Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Mark Coleman. Mark is a senior teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and has been teaching insight meditation retreats worldwide since 1997. He’s the author the book Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery and also the audio program Poems from the Wild. As a founder of the Mindfulness Institute, Mark offers mindfulness consulting, coaching, and trainings in companies across the United States—as well as leading mindfulness teacher trainings in Europe and San Francisco.
Mark Coleman will also be a featured presenter at the 2014 Wake Up Festival in Estes Park, Colorado. That festival takes place August 20th–24th. For more information, you can visit WakeUpFestival.com.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Mark and I spoke about some of the most important wisdom that he’s gained from spending immersive retreats in nature. We also talked about how nature can be a mirror for our own deepest experiences. Mark shared with us a few of the initiation experiences he has had in nature. Finally, we explored how we might change and how our society might change if we paid more attention to our sensory experience of the natural world. Here’s my conversation with Mark Coleman:
Mark, if somebody wanted to have an experience of mindfulness in nature, how would you help them get started—no matter where they live, no matter where they might be listening to this? How would you direct them to have an experience—their first experience, potentially—of practicing mindfulness in nature?
Mark Coleman: That’s a great question. I think what I’ve found over the years is that no matter where someone lives—whether it’s in the country, in the mountains, close to the ocean, in the city, in a dense neighborhood—nature is everywhere. There’s something very powerful that happens when we simply step outside of our houses, cars, offices, malls, and we have some contact with the elements.
So, a lot of my work focuses on taking people out into wilderness or into parks—places that are somewhat far away from the hubbub of city life. But what I’ve found as I’ve taught people who live in San Francisco and other cities is that when we bring a contemplative attention to our experience and we go outside—when we bring a quality of receptivity, of openness, sensitivity to our sensory experience—we can have a rich contact with the natural world.
For instance, people often ask me, “I work downtown in the city. I get home and I’ve got kids at home. How do I experience what you’re talking about in nature?” I’ll often say, “Well, try when you have a lunch break—when you have a break—just going outside, walking around the block, and bringing awareness to your senses—bringing awareness to the elements that might be around.”
Normally, rather than noticing space, we notice what’s in the space. So, we notice the buildings and the cars and the people. But what we don’t see is the space that’s also affected by the wind, light, season, the possible sound of birds, moisture, and temperature. There’s a lot of ways we can start attuning to the natural world even if we’re—as I said—in a suburb [or] downtown.
What happens when we shift our attention in that way—one, it requires that we get out of our heads, which means let go of our busy, thinking mind and shift the attention to the physical, sensory presence. So, what’s happening with sounds, with the touch of the breeze on our skin, with the different patterns of shadow and light that we can see.
When we do that, what can start to happen is we can become aware or mindful of how the natural world is always impacting us—always having some kind of effect. The simple act of going outside from your house or your office and looking up at the sky—suddenly we see a lot more space. There’s a sense of spaciousness—which is why we love the mountains and the prairies. That sense of spaciousness has a profound effect on our being if we’re mindful enough to let that in.
So, the first practice is really bringing awareness to your body, bringing awareness to your senses, and noticing how the senses are affected. Obviously, the deeper we go into a natural setting—park, forest, wilderness area—then of course that impact on the senses is more profound.
As I found when I was writing my book, Awake in the Wild, it could be as simple as looking at a plant on your desk—like right now, I’m looking at some succulents sitting on a desk next to me. When I pay attention to the plants, there’s something very still and—excuse the pun—natural about them that I feel a sense of peacefulness. Or a sense of curiosity because they’re beautiful and they’re complex and they’re colorful.
So, it’s really in the building blocks of this work—and really, any work is the cultivation of attention. But in this case, turning that attention to our sensory experience as a way of supporting a sense of connection with the natural world.
TS: Now, I’m sure most listeners have had an experience where they were out in nature and their mind fell open because something so incredibly beautiful was happening—a sunrise, a sunset, rain. Something like that.
But I’m curious: What about those times when we go out in nature—our intention might even to be peaceful and [to] touch this sense of space. But instead, what’s happening in our mind is we’re just filled with all the noise that we’re always filled with when we’re inside. That’s happening right when we’re outside. I just hear myself thinking, thinking, talking to myself, solving problems, planning. What do I do then?
