It’s like standing on the beach. Wave after wave, moment after moment, gradually pulls the sand from under your feet until you suddenly find yourself ankle deep, water swirling round and round carrying whispered voices of the past.” She paused, then added, “It’s all part of learning what it means to be nothing.”

I leaned forward, my mouth beginning to form words of protest, ready to pour forth how she was anything but “nothing,” how she had managed to check all the boxes of achievement over the arc of her rich, deep life- a loving family, academic accolades, the luxury of living in peace in the beauty of the land, and so on, but before I could say these things, she held her finger to her lips, signaling not to speak. “Being nothing,” she continued, “is a wonderful achievement. Realizing that I am nothing is an outstanding un-achievement – just like an Unbirthday.” Obviously, surprised and pleased with this image of the Mad Hatter’s Unbirthday party, she started to laugh, one of those laughs which rolls through the air catching everyone and everything with its contagious joy. We laughed and laughed until we were worn out, breathless, gasping sighs and streaks of tears. Only a handful of days later, she passed.

I had met her in my twenties, she in her fifties, and over the years our intersection evolved into entwined dialogue of soul. Our time together took place in that space beyond form so it was natural that while I feel the pinch of loneliness, missing the companionship we shared for so long, she has never left my side. The conversation continues, her words come with the wind passing through the chimes.

Now, I too, enjoy feeling like I am nothing. It is a familiar feeling, one that harks backs to childhood before the lacquer of ego took hold. It was easy to feel like nothing when you feel like everything – the Planaria and Water Skimmers in the creek, the Chickadees, heads cocked as I wound my way through Sycamore branches, azure blue enveloping and pressing down as I lay on the green, green grass of summer. Today, it is the brush of a Black-tailed Deer and glance of a Wild wondrous Turkey who open the door to nothingness as we enter side-by-side.

Photo credit: Igor Xandtork

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

I’m going to die. Time is running out for me and for my companions,  my brothers of the river who, like me, were born in these waters four years ago…Our lives are coming to an end after a long, dangerous journey but we have made it here to the place where we first emerged into the world, the place where we have chosen to die.

This is the voice of a Salmon narrated in the documentary, Land of the Giant Bears. [1] After several years of living in the wide Pacific, the Fish return home to spawn, lay or inseminate eggs in the stream bed gravel where they were born. The journey is arduous and many have begun to die even before they give life.

Their bodies, weakened by labor and age, become splotched by skin-changing Fungi. Yet wherever they reside – from ocean saltwater, stream highways and byways, to reaches of tiny, natal creeks – the Salmon are home. An appreciation for the unity of Fish and water is reflected in the now popular phrase, “like a Fish out of water,” coined by Geoffrey Chaucer. The fifteenth-century English storyteller drew on our scaly kin to describe the extreme unease and awkwardness that we feel in unfamiliar, uncomfortable places or situations. [2]

Certainly, the last legs of the Salmon’s journey home are physically uncomfortable. Their bodies are spent and natal waters often require deft navigation to successfully wind a way along the rocky spines. Indeed, there are many moments when they are “Fish out of water.” Salmon who travel up the creek running below our cabin are two plus feet in length. In many places, they are too big for the waters to cover. You can sense the Salmon’s relief when a glistening green pool is reached where she can rest and literally catch her breath. But, even under less stressful conditions, Salmon are in physiological tension every place they occupy.

They are anadromous, meaning that they are Fish who live in both salt and fresh water. In both cases, the composition of their environment is radically different than that of their own internal systems. On average, ocean waters are three times as concentrated with ions (salts) as the Salmon’s interior. In freshwater, the opposite is true. Creek waters are much more dilute. To thrive and maintain wellbeing in these environments, Salmon use osmoregulation.

Young Salmon emerging from their freshwater birthplace do three things: drink a lot of water, decrease kidney production of urine, and initiate molecular pumps in their gill cells which push ions (salts) out. [3,4] These processes reverse when the Fish return to freshwater. By this evolutionary magic, the Fish’s internal fluids retain a healthy profile. Salmon are a perfect illustration of Thich Nhat Hanh’s re-configuration of the Four Noble Truths.

