Good Monday Morning!
It is a sultry soft morning here in the forest. I literally live right in the trees, a condition that came about through forces other than my own. I would have told you I prefer the bright sunshine, the open sky, the warmth and solidity of the mountaintop rather than a place on the steep, dark north side of said mountain. But, I have come to love and appreciate the forest in whole new ways since living here. I have come to enjoy the cool cuddle of the trees even when the day gets hot. And I’ve come to learn so much from the smell of things when I step out each morning. I am still, I confess, quite squeamish about the well-padded forest floor, not knowing what kind of life forms await my bare feet. And the bugs and I are still in some kind of conversation about my right to comfort here in their domain.
But as a result of living here and on the recommendation of a friend I have been reading about forest bathing. It turns out that more than just lounging under a tree or hiking in the forest, that forest bathing is a practice akin to but not the same as meditation practice. This fact caught my attention. I was curious. How are they different, forest bathing and meditation?
Meditation practice, as many of you know well, has been a huge part of my life for more than half my life at this point. It is a primary source of refuge and nourishment for me, a way that I care for myself and ultimately, how I learn to care for others. What struck me in reading about forest bathing was that he articulated the difference in this way:
“Mindfulness and other meditation practices calm the mind and deepen our connection to the present moment. So far, so good, we are on the same page. But the difference arises in that meditation emphasizes equanimity, in which no experience is considered inherently better or worse than any other. In contrast, on forest baths we particularly
welcome pleasure and delight.”
M. Amos Clifford
It is something that I often emphasize myself when offering meditation instruction; no one thought, feeling or sensation is more important than any other in a meditation session. Instead the idea is to cultivate and welcome presence to all that one is experiencing. In forest bathing, you cultivate and welcome all that you experience and then orient toward that which brings you pleasure and joy. These are not in any way mutually exclusive endeavors in my estimation. But noticing the difference in them seems important and even critical to personal evolution.
Tonight I am offering a live instruction, talk and discussion about meditation that I presumed to title “Why Meditate”. I don’t know why you meditate but I meditate because I know that my mind is fickle, unstable and prone to disaster. When I apply the instruction to regard all things equally, I am able to appreciate the nature of my mind rather than fight with it. Appreciating ourselves and regarding our experience with some equanimity, empathy and compassion seems like really good medicine these days.
But joy is a food hard to find sometimes. And pleasure can bring us home to ourselves when all seems lost. These last few weeks as I have learned about forest bathing and cultivated an orientation toward pleasure and delight in the forest around me, I notice how much more at home I feel. I notice that I am more at home with all aspects of my experience; joy, happiness, as well as sadness, irritability, and even anger. Not to say, that I haven’t struggled with some of the feelings. For certain, I have. But it is the atmosphere of home, finding home here in the forest that stands out for me.
For me, finding home does not mean I will stay there. It is not a fixed point. But it does mean I can return. Just as I return to my breath in my formal practice, I can return to joy, anger, sadness, pleasure in my other forms of practice. Perhaps forest bathing will bring me to spend more time with joy, but I will also spend time with my own sadness, my own anger, and my own equanimity coming to know the full range of my own being, and the places that I might reliably call home. I will be breathing and taking in myself just like I might take in the trees, fully, joyfully and respectfully.