MC: Yes. And of course, that’s a very common phenomenon. We think a lot in our lives. Of course, just because we’re out in nature doesn’t mean the mind switches off—just like it doesn’t in meditation.
There are many things to do. And again, I think the body—like for many other meditation practices—the body is such a key because the body is always in the present moment. The senses are always in the present moment.
It’s one of practice of, first, intention—you know, we might be on a hike with the intention to enjoy the walk and the beauty. Of course we’re busy thinking about our to-do lists, our work problems, and whatnot. The first thing is to remind ourselves of our intention, which in this case might be, “OK, I’m not here to work on my work problems. I’ve decided to put those aside for now while I take this hike.” And then shifting the attention—this is [really] where the training part of any meditation mindfulness discipline comes—shifting the attention from first recognizing that we’re thinking, recognizing that we know what we want to be doing, and then diverting the attention to what’s actually happening here.
We could either use the body as a support for that—so if you’re walking or biking, it would noticing and bringing awareness to your physical movements, feeling the earth under your feet every time you step. But I think that the predominant sense when we’re outside is seeing. So, it would be really taking in what you’re seeing and really being mindful of seeing. So, letting the beauty, complexity, colors, and the richness pull the attention away from the thinking mind into the sensory present.
The same with sounds. There’s often a lot of beautiful sounds. Whether it’s wind, birds, water trickling, waves, or something, just practicing shifting the attention in a very conscious way to inhabiting a sensory experience. Of course, it doesn’t mean that thoughts are going to go away, just like they don’t go away in meditation. But we’re noticing the thoughts, letting them be in the background, and shifting our attention to really taking in the natural setting, the beauty—and letting that touch us.
Of course, whenever we get curious and interested in something, it usually brings forward more energy. We notice more. That connection is more engaging, so it becomes more of a pull away from the habitual thinking mind—which is one of the reasons why I do the work that I do. My meditation work in nature is because a lot of people find—whether it’s in walking meditation or just being outside in general—that stimulation of the sensory world is a strong enough pull to keep the attention in the present, which normally would be pulled into thinking, story, planning mind.
TS: This is a very elementary question, Mark, but I want to ask you this question here at the beginning of our conversation. As mindfulness enters the culture more and more, there are more mindfulness trainers, more books on mindfulness, mindfulness in the workplace. I’ve actually gotten confused when people use that word—what they mean by it. Meaning, I don’t think that everybody who teaches mindfulness and talks about mindfulness means the same thing, even, when they use the word.
So I’m curious: When you use the word “mindfulness,” what do you mean by it?
MC: I’m trained in the Buddhist tradition, so my understanding comes from both that tradition and also my own personal practice. So, mindfulness is simply the capacity to be aware in the present moment, to know what’s happening as it’s happening, to be consciously aware of what’s arising in your experience, and it has particular qualities of accepting non-judgment, not interfering. So it’s a capacity that allows us to be present with our experience without needing to fix, judge, analyze, [or] improve upon it.
So, it’s a very foundational experience. We all have the capacity to be aware. Mindfulness really helps develop a capacity of awareness—to know ourselves, to know experience, to know another. So, it facilitates our experience in a way, you could say.
When I talk about mindfulness in nature, it’s the capacity of being aware in the present moment with our sensory experience. We can turn the lens of mindfulness to anything we like, but in the context of this conversation, we’re turning that lens of mindfulness to being aware of the environment, our senses, and that relationship between the two.
TS: Now, I’m curious, Mark—you’ve spent, I’m presuming, hundreds of thousands of hours out in nature practicing mindfulness. I’m curious to know, what are some of the most important lessons—we could even say philosophical lessons, life lessons—that you’ve learned from being in nature?
MC: That would be a long list—so let me see if I can condense that list. As you say, I have spent much of my adult life outdoors. Why I do the work that I do—why I decided to start leading people on meditation retreats and courses in the wilderness—is because I had been meditating for about 10 years. I moved to the States and I just became intrigued by the wilderness, because in Europe there’s not a lot of wilderness like there is in North America.
