I am a forest monk living a very simple meditative life in the forest in Norway. This life very much deepens my relationship to nature. In Buddhism we develop our awareness through meditation and allow nature to teach us. Many Norwegians have said to me that their time in nature is almost a spiritual experience. I don’t know what they mean with ‘almost’ – through deep contact with nature we develop spiritual qualities in the mind. Ultimately, if it goes deep enough, this can lead us to spiritual enlightenment, where our mind enters into a very stable, natural state. For this reason Buddhism is full of practices to help us connect more with nature and develop these spiritual qualities to the full. In nature, as maybe we all know, the mind can become very calm, peaceful, humble and grateful for all that nature gives us. We can naturally develop love and respect and feel inspired to help nature. We become wise too, seeing our real place and role in the world.

To me this is a spiritual way forward for mankind that also, naturally and without pressure, leads us to behave responsibly with respect to the environment.

It is so natural and pleasant to go out into nature, isn’t it. We can relax and lose ourselves in the scene, feeling at one with our surroundings. This can be especially so in the mountains where we feel so small… I remember many a time sitting meditating high in the mountains, following the breath and feeling like I was breathing in all the vast space around me. Following the breath and continuing to let go into such a scene, we can lose ourselves more and more and something lovely can happen. We can disappear completely and, with no sense of self or centre to our awareness, our field of vision becomes a field of awareness. This quiet, empty awareness opens up to more fully take in the scene. We can still focus on something when needed but if we are relaxed we are still open to whatever is occurring. We can keep an eye on a rocky path we are walking while still appreciating the countryside. This is our most natural state of awareness, beginning at the outside world with our body in the background as we pay attention to our feelings or posture or how we are moving. 

If we remain calm and open even as we are aware of the body we can still feel at one with the scene. We can find that our sense of self still does not arise.

And if we can sustain this kind of awareness and keep letting go, relaxing into it, our mind can become very peaceful, quiet and clear.

Then, if we direct such peaceful awareness in the present right back at the body we may, at least momentarily, see our body as part of the scene, part of nature. This can be a very profound experience, much more so even than we may realise at the time. In this way we begin to see our body in a completely new way as if it were also something outside of ourselves, just like somebody else’s body even.  

Again, if we remain calm this does not feel at all strange but also very clear. We can even realise how confusing it has been to see the body in the usual way. We can realise we have been seeing our bodies or other’s bodies just as a source of feelings, not really as a body or even as a human being very much. With our new view we find ourselves unable to see other’s bodies as different from our own and we have a more natural empathy and compassion. We find ourselves tuning in fully to the natural world and find a naturally loving, very spiritual space.

Perhaps all this is why so many describe having had their first spiritual awakening way up on a mountain peak. 

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I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

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​It was summer and he was staying at his cabin for a well-deserved rest from work. It was a beautiful morning to sit on the verandah. To the south was an open view of the forested hills. To the north the verandah was enclosed by windows offering a view of the forest behind through the glass. Drinking his morning coffee and looking through the windows at the beautiful forest he felt peaceful and happy. He played around smiling at his reflection in the window. If he focussed just right his reflection looked like his spirit floating out there in the forest.  

For a moment he lost himself in the scene: 
‘The peaceful mind is just like this window,’ he thought, ‘it is both an opening to the world and a mirror in which we see ourselves.’ Suddenly he felt as light as air. He had completely disappeared into the scene around him. 

Continuing to gaze at his reflection, his mind silent and open, his feelings were somehow projected onto his image as it returned his gaze. The space of his mind became very peaceful and still as his feelings naturally sought refuge in the forest’s leafy hiding places, gathering together like a flock of birds in the fading summer ready to depart. 

‘Are my feelings not happy in the forest?’ he wondered. ‘

‘Why are they still restless?’ 

He sat at the window the whole afternoon, enchanted. Gradually as the light changed, his reflection disappeared. The sky behind him was reflected in the window and a view of the forest appeared above him where the roof over the verandah shaded the windows. 

Now the forest looked like heaven and he found that he didn’t miss himself at-all.
 
‘The forest is ever more beautiful when the ghosts of our minds take flight,’ he thought. 

‘And our empty mind is free to roam the sky of our hearts, open and bright.’ 

‘Such is true love,’ he thought.




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It’s never too late to be kind to the world
it’s never too late to love

a true love
is a simple life
cherishing all beings
with a heart like the sky
it’s never too late to love

for our own sake 
it’s never too late

for goodness sake
it’s never too late

even if it’s too late to save the world
it’s never too late to be kind to the world
it’s never too late to love

and if we can let go 
and go with the flow
we will always be able to love

​​our goodbye nature
is deep inside

our goodbye nature
can never be tied

our goodbye nature
is as free as a bird

our goodbye nature
knows the absurd

for it is our goodbye nature
that says hello
that lives and loves
with nowhere else to go

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​I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

​In my family it was a tradition to get together sometimes and have a big purge of the house to get rid of anything we did not need or want anymore and create some space. The cupboards and drawers would start to overflow with stuff and we would know it was time. It was always difficult  at the beginning. There would be so many memories associated with everything, 

‘Aunty Dorrie gave us this’ or ‘do you remember the day...’