These four truisms might be thought of as cornerstones of Buddha’s spiritual home: the existence of suffering, causes of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the way, or path, to cease suffering. Thầy (Teacher), as the nonagenarian is affectionately and respectfully called, suggests that instead of defining and describing the Four Truths in terms of suffering, we approach them from the perspective of wellbeing. “Even Buddha and Bodhisattvas suffer, but the difference between them and us,” Thầy explains, “is that they transform suffering into joy.”[5]

We see this miracle every moment in Nature. Salmon retain wellbeing through physiological transformation of chemical compositions, which would otherwise cause them great suffering and death, into solutions perfectly tuned to their internal needs. Every undulation of the Salmon’s body and fins is flawlessly aligned with the lines of moving water. Inside and out, the Salmon follows a path of wellbeing. Even when stretched out on the rack of pending death during the last moments of the spawning journey, Salmon stay the course of wellbeing. Suffering and death are synonymous with joy and life.

Learn More

[1] Planet Doc. 2014 [film]. The Land of Giant Bears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltvxKi9rEkI
[2] Geoffrey, C. 1977. Canterbury Tales. Penguin.
[3] Toolson, E. 2021. Acclimation of Osmoregulatory Function in Salmon. https://www.unm.edu/~toolson/salmon_osmoregulation.html
[4] Sakamoto, T., & McCormick, S. D. 2006. Prolactin and growth hormone in fish osmoregulation. General and comparative endocrinology, 147(1), 24-30.
[5] Hanh, T. N. 2009. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. Parallax Press.

Photo credit: Igor Shpilenok

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

Like people on the Moon I see, are things not meant to be.
– James Taylor

When a rocket leaves its orbit in space and returns to Earth, it is referred to as re-entry. Before landing, the spaceship must first negotiate the planet’s atmosphere, the nebulous cloak which provides breath for Earth’s inhabitants and gentle protection from direct contact with the Sun’s powerful rays. Beyond this second skin, outside the Kármán line, the ambiguous boundary one hundred kilometers from Earth, lies the vastness of space.

Departure and return are not easy. The struggle to break free of Earth’s embrace is costly – the planet holds on tightly to her own. Re-entry is also demanding. As descent through the atmosphere begins, the spaceship is captured by Earth’s possessive gravitational pull. Free fall is countered by friction created at the interface of ship and air. The heat and noise are awesome. [2]

Surviving this radical transition from space to Earth, astronauts assert, depends almost completely on attitude, the appropriate angle of descent which is about forty degrees. [3] The same might be said about the radical shift that the entire planet is experiencing today.

Humanity has also sought to free itself from Earth’s reaching pull and connection. For millennia, our species has striven to be in orbit, unattached and unattending, in the space of separation. Lift-off succeeded, but soon fuel, literally and spiritually, ran out. We have now begun an unintended descent back to Earth and are experiencing the tearing tension of re-entry.

During the descent, the meeting of minds has become sharp and shredded, relationships worn and frayed from the friction of fear, uncertainty, and mistrust. We are enveloped in the roar of reintegration. To survive, humans must find and adopt the appropriate attitude. But, what does the angle of forty degrees translate to in terms of human re-entry?

The answer is quite simple: being Nature. Being Nature entails peeling away the perceptual, psychological, ethical, and physical barriers which have been erected to create the delusion of separation from Animal, Plant, and other Nature, including fellow human beings. Stripped of these maladaptive dramas and dreams of future and past, we emerge into the present, “in between what might have been and what has come to pass.” [1] By being present, in full contact with each moment, we experience awakening from a seductive, but dysfunctional, dream. The great unhappiness gripping humans everywhere is the grief of non-acceptance, the loss of what we thought could be, but is not.

By aligning our attitude with Nature, our rhythms take on the cadence of the seasons and subtleties of the ebb and flow of change of which we are an inextricable part. Cooling relief pours over the heat of despair as we land and sink into the roots of life, into Nature’s stillness. We discover that during all this time spent in empty orbit, the Animals and Trees have been waiting, waiting and willing us home.