So, I started spending a lot of time hiking, backpacking, and whatnot outside. Then I naturally started to also bring my meditation practice outside. I’d go on solo backpack trips and that would be my meditation retreat.
I began to discover many points of intersection with my more intensive meditations practice, my retreat practice, and study of Buddhism with my time in the wild. The first thing I noticed—which is really what we talked about earlier—is that, for me, being outside in nature has a profound calming effect on the mind.
I don’t think it’s an accident that most meditation temples and monasteries in various traditions are located in the forests, in the mountains, in the Himalayas. Because there’s something about being away from the busyness of human activity that allows the mind to calm and settle—especially these days, since we’re so engulfed in technology, which further aggravates the mind. There’s something about when we step outside—whether it’s to our backyard or to a hike or to the wilderness—that the nonhuman world is not caught up in thinking, planning, judging, analyzing, selling.
So, because [of] the nature of interconnection, that starts to have an effect on our mind-body. One of the first things that I think people notice is, over time, the mental activity—that planning, busy mind—starts to quiet. When the mind starts to quiet and becomes more calm, then of course we can see more clearly. That’s really one of the points of mindfulness practice and meditation practice—we develop some steadiness of attention and some calming clarity so we can see more deeply into ourselves, into experience, and into reality.
First, there’s a calming clarity. Then, what that reveals is really the universal laws that of course nature abounds in. It’s really the essence of who we are.
When I talk about nature, sometimes it can sound like I’m saying nature is out there. Of course, we’re part of nature. We are nature. We are part of the Earth. We’re part of the Earth’s moving surface.
And so, I think the first thing that we begin to discover is the sense of connection and interconnection—whether it’s with the changing light, the changing temperature. We see how we’re always in intimate connection with our environment. We may hear the morning song—which is, where I’m living now in northern California, the migrating birds have come back and there’s a delicious morning song. So, there’s something about that. When I hear that, it touches something in me and there’s a certain stillness. An aliveness comes.
So, I’m particularly interested in helping people look at not just being aware of nature, but seeing how we’re always in this interlacing, interconnecting relationship. I think in lives where we can tend to [have a] sense of separation or isolation—even with all of our social media technology—what I see in people is they start to feel a sense of coming home. And there’s something in their nervous system [that] relaxes.
[There is] a sense of feeling more connected. I think it takes people a while, because for the most part we don’t live in that close contact with nature so much, unless you’re gardener, you live in the country, or you’re a farmer—which is a diminishing population.
So then, we start to see other things that all wisdom teachings have been pointing to. For instance, the teachings of transience—of change, of impermanence. You can’t look at anything in nature without seeing both its emergence and its decay. I’m looking at these beautiful oak trees outside my house and I’m seeing the dead limbs that are covered in moss, [which] are as exquisite as they decay. I’m also seeing the fresh leaves from the spring rains. So, there’s this beautiful dance of ebb and flow, of arising and passing, of emergence and decay.
When we’re really living in that—when we’re living [and] breathing in that for a few days—we start to feel into the naturalness of it. In our culture, we’ve so made an enemy of change, uncertainty, aging, [and] death as if it’s some aberration. We go out into nature and we see it’s full of both spring flowering and autumnal passing away. So, that’s one example of what we see.
Then, another example is the sense of self-preoccupation that can drive so many of us in our lives—with our self-concern, careers, and just the whole way our minds are wrapped up around ourselves and our lives. Again, when we go outside and we’re around a forest of oak trees, bay trees, or wherever we are—pine forests—and we’re around life that’s not doing that, there’s something about that sense of the intensity of self-preoccupation that often leads to a lot of suffering [that] starts to relax, starts to soften.
We can taste that possibility of life without that sense of fixation—that sense of self-preoccupation. There’s a certain relaxation [and] ease [that] happens. As we spend more time, clarity comes with these deep laws of the universe that govern everything, [which] we can find some ease with rather than fighting with.
