This morning,
I'd like to reflect a little bit on the power of the natural world to draw us into the spirit of practice.
And of course,
In our outer environment,
In the outer world,
The natural world,
The wilderness itself is reflecting back to us that essence of wildness,
That essence of the untamed,
The uncontrolled dimensions of our own experience,
Reflecting back to us that uncontrolled,
Untamed part of the self that is this unfolding of our feelings,
Of our perceptions,
Of our thoughts,
The wild within.
And in the lineage of teachings of the Buddhist tradition,
There's a long history of devotion to the wild,
And that's what I want to highlight today,
That it's possible for us to be devoted to the wild.
And we're seeking to connect to our inner peace,
Inner mindfulness,
Centeredness,
The wilderness,
And even just something as simple,
You know,
Maybe in a city,
But something as simple as a tree,
A plant,
A flower in our house,
You know,
Can draw us into relationship to the wild.
And we might say that the outer wild,
You know,
The outer wilderness reminds us of the inner wild,
The inner untamed flow,
And the body.
The body is not just this human body,
But it's also this animal body.
Our body is this resource for the practice of meditation.
If we want to access the wilderness,
Actually,
The easiest way is just to come down into our own body.
Our body as the animal body is self-regulating,
Has its own wild wisdom.
It's expressing groundedness,
A relationship to the earth.
And by bringing our attention there,
We notice this simultaneous grounded,
Solid material,
Quality of the body.
It helps teach the mind to ground.
And then we also notice the flow,
Right?
The body is in flow also.
We're feeling the air on our skin.
Our sensory experiences are changing.
We're hearing sound.
So there's also this flow.
And that's uncontrolled.
That's wild.
There's nothing about that that we can stop.
Our thoughts,
The flow of our thoughts,
The flow of our emotions,
That's like a spontaneous,
The inner wild,
The innermost wild is spontaneous unfolding over which we have very little control.
And before we develop a meditation practice,
Or when we're in the very initial phases of developing a meditation practice,
We are carried away by that wild.
We're carried away by the thoughts.
We're carried away by the emotions.
It's hard to find ground when we're first starting to develop a meditation practice.
It's hard to find ground because we're so attentive to or enmeshed with the changing nature of our moment by moment present experience.
We are enmeshed in the content.
We're enmeshed in the content of our mind.
We're reacting to the stimuli in our environment.
We're in this echo chamber of stimulus and reaction.
So in one way,
We could say that meditation is this skill of finding stillness in that movement.
But then how do we find the stillness?
Where is the place of refuge when everything is changing?
Our thoughts are flowing.
It's a waterfall.
And the stimulus happens and we react and then our inner judge,
Our inner critic comes in and comments on,
Oh,
You're so easily distracted.
You can't stop your thoughts.
You're hopeless at this practice of meditation.
So there's all these layers of reactivity that are arising when we're first engaging in the practice of meditation.
So where do we find our refuge?
Where do we find our place of rest?
It's in the gaze of a loving witness to everything that's unfolding there.
Just like we are right here,
Right?
Gazing at a wilderness,
Gazing at the trees or the lake or the sky.
If you're in the city,
The wilderness is right above you,
Just gazing at the sky and the changing weather.
So the way that we can be with that in a state,
We don't have a lot of trouble being in the wilderness in a state of wonder,
Right?
It draws us into this state of wonder.
Oh,
Wow.
There's the lightning and the clouds,
Sometimes a little bit of trepidation if it's a strong storm.
But we are in a state of wonder and of communion with nature.
So we can bring that same sense into our practice of meditation,
Being in a state of wonder about these thoughts.
Wow,
Look at those thoughts.
Look how wild they are,
Just like the weather,
Rising,
Appearing,
Dissolving.
Look at that inner critic.
Listen to its chatter,
Just like the chatter of the geese or like the birds,
Right?
So I think when we're first meditating,
We tend to think some thoughts are bad and other thoughts are good or peace is good and agitation is bad.
But we can take the analogy of how we are in the natural world onto the sea and be that way with our own experience,
Natural thoughts,
Wild thoughts,
Natural feelings,
Wild feelings.
And the content of what's unfolding,
Less focused on the content and more noticing the energy of the chatter in the mind.
Wow,
This is so bubbly like a stream.
And then we find refuge in just being the steady,
Open,
Loving witness of all of that.
Just letting that all unfold,
Letting it arise,
Abide and dissolve like a storm passing.
And even in time becoming like long champa,
Devotion to the wildness within,
Like devotion to the flow that whatever is happening,
Whatever is unfolding,
We can make room for,
Have compassion for,
Have respect for in the same way that we might have respect for a wilderness,
Reverence for the wilderness,
Reverence for the wild inside of us.
And learning to hold,
Being the host of the storms,
Being a host of the weather.
So those are a few reflections I want to offer you today.
This invitation to turn towards the wild outside of ourselves as a place of peace and support,
But also turning it towards the wildness within ourselves as a place of wonder and curiosity.
Thank you.