Learn More

[1] Taylor, J. 1971.  Long ago and far away. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmL9EiItUa4
[2] Clark, S. 2020. Dragon astronauts describe sounds and sensations of return to Earth Spaceflight Now. Retrieved from https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/08/04/dragon-astronauts-describe-sounds-and-sensations-of-returning-to-earth/
[3] McGrath, J. 2021. How Do Spacecraft Re-enter the Earth’s Atmosphere?  How Stuff Works. Retrieved from https://science.howstuffworks.com/spacecraft-reentry.htm

Photo credit: Erwan Hesry

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

“Play was important for the cubs. Their world wants to be around play at that age. It was wonderful to be with them. They were always playing and you could not help but feel joy because of their joy. Their roaring around, chasing each other and jumping into the water – it was infectious. Just now, thinking of them, I can’t help but laugh. Once you are able to join them in play, it makes the world completely different. If you see Edge of Eden, like the part when I take the cubs sliding on the snow, they are watching me and trying to figure things out. They aren’t very coordinated when they get so enthusiastic and slide and jump in the air. First, when they try something out, it’s a serious attempt, then as soon as they feel reasonably safe, all hell breaks loose. They test themselves even further, like in the snow, trying out steeper slopes. When they do this, they become a deeper and deeper part of the world they were born in.” [1,2]

Charlie Russell’s snapshot description of young Brown Bears offers insights into both the cubs’ early experience and instruction on the inner body, the delicate interface between consciousness and the material form it inhabits. First, a little more background about the cubs.

After witnessing their mothers killed, the Brown Bear cubs (Eurasia’s counterpart of the North American Grizzly) were stuffed into cages at hunters’ homes or inside zoos. During his stay in Kamchatka, Russia, Charlie was asked, in appreciation of his decades-long experience with Bears, to rescue, rear, and reintroduce captive-held cubs to the Russian wilderness. Over ten years, Charlie squired ten cubs, not including those of a wild mother Bear who hired him to nanny her own while she went off to forage. [2,3]

As soon as their painfully etched fear relaxed into trust, the cubs looked to Charlie for the guidance and care that mother Bears provide. This schooling is conducted in the embrace of an intimate 24/7 three-year relationship during which cub minds and bodies are shaped to match the micro (interpersonal) and macro (wild society) settings in which they will live, raise families, make friends, and die. Critically, during this time, cubs develop ways of knowing and being – an episteme and ontology – which implicitly inform a code of ethics. This perspective is vital for understanding the nature of trauma and its healing.

When the cubs saw their mothers killed and were forced into captivity, in large part, they were not physically harmed. They experienced a deficit of nurturance physiologically, but the most formative assault was in the realm of the invisible. The young Bears were literally torn from the “world they were born into.” Shock and deprivation cut-off fluid access to the stream of consciousness springing from its source, the eternal, timeless, unmanifested. [4] Trauma is a cataclysmic breach of natural ethos.

In many cases, such experiences lead to the atrophy and desiccation of the inner body. The psychic tear and stranglehold of confinement are so profound that the captive is left aground, alone in the madhouse of the mind. Many others, however, such as Charlie’s cubs and the infant Elephants cared for by Dame Daphne, are resuscitated. [5] It was not only their needles of understanding and threads of love which Charlie and Daphne used to deftly sew back together the gaping wounds, but the ways and place in which this mending took place. The infants’ torn roots were re-planted in their native soil, their bodies and souls cultivated in harmony to “become a deeper and deeper part of the world they were born in.” [2] The image of Tree re-planting is apt.

Animal mobility plays a trick on the human eye giving the footed, winged and scaled the appearance of less rootedness than their herbaceous brethren and sistren. But while their bodies may move through sky, waters, and land, the Eagles, Salmon, and Bears of Kamchatka possess invisible connection to source as mighty as that of the Trees. Charlie’s inner shape-shifting to a surrogate mother Bear was successful precisely because of this intuitive understanding.