Another one is the way I see people feeling less judgmental in nature. There’s a way that we can be very judgmental of ourselves, of each other, or of our work. But again, we go outside and [we] see a bay tree that’s gnarled, half-dead, twisted, and sagging. We might think, “Oh, what a beautiful tree!” We don’t judge it for its lack of uprightness or its fullness of canopy leaves or whatever. There’s a way that we just accept nature mostly as it is. That can translate to bringing that same awareness to ourselves.
So, those are a few. I could go on and on, but I want to stop here to see if you want to ask something else or ask me a little bit more about what I’m saying.
TS: I’ve greatly appreciated what you’re saying. One thing I wanted to tease out a little more was you talked about how, of course, we are nature. I think sometimes when we talk about nature, people think of it as something outside that’s, you know, “When I walk outside the building, I touch nature. Oh? I’m nature too?!”
And I’m curious—this idea that, potentially, we are a microcosm of the macrocosm of nature that we see around us. What [are your] thoughts about that?
MC: What I think about that is we are reflections of each other. So, again, when I’m taking people outside, what I both teach and I point people to is that sense of how nature really is like a mirror. In different ways, we see through our own subjective lens. We all see a different landscape. We see a different sunset. We see a different forest, depending on our own experience, feelings, state of mind, history with forests, or whatnot.
But I think the powerful aspect of when we bring a contemplative awareness to nature [is] it’s as if we’re looking in the mirror. There’s something about being outdoors that reflects us back to ourselves. Not in a way that we’re separate and isolated—but it reveals how connected we are. But at the same time, [it] reflects back our inner experience. It’s a bit like doing a solitary retreat where we’re just with ourselves—even if we’re maybe surrounded, maybe by bird life, trees, storms, and whatnot. There’s something about [how] we can sense into how the rainstorms, the wind, the cold, and we’re just part of the ecosystem—whatever ecosystem we’re in.
Again, I think there’s something very sweet and profound about that. But there’s also something very confronting—a bit like going on a meditation retreat in a monastery somewhere. There’s something very radically confronting about—in a way—being stripped bare by the natural world. There’s [not] really any escape. We’re with ourselves in that environment.
TS: I’m wondering if you’ve had any experiences in nature where you felt that you were “initiated” in a certain way. Like, “Oh, this is an initiation experience,” into something where nature was coming to you in a certain kind of way—potentially to show you something. Maybe through an encounter with an animal, a weather pattern, or whatever occurs to you.
MC: Yes, two things come to mind. Two of many, but two I’ll speak to.
One is: I was leading a rafting meditation retreat down the Green River in Utah, which is about a 10-day rafting trip. Very beautiful going down—these canyon walls about 300 million years old. Maybe five-, six-, eight-hundred feet high on either side. It was a silent meditation course and it was in the pre-hot season. Usually, we camp on these banks by the river and it’s very pristine and quiet, as the desert can be.
This particular year, [it happened that] in the space of 10 days we had Utah’s annual rainfall in that time—which is not something we’d prepared for. You always prepare for some inclement weather, but we hadn’t prepared for 10 days of solid rainstorm and cold. [When I got on the trip], I found out that my waterproof gear was no longer waterproof. At some point down the line, my tent became saturated, then my sleeping bag got wet—as did everybody else in the group. Of course, there was no escape because we’re surrounded by these 800-foot walls.
So, we had to sit it out and do what we could. There would be times of warmth and sun, but mostly there was a lot of cold, wet, and having to face your real, genuine fears as you do any time you go in the wilderness—of hypothermia, another medical condition that can arise.
So, I had to do a lot of work with my mind both for my own experience (because I was soaking wet and cold) and I was also holding a group, who were also challenged by the rain and the cold. When we jumped off onto the sand banks, there were clay banks of two feet of clay. So it was just a very challenging situation.
What I love about being out in nature is it’s always uncertain. You never know what you’re going to get. Maybe it’s: you go into a beautiful forest, but it’s blackfly season. Or you’re out up in the mountains, it’s baking hot, and there’s no shade. So, it will ask of you to find a place of presence, balance, spaciousness, [and] responsiveness with the conditions. Nature’s certainly not comfortable and certainly doesn’t care about our comfort.
