Being In And Of Nature

The description for this now edited recording of the March 28th, 2022 Insight Timer live event “Being In And Of Nature”:

Weather and Insight Timer systems permitting I’ll speak to the challenges and benefits of practicing meditation in nature, under a tree and/or just simply being outdoors. Maybe some practice too

I start off with a three breath arrival meditation then address two short relevant suttas before getting into views, observations, experiences and practice tips for meditating outdoors:

“Endowed with [any of] four qualities, a monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings. Which four? [He is endowed] with thoughts of sensuality, with thoughts of ill will, with thoughts of harmfulness, and he is a person of weak discernment, dull, a drooling idiot. Endowed with [any of] these four qualities, a monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings.

“Endowed with four qualities, a monk is fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings. Which four? [He is endowed] with thoughts of renunciation, with thoughts of non-ill will, with thoughts of harmlessness, and he is a discerning person, not dull, not a drooling idiot. Endowed with these four qualities, a monk is fit to stay in isolated forest & wilderness dwellings.”

Aṅguttara Nikāya
Book of the Fours
4.262. A Wilderness Dweller

“Mendicants, when a mendicant has five qualities they’re ready to frequent remote lodgings in the wilderness and the forest. What five?

It’s when a mendicant is ethical, restrained in the code of conduct, with good behavior and supporters. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, they keep the rules they’ve undertaken.

They’re very learned, remembering and keeping what they’ve learned. These teachings are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, meaningful and well-phrased, describing a spiritual practice that’s totally full and pure. They are very learned in such teachings, remembering them, reciting them, mentally scrutinizing them, and comprehending them theoretically.

They live with energy roused up. They’re strong, staunchly vigorous, not slacking off when it comes to developing skillful qualities.

They get the four absorptions—blissful meditations in the present life that belong to the higher mind—when they want, without trouble or difficulty.

They realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements.

When a mendicant has these five qualities they’re ready to frequent remote lodgings in the wilderness and the forest.”

Araññasutta
Numbered Discourses 5
11. Living Comfortably
110. Wilderness

• if more folks on metaverse will nature be less crowded?
• ease, support of nature and sharp angles, steel, glass of city
• fearful men futilely imposing mind & control over nature
• observation
• how nature communicates
• feeling joy
• true(r) solitude
• practice conditions
• not dependent on nature
• “unplugging”

Delightful are forests
Where the public does not delight.
There the passion-free delight,
Not seeking sensual pleasure. (verse 99 of Dhammapada)

Tasting the flavor
of solitude and peace,
One becomes free of distress and evil,
Drinking the flavor of Dharma joy. (verse 205 of Dhammapada)

Peaceful in body, peaceful in speech,
The practitioner peaceful and well-concentrated
Who has rejected the world’s bait
Is called “one at peace.” (verse 378 of Dhammapada)

I also mention:

• Anastasia (The Ringing Cedars Series, Book 1)

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Other relevant stuff I did not mention:

• Man’s other (hidden) intents in their worldly creations. For example, a house. What are the other intents other than sheltering you? Built for profit? Prestige? Legacy? Competition? What were the other intents of the workers while building? The past tenants and owners?
• Being of nature itself. We are not separate from nature. Our body is composed of combinations of (the four) elements and returns after we shed off the body being nature
• Food and cooking are of nature and a good way to connect with nature while indoors, as well as house plants and crystals

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Other relevant suttas:

• Bhayabheravasutta — Fear and Terror
• Nāgitasutta — To Nagita (from Aṅguttara Nikāya Book of the Sixes 6.42)
• Paṭhamaanāgatabhayasutta — The Discourse on Future Dangers (1) (from Aṅguttara Nikāya Book of the Fives 5.77)

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Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)