The exhilaration we hear in Charlie’s voice springs from his recognition that connection of the cubs’ inner bodies to source had been restored. The young Bears were re-inhabiting their bodies, the life force was visibly pouring through and invigorating their awkward developing forms. Their joyful play reflects inner revitalization. The “visible and tangible body is only an outer shell, or rather a limited and distorted perception of a deeper reality. In your natural state of connectedness with Being, this deeper reality can be felt every moment as the invisible inner body, the animating presence within you. So to ‘inhabit the body’ is to feel the body from within, to feel the life inside the body and thereby come to know that you are beyond the outer form.” [4] This is the world that the young Bears and Elephants were born into. This is the world to which we must return.

The path to Being begins with the path to being Nature. When we withdraw consciousness from the mind through Nature mindfulness, meditation, and prayer, we re-occupy our bodies releasing the revivifying flow of pure consciousness into outer form. By simply bringing attention to our breath, we touch into Nature consciousness and the stream of all life.

Learn More

[1] Turner, J. & S. 2006. [film] Edge of Eden: Living with Grizzlies.  Retrieved from https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/6781/The-Edge-of-Eden–Living-with–Grizzlies
[2] Bradshaw, G.A. 2019. Talking with Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell. Rocky Mountain Books.
[3] Russell, C. 2011. Grizzly Heart. Vintage Canada.
[4] Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now. New World Library.
[5] Bradshaw, GA. 2021. Elephants and Existence. Mariposa Reflections. Retrieved from https://kerulos.org/elephants-and-existence/

Photo credit: Charlie Russell

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

After receiving last week’s Martians and Meditations post, a reader wrote: “Meditation tries to unhook us from thoughts and thinking. But doesn’t tonglen do the opposite when we’re asked to think about someone while we’re doing the practice?” That’s a good question and leads to an interesting topic: the relationship between contemplation and activism.

As many spiritual teachers point out, meditation and contemplative prayer are not activities, but states of un-doing. They guide attention to the inner body, a point of access into the realm of being which is beyond name, beyond form, and beyond incessant thinking.[1] Thinking hijacks consciousness and reduces it to thoughts. In the process, we become hostage to endless stories about the past (whether it’s yesterday’s argument at work or decade’s old rumination about a difficult relationship) or the future (worries about the consequences of climate change or what the doctor will say tomorrow about test results). But, in between past and future is the pause where we can come into direct contact with Nature consciousness, where the Animals live. This is also where tonglen practice is grounded.

“Setting up” for tonglen is not done in haste. First centering in presence is essential. Tonglen instruction begins by asking us to come into stillness and flashing on bodhicitta, the awakened, open heart. [2] Once in touch with inner stillness, gently attending to our breath, we are ready to engage in the practice. As we inhale, we take in heavy negativity – what Pema Chödrön describes as a feeling of claustrophobia. As we exhale, dark negativity transforms into light, fresh, and positive energy. Taking in and sending out in the medium of the breath occurs without thinking. It is an embodied, inclusive practice of compassion. [3]

The next phase of tonglen asks us to bring to mind a difficult personal situation or, in a more expansive engagement, those who are experiencing widespread suffering – the millions of Fish dying from pollution or Seabirds choked by plastic refuse. Thoughts that conjure an image or sense of those in need inform the practice. While meditating, Seabirds are held in presence without thinking. This active connection with others for whom you are bearing witness takes place in the space of clear consciousness, William James’ sea into which all minds are plunged.

In this way, tonglen is a form of activism. It is engaged in the space where we are connected with all life. Practiced in stillness, tonglen is 100% embodied accompaniment because it is being with another in the substrate of love. “I” and “Thou” are linked at depth. This brings an incredible potency to material activism that uses our bodies, thoughts and words in support of others in diverse ways – through petitions, nonviolent protests, actions, letters, speeches and writing, and how we live every day. As bell hooks noted, “The civil rights movement was such a wonderful movement for social justice because the heart of it was love—loving everyone.”[4]

Abstinence from consuming Animals as food, clothing or other uses and abuses is a critical, material act. It is the external expression of our inner connection with Animal kin which we nourish and cultivate through practices such as tonglen and prayer. Inner practices are vital because without profound internal transformation, external change will only reach so far. Words and actions need to be deeply rooted in consonant consciousness, what Franciscan Father Richard Rohr calls, “full bodied knowing.”[5] Oak trees stand tall and long because they are firmly planted in the Earth. Elephant society thrives generation after generation because their consciousness is rooted in Nature’s love. Contemplation in action is the path to becoming Nature. Contemplation in action is the path of human transformation.