So, as a meditator—as a practitioner—it’s a wonderful place to work with one’s mind. [It’s a place] to see the fear stories, the catastrophe stories, the future scenarios that might get played out that the mind would like to proliferate—to see how important it is just to stay here. “Yes, I’m cold and, yes, let’s see what I can do. Let’s try and light a fire.” Cold is cold. It’s a great training in that way.
Another example I had was I was, I lead these kayaking meditation retreats in Baja, in the Sea of Cortez, every year. Very beautiful. Again, a somewhat rugged desert environment. But we’re camping out on these islands in a national park. The last few years, because they stopped so much shrimp fishing and krill fishing, the krill have come back in numbers. So it brings in the large whales—the blue whales and finbacks.
So, what I do with the group is we go out into the bay and we do floating meditations where we just drift for a little while. It’s a very serene place to meditate, just floating on the water. This particular year, I heard a whale quite a distance away, but a really loud spout. Really loud breathing. It kept coming closer and closer. We just keep meditating. We were clearly in its “flight path,” and [it] came about 500 yards. We saw it surface and blow, then three-hundred yards.
It looked like it was about to surface where we were and some people started backpedalling with their kayaks, feeling a little alarmed. Then it surface right in front of us—beautiful finback whale. Probably 100 feet long; 90 tons or something of that nature.
When there’s a sense of contemplative awareness in nature—when we’ve worked with our mind to some degree so we’re really present, and we’re not taking cameras or videos, but we’re just really soaking up the experience—then that encounter with a being like that is incredibly profound. It’s one of my most treasured experiences. As I’ve kayaked a lot up in Alaska [and] in Mexico, the contact with whales—whether it’s the blues and finbacks in the Sea of Cortez, or up in Alaska it’s mostly humpbacks. Being around their presence—which to me feels quite profound in an inexplicable way—tunes me into both our connection but also a mystery.
One of the things that I love about what happens out in the wilderness when we do these kinds of trips is that so much wonder comes—so much [of a] sense of awe. And reverence, actually. Out of that, the reason why I do what I do in nature—why I take people out versus going alone—is I do believe very strongly that we care and we protect that which we love. We’re not really very strongly motivated to act unless there’s some hard connection. So, when we go out into nature and have these profound experiences—even if they’re difficult—it allows the heart to open in a way that we want to take care of. We want to protect.
So, my hope with doing these retreats is that people then feel more passionate about doing something for the embattled ecology of the planet.
TS: It seems that sometimes people are called to spend time in nature when they feel heartbroken in some way. I’m curious, in your work, how you help people release that broken-heartedness or work with the Earth as a partner in a phase of broken-heartedness. What suggestions [do] you have?
MC: Yes, for sure. I definitely get people who are in need of grieving, working with losses, and [being] heartbroken in different ways. As you say, it does seem like we are naturally pulled to go out into the outdoors for some solace. It seems like the natural world can hold us in a general way and also a specific way.
So, what I invite people to do is to feel that sense of connection or support, and really to actually give over the tears, give over the grief, to feel the support of the Earth and to trust that the Earth can hold it. That might look like someone lying on the ground—maybe doing lying-down meditation—and feeling the tears, feeling the loss, feeling the sadness. But also feeling the support, because one of the things that we often experience when going through grief and loss is a sense of isolation.
Obviously, sometimes we get nourishment from other people. But there’s a way that we can also find that from the Earth—when we lie down, when we put out back up against a tree—and feel that actually we’re not alone. We are surrounded by living, breathing life. There is a way that we’re held in this planet, with its abundance, its rain, its sunlight, and its oxygen. So, it takes a little shift in consciousness from going to crying on the arms of a loved one—which is obviously a healthy thing to do, talking about one’s grieving process—to actually just simply being with the loss oneself outside.
I think there’s something—again, I was referring back to something we said earlier about how we see the cycles [as] so evident. The cycles of the seasons, of the light, of the day, of the year, and of birth and decay. There’s something in our being that recognizes that. We spent millions of years evolving outside, and so there’s something in our being [that] registers the truth or the wisdom of that. I think it can allow some sense of settling or relaxing.
I have a story in my book about a woman who was grieving the loss of her son. For her, her healing was gardening and working with the compost pile. Sensing into her hurt, she put a lot of her grief into the garden and the sense of allowing the garden to be her process of renewal, as it does from year to year—going into dormancy, going into aliveness in spring.
