This summer has been a gift. It’s brought connection and perspective. Connection with the swaying grasses, the lodgepole pines, the sweet smell of juniper. Perspective on the wisdom inherent in nature and the mutual healing that is possible, if we pay attention.
In part, I thank random luck for these gifts, having fallen into the travel plans that coalesced this summer. But I also know that had I not brought mindfulness into my experiences, I wouldn’t have recognized the gifts that arrived. I wouldn’t have seen how powerfully mindfulness complements my direct experience of nature and how nature facilitates my deepening of mindfulness.
It’s not easy to pay attention in our distractable world. And our distractions are costly when it comes to our relationships, particularly with the natural world. In our busyness and self-centeredness and absent-mindedness, we forget how to see and feel and smell what is around us. This mindlessness can lead us to believe that we are separate from nature, that our actions don’t matter.
Our teenage son brought a friend with him on a family lake trip this summer. After spending five days outside fishing and exploring the mountain lakes, the friend threw his chewed gum out the window on the way home. As he rolled the window back up, he said sarcastically, maybe with a hint of shame, “it’s too late for the earth. Nothing I do will make a difference, anyway.”
Hopelessness has been an easy condition to fall into. But so too has apathy. Watching both play out around me, I see how profoundly we’ve lost our way. How much we have forgotten.
In Pali, the ancient language of the Buddha, the word for mindfulness is Sati which can be translated as both “awareness” and “remembering.” It refers to the awareness that helps us see more clearly what is within us and around us. It is also the wakefulness that helps us to remember who we are and what is important.
I’ve been touching into what is important lately. A few weeks ago, I found myself meditating in the middle of a national forest in New Mexico, thanks to a friend who pointed me to a meditation retreat for educators. For five days, I did nothing but open to nature.
I spent hours in an open-air tent breathing in and out, with the silence of the mountains. I practiced walking meditation through narrow paths of wildflowers and young pine trees. I experienced lying meditation on soft pine needle beds. On a day of wandering meditation, I traversed the land slowly, taking in the sounds of the winds and feeling the river swirling under my feet.
I got wet in rain showers and noticed how small and vulnerable I felt. I rejoiced in the safety of my casita when I arrived in the middle of a torrential downfall. I felt the mud slosh under my boots as I trekked back and forth to the dining hall. I woke up to the rain and let it wash away my fears and loneliness.
My five days in silence was not all “peaceful” as people often assume silent meditation retreats to be. I had no distractions from the unrelenting fears and panic that washed over me with the same force as the torrential rains. While I knew from experience to not make my mind the enemy, my sticky mental habits had me running laps through tunnels of fear.
I also had moments that were fresh and clear just like the air after the rains. The daytime smells of pine and dirt centered me and brought me comfort. The sounds of birds chirping, water flowing, and wind rustling kept me steady, relaxed and alert as I followed my breath through the hours of meditation practice.
Toward the end of the retreat, I got the crazy idea that global warming didn’t exist in this valley. That somehow, the ancient inhabitants of the land had formed a protective barrier around it. And the meditators that had come seeking clarity, calm, and compassion over the years gave the healing that they received from nature right back to the land. I had moments when I sensed that all would be well.
Two weeks after the retreat ended, I found myself back in a beautiful natural setting, this time overlooking a lake surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. Our family trip with our son and his friend involved a different kind of mindfulness. The kind that required leaning into the frustration of adolescent egocentrism and bringing compassion to the part of me that experienced our son’s desire for independence with as much sadness as pride.
Attending mindfully to the cascade of emotions, I called upon two tenants that Ram Das imparted in his teachings:
1. Spiritual practice is being fully engaged without being attached.
2. Letting things be is the forerunner to letting things go.
There is an inherent paradox that runs through the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha on the nature of reality. The seeming contradiction of being fully engaged without being attached points to simultaneous truths. Like when I am quiet and in the presence of nature and I experience both joy and sorrow, peace and grief, all at the same time.
In these moments, I return to what meditation teacher Jack Kornfield shared, a lesson imparted from his teacher, Ajahn Chah: “There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and in doing so become free.”
I have spent plenty of time running away from suffering. So, I’m doing things differently now. I embrace silent meditation retreats. I sit with the discomfort of fear and loss, rejection and grief, aging and change. I stay present so I can remember the preciousness of this moment, of this life, no matter the circumstances.
Something within me has stirred this summer in a way it never has before. Perhaps it is that the contrasts around me have never been more apparent: the suffering in the world and the beauty that I see. I am working to accept and even embrace both. I don’t see another way. These are the laws of nature, after all. And given the gifts I have been given, I am nothing but grateful.
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