Learn More

[1] Tolle, E. 2004. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. New World Library.
[2] Chödrön, P. 2021. How to Practice Tonglen. The Lion’s Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/
[3] Brach, T. 2018. Tonglen: Radical Compassion – Tara Brach leads a Short Talk and Meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1q36_Ac7sw
[4] hooks, b. and Thich Nhat Hanh. 2017. Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh. The Lion’s Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-and-thich-nhat-hanh-on-building-a-community-of-love/
[5] Rohr, R. 2012. Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking, disc 3 (Center for Action and Contemplation.

Photo credit: William H. Majoros

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

When I was just the age of starting school, there were two television programs, what would be called science fiction shows. They were not, however, just futuristic tableaus. Episodes always had some odd, almost eerie, twist and carried a message. Perhaps because I didn’t watch television much, I only recall one episode and just flashes of certain scenes that have stayed with me all these years. The details may be a bit muddled, but this is the overall story.

The episode opens with an early 1960’s man at home. He is wearing the business uniform of the time—a dark suit, white shirt, tie, and a hat in hand. After kissing his wife’s cheek and saying good-bye, the man gets into his car to drive to work. But he is startled to see that an unusually dense, enveloping fog has materialized overnight. Visibility is almost nil.

I’m not sure what happens next, but somehow he, his wife and neighbors realize that their entire block has been hijacked by outer space abductors. These un-earthlings look somewhat like giant Lizards. The purpose of the neighborhood kidnapping is to perform an experiment — use the neighborhood as a case study to determine whether Earth is a suitable place for colonization.

The outer space abductors go to great lengths to maintain isolation. Any contact with their subjects turns them into alien Lizards and the experiment fails. The humans, of course, are terrified. This fear changes everything. The once-friendly Saturday drinks and barbecue neighbors suddenly turn into paranoid, hostile, and aggressive enemies. If someone becomes “contaminated,” s/he is immediately thrown out (or it could be that they are killed).

One day, much to her horror, the wife of the business man, discovers a patch of alien Lizard scales on her neck while she is sitting at her bedroom dressing table brushing her hair. At first, she tries to hide the fact from her husband, but soon, he too knows. Both are terrified that the neighbors will find out and she will be expunged.

I don’t remember what happens next, but everyone eventually finds out. The episode’s final scene shows the neighbors, including the businessman and his wife, in a circle holding hands. They have decided to stand together, in solidarity—foil the outer-space experiment to save the planet by turning themselves into Lizard aliens. So how is this related to meditation?

These images arose during a practice of tonglen, what Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön describes as the “taking and giving in the medium of the breath” [1] At first glance, especially today when everyone is overwhelmed by images, experiences, and thoughts of Animal and Earth suffering and that of fellow human beings, tonglen seems utterly counterintuitive. The recent surge of interest in contemplative practices has come about not only because they facilitate the transformation of human consciousness from its course of destruction to one of loving wellness, but they help heal and alleviate the intense suffering we empathetically feel and experience.

Fear, anxiety, grief, and loss automatically create contraction, a pulling away from what is unpleasant. The body and mind are averse to what is perceived as potentially harmful or distressing. Our hand pulls way instinctively when we touch a hot stove, and Deer and Wild Turkeys run, fly, or leave when they hear loud human voices, motors, and noise. Also, when we witness someone in pain and suffering, there is the tendency to look away, resist and block out painful emotions that arise.

In the shadow of climate change, uncertainty, and pervasive violence, these emotions and behaviors of self-protection tear us from life’s substrate of oneness. The retraction into the hard shell of ego increases a sense of alienation and isolation, which in turn produces further fear and pain. Symptoms of this positive feedback loop manifest in a multitude of ways: strained and fractured relationships, increased aggression, and deepening despair. Tonglen seeks to reverse these mental states of contraction.

