The Rooted Body of Awakening

The Rooted Body of Awakening    The opening lines of the central early Buddhist Sati Patthana Sutta read The intent one  goes to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, sits down, folding their legs crosswise, holding their body erect, and setting mindfulness to the fore. We hear that, at the beginning, the seeker seeks out a tree. And then, at the end, the Buddha finds awakening at the foot of the same tree. In the image and prescription, we see a rooted body and awakening rising together. In the Buddha’s case, we also have the story of a person who knew the world well. His awakening, though, seems to have involved rerooting in the natural world. A long lineage of forest monks have followed this path to this day. Shiva, the ‘Lord of Yoga’ and prime symbol of Reality and awakening for many devotees, is also deeply rooted in the natural world. One of his other names is Pashupati, Lord of the Animals. Some interpretations might say it is an image of his state above the animals. A different perspective emphasizes his integrated relationship with his animal/earthling self and his animal kin in nature. Jesus is also imaged spending significant time in the desert, referred to by some from that region as ‘God’s garden.’ Jesus is transformed through his experiences there. St Francis is one of the most beloved Christian saints, known for his love of animals and the natural world. Philosopher and activist Henry Thoreau, Poet Walt Whitman, Naturalist and protector of pristine wilderness John Muir, and groundbreaking anthropologist  and animal rights activist Jane Goodall are modern champions and guides into a devoted and transformative relationship with nature. Modern poets like Mary Oliver and entire poetic traditions like haiku center their revelations in the natural world and its many relationships, moments, seasons, and shades. Native American-born, Mayan Shaman, Martin Prechtel tells us, “the more you consciously remember your indigenous soul, the more you physically remember it.” (The Sun Magazine, “Saving the Indigenous Soul,” April 2001) Prechtel announces the bridge of body and soul via our original connection to the earth and, as Prechtel calls it, ‘the other wold.’ Prechtel explains, unlike notions of a far away transcendent spiritual world,  “If this world is a tree, then the other world would be the roots- the part of the plant we can’t see, but that puts the sap into the tree’s veins…The other world is what makes this world work. And the way we help the other world continue is by feeding it with our beauty.” Is this what the Buddha was doing? What Shiva does or Jesus does? Creating beauty to feed the worlds? Undoubtedly Thoreau, Whitman, and Muir, and Goodall are all praised for the beauty they created and invoked and protected. Muir shared that, after becoming blinded in an industrial accident, he prayed to be able to see the beauty of the natural world again. After six uncertain weeks. his sight returned and Muir became devoted to seeing and protecting the beauty of the natural world. The Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi, also known for his love of the natural, encourages us. “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”   Sitting, kneeling, kissing, living in, retreating to, writing poems about, and devoting one’s life to the protection of the natural sound like some of the hundred or thousand ways to awaken our indigenous connection.    Whitman tells us to loafe and contemplate a simple blade of grass. To not be surprised if soon we will find ourselves in communion with all those past and all those to be born.  To be ready to understand that ‘to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.’    Mary Oliver writes, “for me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.” She adds, “I dont know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass.” And, “My work is loving the world…which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”   The astonished one is the blessed one, the awakened one. The astonished one sees and feels and hears and smells and tastes and intuits the unity of the fruits and the roots, natural and human, personal and collective, mortal and immortal, this world and the other. The astonished one cannot simply allow it all to be ground up to make tennis rackets, fast fashion, or vacation homes. The astonished, mindful, bodyful, heartful, courageous, artful, devoted one loves and their love is beauty that feeds this world…and the next.