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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

homeless and welcome this is josh debald

from integrating presence

and today’s live event is called

being in and of nature

and the description i have is weather an

insight timer system is permitting i’ll

speak to the challenges and benefits of

practicing meditation in nature

under a tree or just simply being

outdoors maybe some practice too

okay so i was lucky enough to

arrive here today early enough uh to do

my morning practice in nature it was

interesting getting here

um

actually when i arrow

arrived here

there was a huge cloud of dust from

earth movers

working in the area

right around here

not too far away is the missouri river

and this is

actually a park it looks more like

wilderness but it’s kind of more of a

park

and so i and then i was so like

embroiled in the energy of

um you know gotta get things done gotta

um

do stuff at all costs and i made like

three trips back to my car two trips

actually i forgot my meditation cushion

and blanket and then i also uh forgot my

cell phone because i need that for the

hot spot so i made third time’s a charm

here um

but anyway let’s just take

like three breaths

and arrive in the space that we’re

in right

now so if you’re comfortable close your

eyes

and full

invite your full attention

to follow every moment of the in-breath

and out-breath

just for three breaths starting whenever

you’d like

okay when you’re ready

you can open your eyes bring yourself

back to the space you’re in

and you know

can he i don’t know if you can hear on

the microphone but there’s birds which

are lovely chirping um

you can also hear the roar of the

interstate

i can i don’t know if it picks up on the

mic

and the beeping of the land movers but

besides that it’s fairly

peaceful here

and

for anybody that hasn’t joined me before

in my style

i tend to do this not linearly so some

people might find it confusing not to

have a linear

way of approaching material and

presentations i go more in a spiral

so sometimes i’ll come back to a topic

sometimes i’ll go out on tangents and

also i’ll kind of chunk topics in little

chunks and go through them and then go

to another one

so

the biggest thing i notice about

practicing in nature is my nervous

system just tends to relax and unwind a

lot easier

so

when we’re in nature

or when i’m in nature i guess i can’t

speak for anybody else um

it’s important that you feel safety

because there are some

areas

wilderness especially if there’s

you know wild animals or you know

shady characters things like that where

you don’t feel safe

and some people you know they have to be

with somebody out in the wilderness to

feel safe or or even outside and that’s

totally okay so that’s the first thing

if you don’t feel completely safe well

then it’s gonna have to be a practice of

investigation of why that is why you

know how that is but for me once i’m

feel safety out here

then i can attune to nature the nervous

system just feels safe

and natural and so there’s no kind of

threat

wondering what other people are doing

everybody else kind of crying out for

pain wanting attention mostly

unconsciously

um

i’ll get into some more of this later

i just wanted to read a really quick

little

thing from the sutas it’s from the

and guterra nikaya book of the fours

4.262 a wilderness dweller

and so this is just two paragraphs and

you can kind of see

what this is talking about

endowed with any of four qualities a

monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated

forest and wilderness dwellings which

for

he’s endowed with thoughts of sensuality

with thoughts of ill will

with thoughts of harmfulness

and he is a person of weak discernment

dull a drooling idiot

endowed with any of these four qualities

a monk isn’t fit to stay in isolated

forest and wilderness dwellings

endowed with four qualities a monk is

fit to stay in isolated forest and

wilderness dwellings which four

he is endowed with thoughts of

renunciation with thoughts of non-ill

will

with thoughts of harmlessness and he is

a discerning person not dull

not a drooling idiot

endowed with these four qualities a monk

is fit to stay in isolated forests and

wilderness dwellings

so yes if you’re thinking about where to

get the next ice cream cone right

it’s probably not going to be too

concerned with um being in the woods

because you want to get out of there and

get you know some central things done

but there’s a lot of sensuality in the

body in practice too

it doesn’t mean that

thoughts of ill will yes if if we have

thoughts of ill will

well then you know that’s when

we can get in trouble by animals and

stuff but when we

when we have thoughts of non-ill will

then other creatures perceive us not as

a threat

and there’s really not as much to worry

about

weak discernment so having strong

discernment yeah if you really confused

out in the woods and stuff

then yes that can that can just lead to

more

unsafety

feelings of danger and threat so knowing

being discerning of

the environment

and what potential upsides and downsides

therma

there may be easy for me to say and then