The practice can be engaged during a structured meditation or, as Pema Chödrön encourages, “on the spot,” in real-time, during a difficult encounter or situation. Tonglen is usually described as a several step process. [2] It begins with cultivating a spark of openness and extension. Then, from this sense of stillness, light, and spaciousness, we breathe in textures and colors of suffering, fear, and distress—a sense of heaviness, darkness, negativity, and heat. When breathing out, we send out freshness, light, and positive energy. In-breaths and out-breaths are accompanied by these visualizations. Notably, instruction for tonglen is accompanied by a caution: be careful to start out gradually and not become overwhelmed. As in any practice, the pace is personal and calibrated to individual capacity.

The next suggested step or phase is to reflect on a personal painful or distressing situation. For example, you may feel hurt and rejected by a friend. Breathe in these feelings for yourself, and at the same time for others who are having similar feelings and experiences. On the out breath, send out compassion, love, and acceptance for yourself and others.

Finally, expand this process to the “bigger picture” by going beyond the personal. This entails doing tonglen for those whom you may not know who are suffering widely. Pema Chödrön recounts how her teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche engaged in tonglen:

When he was eight years old, Trungpa Rinpoche saw a whimpering puppy being stoned to death by a laughing, jeering crowd. He said that after that, doing tonglen practice was straightforward for him: all he had to do was think of that dog and his heart would start to open instantly. There was nothing complicated about it. He would have done anything to breathe in the suffering of that animal and to breathe out relief…It is your connection with the realization that there are puppies and people suffering unjustly like that all over the world. You immediately extend the practice out and breathe in the suffering of all the people who are suffering like that animal. [3]

Millions upon millions of male Chicks in factories around the world are carried on a conveyor belt to be ground up and killed.[4] In the U.S. alone, approximately, 30,000 Chicks are killed every hour. [5, petition below] In addition to activism to stop these cruel massacres, you can accompany the Chicks with a practice of tonglen. You might breathe in their feelings of fear, confusion, and despair, and on the out-breath send relief, love, and blessings. Tonglen can also be practiced for those you consider agents of violence and suffering. The practice is the same. Breathe in the darkness and pain, and breathe out healing and compassion.

While tonglen  may seem counter-intuitive, it can be incredibly healing for oneself and others. By taking in pain and sending out healing, there is a recognition of connectedness, and appreciation that we are not isolated and not alone in our suffering. Neither are those for whom we practice tonglen. Similar to the abducted neighbors who decided not to abandon and attack each other, we can re-connect by reversing the contraction of pain to expanded inclusion. This sense of shared life and care brings us back into presence and oneness.

Learn More

[1] Chödrön, P. 2012. Opening the Heart. SoundsTrue.
[2] Chödrön, P. 2021. How to Practice Tonglen. The Lion’s Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/
[3] Chödrön, P. 2021. Practicing Compassion with Tonglen Meditation. Spirituality and Practice. https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/practices/view/27815/practicing-compassion-with-tonglen-meditation.
[4] Egg Truth. 2021. Retrieved from https://www.egg-truth.com/
[5] Animal Equality. 2021. [petition] Baby Chicks Killed for Being Worthless. https://animalequality.org/action/ban-chick-culling?utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=ad_grant&utm_campaign=awareness&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4NX7laHf9AIVIiCtBh35dgE0EAAYASAAEgLJ0_D_BwE

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

I wonder what I ought to tell you about the friendship there was between me and a falcon? —Carlo Carretto, I, Francis

Last year, I completed a book. I am listed as the sole author, but the content and essence of the text were guided by a Rabbit. In many ways, the collaboration was no different than others. Diverse authors, including scientists, ascribe their discoveries to sources other than their own analytical operations. The fantastic science fiction of Felix Eberty sparked Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. A coiled snake in the dreams of chemist Friedrich Kekulé led to his imagining of the benzene ring. Helen Cohn Schucman maintained that she played no part other than passive amanuensis for an unknown voice to create the dense spiritual tome, A Course in Miracles.

