Where Golden Gate Park Meets the Panhandle

Several places come to mind, but this one has appeared to me in meditations recently and has surprised me.

In the practice of Tonglen meditation, one imagines herself breathing in the "poison" (whatever is causing you suffering), bringing it into her heart and burning it up or transforming it, then breathing out compassion.

Last month when I was doing this practice, a place would open up in my minds eye with my exhalation. It was the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park, where the park meets the Panhandle, near where I used to live. This is an urban / open-space hybrid place. It's also the place where the fog often transitions to sunnier skies. It offers a perfect visual frame for entering the park. The allay of big cypress trees opening into a grand intersection with the backdrop of the trees and green-gold fields of the park beyond, all formally arrayed but with wild trees to punctuate. Coyotes roam in the park and you can see hawks catching gophers on the lawns.

This is a place that I noticed and visited constantly when I lived nearby, it was my jogging route. But didn't give much thought to it. But now it opens up for me when I breathe out compassion.

- AH