The Earth will be safe when we feel safe in ourselves. – Thich Nhat Hanh
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer.
Breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it and realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth. Not to cut the tree not to pollute the water, that is not enough.
Touching Mother Earth inside of Us
We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. The practice of mindfulness helps us to touch Mother Earth inside of the body and this practice can help heal people.
This kind of enlightenment is very crucial to a collective awakening. In Buddhism we talk of meditation as an act of awakening, to be awake to the fact that the Earth is in danger and living species are in danger.
Seeing the ultimate dimension in nature. Image: Aaron BurdenActivists have to have a spiritual practice in order to help them to suffer less, to nourish the happiness and to handle the suffering so they will be effective in helping the world. With anger and frustration, you cannot do much.
When I am mindful, I enjoy my tea more. I am fully present in the here and now, not carried away by my sorrow, my fear, my projects, the past, and the future. I am here available to life. When I drink tea this is a wonderful moment.
Touching the Ultimate Dimension
If we are able to touch deeply the historical dimension – through a leaf, a flower, a pebble, a beam of light, a mountain, a river, a bird, or our own body – we touch at the same time the ultimate dimension.
The ultimate dimension cannot be described as personal or impersonal, material or spiritual, object or subject of cognition – we say only that it is always shining, and shining on itself.
Touching the ultimate dimension, we feel happy and comfortable, like the birds enjoying the blue sky, or the deer enjoying the green fields. We know that we do not have to look for the ultimate outside of ourselves – it is available within us, in this very moment.
I feel so happy .. I had one of these days today. Thank you!
This is absolutely beautiful and touches me deeply. While it is so true in the life I am living now fully attuned to my inner-child’s esteem. Which is fully attuned to the Earth.
Thank you for sharing these beautiful pure words.
After traveling for almost 15 years I have spend years in the jungle, have ordained as a Buddhist monk just for a short while to discover I wanted to be part of society while it’s all there for us to experience. But I always found my sanctuary in Nature. Last year I spend half a year in the Borneo rain forest after which I sailed in the Caribbean and then across the Atlantic for another half year. I mostly ended up finding my spot out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of pristine Nature (which is my everything) for long periods of my life. Every time I returned to the city because practically everyone has moved there, I always felt left alone, I felt lonely even, I never felt more connected as being in the middle of pristine Nature, even when being in a city stuffed with people.
Nowhere in a city or on the internet do I feel this connection that I feel in Nature. And the more you are totally out there, in the middle of the ocean, the more I feel connected to everyone. You are oneness that connects us all, and I can even communicate with people. Even if they do not hear me directly, serendipity answers. We can feel each other. The same way I learned to communicate with animals, while they were the only fellow beings around sometimes. Throughout time I re-discovered my innate ability to listen to trees, mountains, water, animals, which I did as a child. I love places where everything around you is alive. You are sooo in tune with the Earth and everything is communicating with you. It’s like a beautiful theater, a play of divine expression, magic, beauty, everything is in place, all that we are from within, but just lost touch with. Just because we are living someone else’s dream. For me life is an experience, that we step into ourselves, that we are creating, and co-creating in tune with the Earth is so far more easy. Nature always provides you with everything we need for our journey.
The beginning of last year I sailed across the Atlantic when I eventually found another biosphere that I now call my home. But my home is the Earth. Now I live in the most gorgeous place in Menorca where I guide explorations and give workshops in Mindful Photography to connect people to this beauty and get in tune with the Spirit of the Earth, as found within. So I am in love with what Thich Nhat Hanh wrote.