C.G. Jung and other seers attribute these exchanges to expressions of the psyche’s vast, fluid nature which is inextricably connected to the entirety of life. While the material world may appear as an assemblage of individual entities embedded in empty solitude, in actuality we live in William James’s world of accidental fences which, one by one dissolve into the authentic matrix of Nature’s unseen world.

Usually, when the word “Rabbit” or other Animal name is used, there is an intrinsic objectification and diminution. What is said or written is instantaneously subjected to a different set of inferences and judgments relative to those associated with humans. But as our species is slowly learning—whether from science’s admission of cross-species neuro-comparability, traditional Indigenous views, or personal experience—judgments based on externalities alone are misguided and incomplete. Fences might make good neighbors, but their separation is illusory. The ego is a remarkable magician whose masterful sleights of hand create interior and exterior barriers and boundaries which give the appearance of such solidity, such stability and permanence. Yet even the most seemingly impregnable walls inevitably crumble, fumble, and disappear into the dusty arms of mother Earth.

While my co-author navigated the world as a Rabbit, her form was only a medium of practical expression for operating in the material world. She heard and played life in the scale of Rabbit because that was how she was differentiated when she entered into form. Her life essence was communicated through a Rabbit interface of reflections and feelings much as mine enter through the form of human.

We spent twenty hours a day, side by side. For four years, we co-existed in what fifth century theologian Pelagius described, “the luminous pause between the two great mysteries.” When she was no longer able to use her back legs, we moved in together so I could provide her with what she was unable to do herself. Others knew us by our assigned names, yet we spent most of our time in life’s invisible reality. While they were intertwined in everyday tasks of cleaning, caring, and eating, our lives flowed and unfolded below the fractured, frantic waves of the materialed mind.

Her physical limitations were minor brush strokes on the limitless canvas where her lifelines were drawn. This boundlessness was extended to me. Each day, as she lay on the futon beside me, I read aloud what I had written as she diversely munched on kale, Italian parsley, cilantro, and wild blueberries which had become staples because of other health issues.

I do not think she understood individual words that made up my writing, but she understood the content and intent. She accessed meaning by listening carefully, fully present, her ears tuned to subtleties of rhythms, tones, and textures of phrases I spoke. The meaning was not only communicated to her verbally, but through embodiment. German philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of language mean the limits of my world.” We became freed from this constraint because our language did not rely on words.

I was awed that she cared so much to push through my layered shell of human conditioning to the “deep I.” Her dedication was transformational for the both of us. She became almost translucent from the radiance that grew from within. Our coordinated internal shifts affected how we heard each other, our respective senses silently directing toward and sensitive to any subtle movement in each other’s field. I unconsciously and automatically adjusted my perceptions as I listened to her wordless reflections. My writing was fed in part by our interactions, but largely informed from the shared timeless space we occupied together. From here, thoughts would shape and percolate upward, differentiating as they entered into my human mind, finally rendering as words spilled out onto various pages.

She not only changed my life, Tommy changed my reality. She showed me that an individual self does not exist in the singular. While immersed in Nature’s beauty, humans egregiously mistake this diversity as difference. It is only when we understand that differences in form are nothing more than glove to hand, that the miracle of Nature’s magnificent splendor is realized. Beneath these dazzling forms is the one. The bodies we see and touch are merely diverse guises. When we gaze at the rugged face and torso of a hundred foot Ponderosa Pine and realize that his self is intermingled with our own, we are awestruck. This revelation is similar to the discovery that one is not a single Herring, but an entire school of Herrings, not one Starling, but the entire murmurating flock painting the sky. Our authentic self, the true self, emptiness, the Christ, Buddha nature, presence or however it may be described is, by definition, plural. “I” is indivisibly “we” and revelation, relational.

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.