there’s this i’m just going to mention a

real briefly this other one

and i’ll link it in the show notes this

other suit about the wilderness it says

mendicants when a minikit has five

qualities they’re ready to frequent

remote lodgings in the wilderness and

forest what five

and i’ll just

name these as being ethical

with code of conduct it’s one they’re

learned in remembering what they’ve

learned

it’s good for survival skills i guess um

they live with energy roused up

so energy

for absorption states those are the

meditative states and i was talking

about that the jhanas so the first one’s

kind of like joy the second one’s like

rapture some people experience like

having a low level

uh orgasm that keeps going on for a

really long time uh then and then the

next one is bliss kind of a blissful

state where it’s more of in the mind and

then the fourth one

is peace that’s a topic for another time

and

let’s see the other quality here is a

freedom of heart

and freedom by wisdom in this very life

an undefiled freedom of heart freedom of

wisdom so anyway back to

now our regular world here i don’t know

if it’s still being hyped a lot in the

media a little while ago we’re talking

about metaverse right and so i was just

wondering if every if

if there’s a bunch of people

on the metaverse and in a virtual

reality

then i think nature will be kind of less

crowded today it’s fairly not crowded

here there’s a few trails here but the

weather is a little bit chilly so that

has good sides and downsides i guess

i think i’m just going to leave that at

that

but the one of the first things we kind

of obviously notice in nature is

there’s no sharp angles in buildings no

steel and glass

there’s really no 90 degree angles in

nature there’s roundness

unless you include some minerals like

maybe fluoride has some

90 degree angles but that’s not

that apparent everywhere right

there’s more ease

and support if we tune into it

nature’s really intent is just cycles of

decay and renewal

so

tuning into the renewal that comes every

spring

or feel worthy of receiving and growing

and renewing

and then the decay is that letting

things that no longer serve us

kind of erode away

and then act to support

what’s the good things coming our way

there’s no deadlines for

doing this and that in man’s world

things unfold naturally right

what we see too is though men become

fearful of nature and by men i mean men

and women

it seems on an unconscious level more

that there’s a fear of the power of

nature

and that it is not really controllable

by man they try to control it they’ll

bulldoze things

they’ll spray deadly chemicals to to

kill things that they don’t like

they’ll try to

genetically modify things for

convenience and

i mean there’s other reasons given but

the ones that aren’t usually given are

kind of a dominance over nature that

they can control it thinking that they

understand nature more than nature

understands itself and that they can

conquer it

i will say though that you know nature

will work with us too it will allow us

to have our own little section

uh where it is not completely

dominating

in my experience like you can have a

garden you can do things on your

property with nature to act in a little

bit of control and say okay this is my

space carved out everything around that

you know people have their space but

then

leaving nature to nature to

in its intelligence and wisdom to

do what it does

another thing

we can notice

is noticing itself in nature observation

so we can zoom way out and look at kind

of a whole ecosystem

and how that might support practice

this goes into the conditions like today

might be a little bit chillier i’ve got

my uh coat off now and hat but i wore

that when i was meditating

you know we don’t want to do things when

it’s the temperature is not there or

there’s maybe

something going on around where it’s

going to be too distracting or

triggering

so kind of observing our environment but

then we can zoom into the microcosmic

level too

and notice just like

right in front of me i have

you know dead leaves right and

i’m going to pick one of these pieces of

plants right here because there’s so

many on the ground you can’t see

more our awareness and concentration

improves we can just look at the small

details of everything around us

like this green plant here it has kind

of like a fuzzy

you know surface and it’s speckled with

purple splotches

it’s got jagged edges

and the veins

will

divert in all kinds of interesting ways

like

i don’t know antlers there’s like even a

heart shape

in this it’s got purple edges around the

jagged thing too depending on our sphere

of

awareness i guess and

ability for discernment and

concentration i mean there’s really no

end to the kind of observations that can

go on

in nature right

the variety the changes

all the different

elements that go into the forms too

and this goes with an attention span

some people just won’t see the

fascination and curiosity and looking at

something really deeply for a long time

and that’s okay it takes

it can take practice as well and it’s

okay if it’s just not interested in that

there’s all kinds of benefits

to being out in nature and it doesn’t