So, there are different ways. Certainly, getting your hands in the earth is one way of deepening that connection.
TS: I’m curious to know more about your experience of time when you’re out in nature—compared to what your experience of time might be like when you’re living in northern California near big cities, working as you do teaching mindfulness in the corporate world. Arianna Huffington—whom I interviewed recently—talked about how so many people experience something she’s calling “time famine.” There’s just never enough time to do all the things that we’ve committed to and we want to do!
In preparation for this interview, [I was] thinking about how being out in nature might address time famine—this sense, in a certain kind of way. So, I’m curious what you have to say about that.
MC: Yes, I think it’s a really interesting point because time is so seemingly malleable and elastic. [There are] times in morning when we can wake up and feel—as Arianna was saying—there’s such a sense of time scarcity. Other times, it can feel like we have a luxury of time. I know for myself—both in meditation and also being out in nature—as soon as I step out into nature and I go for a walk up in the hills by my house, I feel like I drop out of linear time. I drop out of clock time—unless I have some meeting deadline that I’m having to get back to that day or in the next hour.
There’s a sense of dropping out of this very regimented, linear time that we feel so often imprisoned by. There’s a sense of spaciousness that opens up—partly, again, because we’re not around things that are operating on our clock time. They’re operating on their own natural cycle of light and darkness, seasons, and whatnot. But there’s a sense that the structure of time—which we’ve carved up reality into these very small blocks—seems to evaporate.
So, there’s something again in our bodies that I notice. I feel more relaxed. Even if I only have an hour to do a walk, there’s something in me that just takes off that prison of the clock. I think partly what it is is because nature, in a way, allures our attention. I was going to say “forces,” but it really allures us into the present. When we’re in the present, time also changes its dynamic. When we’re in a state of presence—which is mindful, present, aware—then that conceptual trap of time softens, drops away, dissolves. We could be looking at the bark of a tree right now—again, I’m looking at the bark of this oak tree. If I allow myself to drop into that for a moment, there is a sense of timelessness.
Again, wisdom traditions have pointed for millennia [to] the relationship between time and timelessness and reality. There is really no time—there is just this moment. There is now. there is here. So, there’s something about nature [that] calls to our attention, our senses, our awareness. The profundity of this moment, or “nowness.”
It’s as if we can relax into that for some moments, some minutes, sometimes some hours. Usually, at some point there will be some need for us to come back. The sun’s going down, we’re aware of having to pick the kids up from school, or something like that. But there are times when we can fully let go of the concept of time, be in our senses, be in the natural world.
It also doesn’t have to be in the natural world. It could be anywhere. But nature seems to pull it forth more easily.
Then a whole world opens up. More relaxation, more ease, more joy. Stress can peel off.
TS: You talked about the idea of, “Even if I only have an hour to go outside and take a walk . . .” When you said that, I thought to myself: OK, let’s say someone’s listening and they’re like, “Look, an hour? I don’t have an hour! I have seconds. I have minutes in my life where I can shift into—hopefully—a sense of time expansiveness. I wonder what Mark can offer me on the spot. What can I do when I only have seconds or minutes that might help me make that shift?”
MC: Yes. Again, I would say wherever you are—and maybe going outside isn’t an option. But hopefully, at least a window is—unless you’re in a windowless cubicle, and then that’s a whole other story. Let’s say that there’s at least a window possible. Or at least a door to step outside onto a deck or a garden or the street.
Again, I think it’s not so much the amount of time and not so much the place. But it’s really the quality of attention. This is really where meditation traditions and mindfulness practice has come to bring so much to bear—in that when we can switch our attention from, say, our screens, our to-do lists, and our perennial pressing thoughts, and shift very intently to the present moment. Say it’s to look at a plant in your office or it’s to look at the sky outside the office window.
It’s a quality of attention that we bring to that that allows that sense of space, ease, or connection. This is where the training of using that attention to our senses actually can—in a matter of moments, [really]—transform our experience.