A s we saw before, moments of deep love can break through internal walls and release us from the ego mind. This story of Elephants and their human family shows how it is possible to live like this, without difference, and create a culture of oneness.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is located outside Nairobi, Kenya. For more than six decades, they have rescued injured and orphaned Elephants, now numbering over 260 individuals. After re-joining Wild herds, many have gone on to further revitalize their ancient culture by giving birth to infants as they once were. The vast majority of rescued babies would perish without the skills and heart of the Trust. Not only are their lives saved, but the sensitive and wise care developed by founder Dame Daphne heals physical and psychological wounds enabling the orphans to be reintroduced and become part of Elephant culture repair.

The Trust emulates the natal family, the nucleus of Elephant society, which is typically comprised of a leading matriarch and group of allomothers (aunties) who shelter and care for their own and other infants. From conception onward, the brain, mind, and ethics of an infant pachyderm are shaped not by one, but an entire constellation of Elephant minds and bodies. At the Trust, infant care is trans-species, made up of human and Elephants who recreate a natal quilt. The ties that bind transcend species.

Recently, three former orphans who previously had recuperated and rejoined other Wild Elephants arrived at the Trust. This in itself is not unusual. Often, many ex-orphans pay a visit and introduce their children to their human family. This day, Yatta, Chyulu, and Sidai, three ex-orphans now grown, came with their children, Yetu, Yoyo, Yogi, Cheka, Sita, and the newborn Silas. The Elephants’ visit, the Trust carers were soon to discover, was more than the makings of a baby shower.

Sidai had a poison arrow wound in her rump. The Elephants had turned to their human family for help in this life and death situation. Without medical assistance, it was likely that the poison eventually would kill Sidai. Immediately, medical care was mobilized. Despite being darted with a sedative that made Sidai lie on the ground, the other Elephants remained calm, fully cognizant of what was going on. They gathered round while Sidai received necessary care. Thankfully, the poison had not found its lethal way and she recovered.

In the wake of her recovery, Trust carers reflected on what must have transpired. While they showed great joy at seeing their friends, the Elephants were nonetheless “gaunt,” indicating that the family had travelled a great distance under hardship. The Trust carers deduced that the Elephant mothers had been challenged by a difficult decision—make the trek to the Trust for vital medical care or stay near a stable source of water vital to the vulnerable infants. The mothers chose wisely.[1]

There are so many layers to this glimpse of life, but perhaps first and foremost, the great love and trust the Elephants mutually share with human family and friends. Identity and self are unbounded by form, indeed beyond the concept of difference, a mental habit that is so deeply engrained in modern human culture, minds, and perception. We are literally programmed to see and judge immediately whether someone, something, is either this or that. This habit is not only unnecessary for living, it is also the root of widespread violence and suffering. There is a way, however, of perceiving and living without defining difference.

Instead of contracting into egoic “me” and “them,” we might train our gaze to see the whole without breaking it into pieces, as we might when admiring a Turkish rug that is rich in colors and textures, yet exists as one unbroken whole. Encounters and relationships then become the one-beyond-form experienced by two forms. This ethic of oneness is associated with the idea of “accompaniment,” whose etymological root relates to the Spanish compañero, “friend” and the Latin, ad cum panis, “to break bread.”[2]

Accompaniment is how a Leopard Seal in the Antarctic attended to a human diver she believed was in distress.[3] Although she diverted precious energy and time to an unrelated species with no expectation of a “return on investment,” the Leopard Seal existed and acted beyond ego in the space of oneness. Similar to the Seal, the Trust carers and the Elephants were not reaching out to someone else, but to themselves. Elephants, Seals, and other nonhumans are born into and come from oneness. As American psychologist William James described: “There is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir.”

Learn More

[1] The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. 2021.  Sidai’s Saga- and Her New Arrival. Retrieved from https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/sidais-saga-and-birth-of-silas
[2] Watkins, M. 2019. Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons. Yale University Press.
[3] Bradshaw, G.A. 2021. Leopard Seal Compassion. Retrieved from https://omere.ca/essays/leopard-seal-compassion

~ Dedicated to Tommy ~

Mariposa Reflections is a weekly e-post paired with Mariposa Meditations, a biweekly online Nature mindfulness and meditation gathering. Sign up here to receive weekly Mariposa Reflections. Learn more and register for Mariposa Meditations here.