have to be like a wilderness area like

this i don’t know if anybody saw my beth

upton interview

the beginning of that i just did an

intro from francis park just a regular

park

i would meditate next to a tree there a

lot of times

several different trees

bring a meditation cushion and a blanket

at first it’s when people see us there’s

all kinds of maybe projections maybe

they’re thinking oh that person wants

attention or what are they doing oh it’s

such a beautiful day why are they

sitting there with their eyes closed you

know where their friends all these

different things and

those are all none of my business really

you know what other people think about

me is none of my business that was

really helpful for me

so that’s some of the observations we

can do now we can look at communication

in nature too

like the birds it’s really interesting

to consider how birds do call and

response right and some of their

the bird song

to me

sometimes i interpret

certain bird songs as like

a cluster of different possible words

that are being said right

nothing really exact

but it’s interesting to see our

interpretation of that

you know we’ve heard these stories how

the mycelium and the ground will

communicate and how trees will

communicate do certain things with

little trees compared to

the bigger trees like mother trees will

sometimes give out nutrients and there’s

a communication network with the

mycelium

i’m not really up on all the science of

this but i think there’s a documentary

fantastic fungi that goes into some of

this

as far as the meditative stuff true joy

can really be found for me at least a

lot easier

when i’m not constantly having to um

deal with what comes

with living around people

especially people that are going through

challenges

being constantly distracted by media

uh obligations

things like this and so we can get a

truer solitude or just even if it’s just

for a little bit

in nature too

okay so now back to some of the practice

conditions

one of the really challenging things i

did especially during kind of more the

warmer months is bugs

so meditating out in nature with bugs at

first it kind of you know it’s obvious

and natural that it kind of freaks you

out if there’s a bug lands on you right

over time though

well first there’s this book that really

changed my perspective um i think it’s

anastasia

anastasia it’s this um it’s actually a

series of books i think it’s this

russian author

but i think it’s even in the first book

i’ve only done the first two books

there’s a big series

about this gal who pretty much had lived

her entire life out in the woods with

very little interaction

if it’s just made up or if it’s based on

a true story i forget she was talking

one time about how bugs

will tend to go

to a place in the body where that it

needs special attention

and so it’s almost like this micro it

sounds wild i know micro

acupuncture or acupressure

sometimes i will just let them crawl

depending on what the bug is right

we’ll let it crawl in that spot

the subtle like peripheral nervous

system will light up for me around that

area

in ways and sensations that i couldn’t

really get that i know of any other way

so it’s a really

kind of weird feeling at first but it’s

also

if it can change kind of the perspective

and look at the kind of benefits

something like as weird as that would

have then it it changes the whole thing

for me anyway

now spiders those are a little bit uh

more usually if you don’t harm them

they’re not gonna harm you and there’s

only like two kinds of poisonous spiders

around my area and so sometimes i’ll let

spiders crawl on me sometimes i will

just blow them off of course mosquitoes

are a little bit more

that doesn’t really apply to mosquitoes

so i did recently buy a mosquito net so

i’m going to probably be doing that

in more the summertime especially in

some of the spots that i meditate in

that are more challenging

with things like that if it’s just a few

bugs it’s not that big a deal

but the biggest thing around bugs though

for me

is loving kindness and i really noticed

a really big difference in this

is paying attention to the mind state

and then if there are

you know more than one just like random

bug

if you’re getting more of them then i

start doing loving kindness practice and

the more authentic it can be the better

so wishing them well i know it sounds a

little silly for some people it’s

totally okay

but actually practicing loving kindness

for the bugs it seems like after a while

more times than not it’s wild how they

respond and will just kind of go off the

skin

maybe on the clothes and then down to

the ground

and you know if we’re sitting near

we’re kind of sitting in some of these

bugs home sometimes if we’re out

meditating in nature so

some of them get curious and start

crawling around

other people will not have this happen i

mean it’s a big rare deal if any kind of

bug gets near them and that’s really

cool i say

that’s all the greater let me know how

you do it or if there’s anything like

like that some people won’t even get bit

by mosquitoes talking to somebody the

other day where it’s like the mosquitoes