So, right now I would say to the people who are listening: Let’s take 10 seconds to just listen to the sounds that are happening in your environment and see what that does to the quality of your attention. We’re going to do that now for a few seconds.
[Roughly 10 seconds of silence.]
MC: So, that was 10 seconds [of] listening. Even in that short space of time, when we consciously shift the attention, you can do it [with] seeing—looking out the window. It could be stepping outside, breathing fresh air. It could be walking if you have a few minutes.
Anything to turn the attention to the physical senses with this quality of attention. That in itself can actually shift our state of mind. Just as many practices [that] I teach and other people are teaching now in work settings, where you just take three conscious breaths. Or the acronym of STOP—you stop, you take a breath, you observe what’s happening, and you proceed. It can take 10 seconds.
In those moments, you can actually shift your consciousness. I’m adding this extra piece, which is when you include something from the natural world, which could be as little as a plant on your desk. That can actually support that sense of presence or connection.
TS: How do you think our culture might change if people spent more time immersed in nature? If people spent more time unplugging, taking long walks, going on river rafts—that kind of thing. How do you think some of the priorities and the way that our current culture is functioning might shift?
MC: Well, I think at minimum people would be happier. I think we live in a culture right now where the imperative to work and to do is so strong, and that so many people are maxed out with their workloads. There isn’t a sense or space of unplugging. So, there’s a sense of driven-ness. I think that the net result of that is exhaustion, unhappiness, sleep issues, and all kinds of challenges.
So, I think if we were to give ourselves permission and encouragement to take even a half an hour a day to walk outside, to find somewhere that was aesthetic—like a park or a garden. Or if you’re more lucky, a slightly more wild environment—a woodland, by a stream, or the ocean.
I think it does many things. I think it gives us a sense of perspective. I think that simple act of the power of intention, to say, “This is a priority: to have space, to be out in nature, to let go of the doing and the busyness.” That itself has a strong statement to what’s important.
I think it allows the brain to decompress. So much of the research that’s being done right now partly is looking at how our work habits—of long hours, of sustained attention, sustained screen time—does not actually support optimal functioning. So it allows the brain to breathe. It allows our body to feel more refreshed. Maybe we’re walking and we’re getting a little exercise and cardio at the same time. So, it’s giving some relief to our bodies, [which] are mostly sedentary at a desk these days.
But I think the important thing is it opens us up to a wider world—to a bigger perspective. So, something as simple as stepping outside the door gives you a sense of perspective. Seeing the sky—maybe it’s the night sky—or noticing the seasons. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our life that we forget that it’s spring, winter, or summer.
It’s like we imagine, or sense, a world outside of ourselves. It’s so easy for us to get so caught up in the nitty-gritty day-to-day and the importance of it. We get so stressed and lose the big picture. So, one of the things that nature can provide is this sense of perspective. [I think] that itself brings a sense of well-being.
So, many different ways to feel the support. As I said, it could just be a few minutes. Thirty minutes, great. An hour, fantastic. I think it’s also good to unplug every now and then for half a day or a day—whether it’s alone or with the family—and to go out and really immerse yourself in the park, by the ocean, or the lake.
TS: Now, Mark, one of the things that I loved reading in your book Awake in the Wild was the section where you talked about working with the elements—earth, air, fire, and water—in nature and in ourselves as a way to deeply inquire into what someone could consider the “deep end” of mindfulness—to inquire, “What is the self?” How we can work with the elements to inquire into the nature of the self. I’m wondering if you could talk on that topic.
MC: Yes. So, the elements meditation in contemplation is a really wonderful practice because again, it’s bringing this idea that nature and ourselves—ourselves and the Earth—are not separate. We are made up of the similar elements that run through everything.
There’s a way that—as human beings, we have this slightly odd way of moving about the world as if we are untouched. So we move through a landscape and we think that we’re somehow separate from it—whether it’s the rain or the food.
So, one of the things that I love doing when I’m teaching my courses—especially up in the mountains, when we’re camped out by a mountain stream. We may be drinking from that stream for the better part of a week. I remind myself and the group that we are mostly water, and if we’ve been drinking water from that same stream, for a week we’re mostly the mountain stream.
