Let your mind wander in simplicity, blend your spirit with the vastness, follow along with things as they are, and make no room for personal views – then the world will be governed.
-Zhuangzi
The path of practice described in this guide is referred to in the Buddhist world as prajñāpāramitā, or the perfection of liberating wisdom. I hope that this breakdown of the elements of entriy into prajñāpāramitā make it simple to digest and understand, conducive to direct experiencing of this wonderful and liberating path.
The process of connecting with nature
For simplicities sake, throughout this guide I will refer to this approach as connecting with nature. To understand what is meant by connecting with nature, we should first explore three core concepts drawn from Chinese spiritual traditions.
Three concepts
To develop understanding of how to explore connection with nature we need to understanding of the following:
- Wuwei
- Ziran
- Weiwuwei
Wuwei might be thought of as absence of action.
Ziran means natural, or arising of it’s own.
Weiwuwei is intuitive action or to act in harmony with nature.
Once connecting to nature is understood and properly developed, these three concepts can then flow together into the profound way of living that is referred to as returning to nature.
Sailing
Picture that we are in a sailboat equipped with a motor. This boat is out on a large body of water and is currently motoring towards its destination.
If we turn off the motor this is wuwei.
With the motor turned off we become aware of the natural existing conditions, like the strength and direction of the wind, the size of the waves, and the currents of the water. These natural conditions are ziran.
Putting up the sails, we feel and work with the existing conditions. This also includes observing how sailing is going and what destination makes sense considering the conditions that are present. This skillful sailing according to conditions is weiwuwei.
What does sailing have to do with practicing Dharma? The words “Dharma” and “Tao” both describe the unfolding of nature. This way that conditions are observed and considered while sailing skillfully can be applied all throughout life.
Pushing through life
Let us expand on how each of these three terms applies outside of the boat analogy.
Many of us have developed the tendency of leaning forward through life. By leaning forward, I mean our tendency to go through life pushing towards our goals. In this way of living, we regularly aim our efforts at where we think life should go next. The goal may be anything from a car, finding a partner, career changes or even seeking spiritual realization. Willfully trying to push forward, each goal is seen as the next step of life, with the time and effort it takes to reach each goal being perceived as at best, a formality, or as time we wish we didn’t have to waste.
In this model, the reward is felt to be at the goal, and everything leading up to the goal tends to be seen as an inconvenient price that must be paid in order to try and reach the goal. Changing conditions are seen as obstacles and people and events that lead away from the goal are perceived as if they are enemies. We feel we must get past them to reach our goals.
Working with the three concepts
Wuwei, ziran and weiwuwei play out together in a different manner. To learn from hem we must be willing to explore setting down this habitual mode of pushing our way through life and to grow sensitive.
How can we go about this?
We can begin by pausing. Find some time to explore setting down aim and ambition. By leaning towards our destinations and goals, we have ignored and “motored through” many of the opportunities and conditions that have come along. We are so used to doing that we are not used to making time for simply being.
Resolve to turn off the leaning and motoring, to rest into being, without purpose or expectation. This is wuwei. Make space regularly for unstructured time that has no purpose or expectation tied to it. This space is where the workings of nature can more easily reveal itself.
While resting in wuwei, ziran is to grow sensitive to the conditions that pushing through life was covering up. Sensing what forces are present. Eventually a sense also builds of whether they seem to be building or do they seem to be declining?
Examples include:
- The needs and inclinations of the body
- Present and potential opportunities for ourselves and others
- Energy levels and present motivations as well as what is feeding them
- Naturally arising thoughts, memories, impulses, moods and intuition
- Unfolding priorities
Remaining sensitive to the currents of life, weiwuwei is to make an art out of exploring and living in harmony with what is taking place. Instead of the prior habit of aiming and ignoring, life transforms as the ability develops to artfully accept whatever appears and to discover ways to live that are a good fit based upon how life unfolds.
Small-mind and Big-mind
Within Buddhist teachings we also find the terms small-mind and big-mind.
Small-mind is the experience of interpreting life from the perspective of a separate individual. Here nature seems to be what happens “outside” and we seem to be an independent element or agent that acts apart from nature, with a mind that is “inside”.
Big-mind is the realization that all experience is equally part of one fabric. The bodies, thoughts and experiences in our lives are seen to have a similar relationship to nature as cells do to a body, each having separate functions yet participating as an intelligently operating whole. No separation of “mind” can be found, there is just the integrated fabric of reality. Mental content, birth, the events of life, and death are all just changes that play out within the natural function of this grand system of Dharma or Tao as it operates.
Realizing big-mind
Realizing the shift from small-mind to big-mind is a natural side effect of living in harmony with the concepts of wuwei, ziran and weiwuwei.
The leaning forward through life that we have been habitually doing might be likened to a cell that is operating independently from the signals the body offers. While still a part of the body, this way of operating results in disharmony and is not a good fit for either the body or the cell.
By sensitizing to life and operating in harmony with what occurs, we begin to take part in the grand workings of the universal body. As this way of living gains momentum it takes less and less effort to live harmoniously, and we find that what we used to micromanage begins to work out on its own without all of the hustle and worry.
By remaining sensitive to the experience, simply letting the impulses, memories, thoughts, moods, etc. that naturally occur just due to being alive and experiencing be the pool of choices that are worked from, a wonderful new system of living is uncovered. Thought is now experienced just like the other senses are, as “thought without the interference of thought”. If no wise choices surface in a particular situation, simply notice none of the thoughts seem wise and wait to see what else surfaces.
This sets into motion a continually deepening process of connecting to and returning life and our function to nature. As this process cascades, we find many of our assumptions and vexations are simply forgotten or cease to be constructed.
Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!
-Zhuangzi
Knowing what is going on
Fasting small-mind
The practice of connecting with nature can also be practiced as a formal meditation. Here wuwei fasts the activities that build the small-mind.
Here is a method that is in harmony with wuwei, ziran, and weiwuwei:
- Sit in a posture that allows for a comfortable, stable base and a relaxed but alert, upright spine.
- Allow the body to naturally settle down into the ground and the seat.
- From this settled place, let the crown of the head float upwards, growing taller.
- The two forces drawing towards heaven and earth should be continually experienced by remaining sensitive to the body.
- Continually experience this feeling of the body being drawn between settling down at the bottom, and floating upwards at the top. Allow the spine to be drawn gently along its length and maintain this feeling.
- While the spine is drawn along its length, allow any adjustments of the postural system to happen spontaneously and whenever they arise. Tuning into and allowing this process is allowing a sort of unwinding to play out.
- When unwinding has been allowed to run its natural course, eventually the experience will settle into clarity through unwinding into inaction.
Practice regularly and learn how to let this simple experience of remaining sensitive to the body and its needs become a way of living.
No-mind is this: pure, clear awareness. Not absence of thought, but freedom from the interference of thought.
-Nantenbo Toju