As the purge went on, however, we would begin to see the space and order we were creating and start to enjoy the process. There was a great relief to being free of all the clutter. 

If we let go of things more and more this sense of relief, of freedom can become paramount and we get bolder and bolder in what we get rid of or give away. 

We can start to incline towards simplicity, our living room goes Zen. We start painting everything white. We build a tree house in the garden. We delete our Facebook account. We look at the stars at night. We have space in our life. We are happy in a completely new way.

This is the joy of renunciation. It goes a very, very long way…

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​I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

It was a fine autumn morning in September when, arising a little stiffly, I realised I needed to take my body for a walk. I calmly set off, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with a little gentle happiness, nothing special. Yet setting off through the forest with a mellow heart I found myself wishing a good morning to all the trees and other inhabitants.  To my surprise that morning to calmly and sincerely say ‘hello’ to nature brought the experience alive in a brand new way - I did not just see a lot of pretty shapes and colours, acknowledging all the living beings out there in this simple way I naturally felt full of love and respect. 

I congratulated the trees for growing well this year and the ants for building their hill even higher.

Likewise my concern for nature felt more personal, more human, coming from an immediate and realistic perspective. My love felt safe beginning at the heart and not going straight to my head. My love was constructive and open, active not passive, not full of opinions and expectations. I was not thinking that things should be this way or that and starting to worry. I was not wanting anything. I was simply ready to help. 

I helped a beetle across the road.

I ended up taking a long walk all the way to the ocean. Paddling in the gentle breakers the water was cool. The sand moulded to my feet and I was gradually invited by the body back to the cool ground of the heart for a well-deserved rest. It had been a memorable day.

And today, going about my business, I still find that I do not forget my friends in the forest and act irresponsibly. I speak up for my friends when the opportunity arises. I feel good inside where it really matters. And all this comes so naturally and simply just from remembering to say ‘hello’ to nature, straight from the heart.
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​If we sit still in the forest for long enough we naturally find our place in nature. There is no need to think. The beauty and the beast of pleasure and suffering together teach us all we need to know. 


And we find a balance and peace.


From the beauty we see the laws of nature expressing themselves, the purity of reason reflected in the order and symmetry. We see our minds as part of a greater mind.


From the beasts, from the weather and the bugs and from our own body, we learn that we are not in control. For our bodies, we know deep down, are part of nature too….


And, if we can continue to relax the body and let go, we will find the greatest of relief. We will realise how much to have tried to control had been a stress and a burden…. 


Going home, if we find stress calling us to again let go, we will find that if we can relax the body we can relax the mind….


And, as we relax the mind, we find that peace, order and reason return as if our heart was returning to its forest abode.

This is part 2 of the "Nature Series".

1. A walk in nature
2. Finding our place in nature
3. Hello nature
4. Our goodbye nature
5. It's never too late to love the world
6. True love for the world

Why is it that we feel so good when we go out into nature? There is more to nature than relaxation, than fresh air and exercise, more even than the beauty, isn’t there? We feel somehow at home, don’t we? How so? This is because our bodies are part of nature too. We realise this if we see that the more we are aware of the body the more we feel at one with nature. If we meditate, watching the breath coming in and out, it can seem to be like the breeze and suddenly we can feel part of something bigger. We can also discover that when we do this that our worries, even at a time of crisis, begin to fade. This is the case even when it is our bodies or our health that we may be anxious about with this virus around – in fact it is especially the case at such a time. Somewhere very deep down we can intuitively be accepting our situation as human beings, our place and finding an inner peace.

Then, returning home, if we can stay with the body, this peace will remain with us. We will feel calm and centred and prepared for whatever may come. 

Maybe deep down you knew all this already, that’s why you headed for the forest whenever you could. But did you realise the importance of being aware of the body in finding the peace you were looking for? And did you realise how deep it could go?

I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

In seeking both our own well being and that of the world we live in it is not just what we do that is important but how we do it, both in terms of our outer behaviour and how we work with the mind. If our personal relationship to the world is based on desire there will always be potential conflict. If this relationship is based on a higher mindfulness, conflicts can be avoided. We can have the same benevolent intention either way but one way will be fraught with suffering and the other free of suffering.

In Buddhism virtue is based on letting go of desire. We follow the conscious, peaceful mind in the present, not the automatic pilot of desire. We discover the joy of letting go of our desires and following our mindfulness, our spiritual awareness. This is based on the fact that if we honestly observe our own minds we discover that our desires are essentially insatiable. The impermanence of the pleasures of the senses always ultimately frustrates our desire. We also realise that our desires, in the spur of the moment, cannot see that impermanence. This makes desire itself unpleasant and we naturally opt for calm, for peace and for freedom from desire. This, we further discover, can be very liberating. We realise how our desires have been enslaving us all along.
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If we can thus let go of our desires and enjoy the peace and freedom that ensues it becomes a joyous thing to live humbly and frugally in harmony with nature and have no conflict with other people.