Conceptually, that’s very hard for us to figure because we think, “Here’s me. There’s the stream. I drink it and pee it out, and it’s still me.” And yet, if we really analyze what’s happening, we are mostly the mountain stream at that point.
It’s the same with the food we eat. We look at our garden and our vegetables, and we think, “That’s the vegetables and here’s me.” We don’ realize that’s becoming part of who we are.
The same with the air. We look at—well, you don’t see the air, but there’s a sense of the air out there and I’m here. I breathe, but it doesn’t really touch me.
So, what the elements reflection does is it allows us to see whatever we see outside—the Earth, the solidity, the density of the mountains, the rock, the sand, and the trees—[is] no different than the bones, nails, teeth, and hair of our own body. They’re made up of the same elements. Same with the water that runs through the ocean—we’re skin-encased ocean. Our blood is the same salinity as the ocean.
Fire—this fire element of the sun that warms our bodies, that creates photosynthesizing life, that allows us to the feel the nourishment and energy from plants.
It’s a constant flow. We’re part of the hydrological cycle, the air cycle. So, when we are actually out in nature and we’re reflecting in that way, we see, “Oh, I’m not so separate from this. Even though my senses give the impression that it’s ’out there,’ actually if I use a little reflection, I can see we’re part of the cycle.” As we’re born, as we go back into the earth.
So, doing that reflection—again, it’s another way for people to feel more connected. I think it’s really important as a counterpoint to the way that we can often feel so separate. This idea of understanding ourselves, the self—the ego-self—takes itself to be this separate, independent, self-existing thing. Especially when we’re outside, we see that that’s really impossible. We are intimately connected and affected at every moment. We co-exist in this web of life.
There’s many ways to explore and understand the sense of self in the construct that the mind creates about who we are and our independence. Then, nature is clearly revealing—telling us, “Oh, look, you’re actually intimately affected [and] not independent.” When the temperature changes a few degrees—high or low—we feel it, we notice, and we’re changing clothes and having quite a reaction. [When we get there] there’s something actually quite relaxing to see how we’re just part of the fabric of life. There’s a lot of pain that comes when we take ourselves to be separate and independent from it.
TS: Now, Mark, we’re going to have to end our conversation soon, because I want to get out of this windowless studio and get outside! I do want to mention that you’ll be coming to Sounds True’s annual Wake Up Festival. In 2014, the Festival takes place August 20th–24th. You’ll be leading several workshops on mindfulness and nature.
Before I let you go, I just want to ask you one final question. This interview program is called Insights at the Edge. I’m always curious to know what someone’s inner, leading edge is—where their growth edge is inside, in their own unfolding and evolution. Where they feel challenged at the moment, if you will. I’m curious: What’s your edge, Mark?
MC: I think for me, the place that I’m investigating most is my relationship to how I am in my life vis-à-vis through the doorway of kindness and compassion. So, where in my life do I shut down? Where in my life am I not acting with integrity, with my heart? Where could I stretch myself in terms of opening to people’s distress and suffering?
For me, one of my life intentions is really how to be a kind, compassionate human being in the midst of a busy daily life. Life, relationships, friendships, colleagues are always providing that reflection. How am I showing up? Where am I closed? Where am I shut down or judging? Where could I lead more with kindness? Where do I get afraid or resistant? How can I use my life in a way that’s more serving [and] more expressive of compassionate action?
So, I’m often asking myself—because I’m asked to do many things. I’m invited to the workshops or conferences, or give talks. So, I’m asking myself, “What’s the most compassionate use of my time?” But more than that, how can that time be most compassionately expressed? I’m not sure if that’s that clear, but . . .
So, it’s really [that] the edge is around the heart. “How can I grow into a kinder, more loving human being?” is a simpler way of putting it. That’s easier said than done, I have come to discover these many years.
TS: Beautiful. Thank you.
I’ve been speaking with Mark Coleman. He’s the author of the book Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery. Mark will be a featured presenter at Sounds True’s 2014 Wake Up Festival. If you’d like to know more about the Wake Up Festival, you can go to www.WakeUpFestival.com.
Thanks for listening. Mark—thank you. Thanks for the honest and helpful conversation.
MC: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.
TS: SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