don’t like them okay so that’s plenty on

bugs the other thing is i just have a

blanket here and a meditation cushion

sometimes i’ll go without any of that

and if it’s dry

depending on how long i sit it’s not

that big a deal to not have that with me

either

but you want to remove obviously the

things on the ground so like sticks that

will jut into the leg maybe there’s

rocks and leaves

obviously the ground you want to be as

level as possible

and experiment with what leg goes down

first so if there’s incline or decline

left or right

then you kind of want to put a

which leg down first that would give the

knee the best support

compared to the other so kind of play

with kind of leveling out if you’re on a

slight slope

that goes forward

so that can act as a natural meditation

cushion so where the rear is up a little

bit and the knees are down so if you

look for that spot finding a tree is

interesting i won’t go in meditating by

a tree it’s a kind of a classic thing i

won’t go into that now because i don’t

really feel prepared to talk about

the essence and nature of trees and how

they relate to meditation practice

because they can get a little kind of

metaphysical there

yes you know it’s obvious things like if

it’s a sunny day then you might want to

find some shade if it’s a cooler day you

might want to sit in the sun sunshine a

little longer

actually i’m by a tree now that looks

more of a hollow

hollowed out tree so you might want to

look for that so probably not a good

idea because there could be some

critters living in there

they don’t scare me too much anymore

obviously look at bigger trees if they

look a little bit dead then you probably

don’t want to be next to them in case a

rare chance that a branch might fall out

of course you look at weather conditions

things like that

and so now this other thing

because nature can be so healing at

least for me

kind of rebalancing the nervous system

exchanging of negative ions

that’s those are the good ones and kind

of restoring and

balancing i can easily become dependent

on nature ironically enough

if i’m running out to nature to just

kind of heal and solve everything all

the time

sometimes i question that it’s like well

i have to be able to

if i don’t have that option i have to be

okay with other ways of doing this too

of healing sometimes it’s just staying

in bed instead of running off to nature

all the time i don’t know if anybody’s

in that situation

it really makes such a huge difference

for me especially when earthing can get

bare feet on the ground

it’s a great way for me to find center

and balance a lot easier

and kind of restore to

natural state

how i feel i’m meant to live

even if you’re not doing a formal

practice in meditation

just being outside even even just

walking outside

so usually i don’t even go with any

technology anymore into nature a lot of

times unless i have to get a hold of

somebody or i’m going someplace new

that’s really off the grid or i want to

take pictures of something so sometimes

i miss out on the picture of things but

when i first started this i kind of had

like a withdrawal right like i just felt

like i was naked almost without my cell

phone walking outside even just for a

little bit

eventually i would just go on a short

walk without it

started to attune to how it felt without

a cell phone now it’s almost

like i said a rarity when i will take a

cell phone out in nature now depending

on certain circumstances

and just pay attention to kind of what

the emotional reaction is with that if

there’s any kind of fear and anxiety for

not having your cell phone with you

and then also notice the benefits of

like how freeing it is to kind of cut

the cord even just for you know a short

walk outside

yeah kind of pay attention to the

nervous system and the benefits it can

have without any kind of technology on

you

it’s one suggestion anyway i’ve noticed

big benefits

too and then one of the big things is i

just if you don’t have to have your cell

phone on at night

completely at least put it in a

different room i mean if you need to

hear somebody call you you can still

hear it outside the room i turn all my

electronics off completely at night

because i’m in the spot where i don’t

have to

i’m not a caretaker for anybody

in particular

yes if there’s some kind of emergency

during the night i think a couple hours

i’ll know about it

but i wanted to kind of close with this

verse from the dhammapada it’s 378. it’s

really short

or actually no there’s two three verses

here very short verses 99 205 and 378

about forests and whatnot

so this is verse 99 of the dhammapada

delightful our forest where the public

does not delight

there the passion-free delight

not seeking sensual pleasure

this is 205 tasting the flavor of

solitude and peace

one becomes free of distress and evil

drinking the flavor of dharma joy

and this is 378

peaceful in body

peaceful in speech

the practitioner peaceful and well

concentrated

who has rejected the world’s bait is

called one at peace

all right guys thanks for joining me

virtually here

near the missouri river

here in st charles

and i wish you all

an optimal ideal

infusion and expression of energy and

consciousness