Mindful By Nature
Introduction
For many of us, our relationship with nature is so remote that the natural world is unknown, unpredictable, and thus a bit scary. Our wall of isolation is so thick that we often don’t feel connection even when we do go into the natural world. It is only when we recognize that the armor of isolation is self-imposed that we can start breaking through and feel the healing that comes from time outside.
Most of us go about our days pretending our bodies are singular entities with skin that marks the boundary between what is “me” and what is “not-me.” But give this a try: visualize yourself lying in the middle of a tennis court (or better still go lie in one). Crane your neck to see the sidelines and baselines. You probably feel yourself as a small independent unit inside a big box. But consider, the surface area of just your lungs is as big as the entire tennis court. The length of your blood vessels carrying the oxygen you absorb from the air is over 60,000 miles long! Your breathing pulls in over 2,000 gallons of air every day. You are way bigger than the tennis court. You are inside the air and the air is inside you. Even among the living cells that make you, there are way more nonhuman cells, microorganisms like bacteria and viruses, than there are “human” cells. Further, the stuff of your body is intricately woven with, and into, the fabric of the cosmos itself. Your atoms were forged in the stars. There is no place where you stop, and nature begins.
The disconnect that our society has created among each of us and the outside natural world is mirrored in the equally thick and hard disconnect we have with our own internal world—our hearts and minds. In the same way that the nature connection movement stems from a deep sense of longing for connection with nature, the mindfulness movement does this for our inside world. With mindfulness, there is a desire for a reconnection with our own true nature. Here lies the beauty and power of where mindfulness and nature connection mirror and support one another: connection with true nature—inside and out.
The current mindfulness movement and the current nature connection movement have developed mostly independently from each other. Yet, early Buddhism connected the development of mindfulness with time in nature. One of the most influential Buddhist texts on mindfulness (the Satipatthana Sutta) instructs the practitioner who wants to develop mindfulness to “go to the forest, or the root of a tree.”
When the world of mindfulness and nature connection are brought back together, what looks like a simple nature awareness practice becomes a door to understanding ourselves. Likewise, a mindfulness practice focused on inner consciousness leads us to a direct connection with all of nature and life. Mindfulness and nature connection mirror and support one another. Let’s explore what happens when we direct our efforts into reestablishing the connections between our inner and outer nature. Inside and Out is an invitation to step into the natural world and to find your seat in the middle of it all.
This book is laid out in five sections, each built around a story of personal experience that offered a valuable lesson. There is an order here, but each chapter stands on its own, and if you are drawn to skip around feel free to follow your curiosity! Chapters conclude with an activity or meditation that we call “Try.” These Trys are the actionable steps to building the muscles of awareness, inquiry, and presence. Let these Trys truly be invitations and a jumping off point for your own experiential learning. Be loose with them, and feel free to modify them as needed so that they best serve you. You can bring the book out with you and follow along with a Try step by step if you like, or you may want to read one in the comfort of your own home and leave it all behind while working with the heart of the Try.
See you in the forest, or the root of a tree!