The Dao of Nature & The Nature of Dao Podcast

I originally wrote this last year, several months after my father died (the anniversary of his death just passed). What I didn’t know at the time was that my mother would also die about two months after writing this. It was a helluva year, much of it a blur, alternating between numbness, grief, and respites where I was engrossed in working on the manuscript for my next book. Living in the Twin Cities, the last two months have brought a lot of those feelings back again for better and worse.

As I’m sure many others here can tell you, it’s been a really intense time even for those of us whose neighborhoods haven’t been as actively targeted, for those of us who aren’t targets. That said, many of us who are white and citizens have family members who could be targeted, even if they are are also citizens. Those who don’t fit the bill of what this fascist regime envisions for the future of our country. Despite the farcical statements about how the surge has been a targeted operation, anyone with eyes can tell you that’s complete nonsense. They’ve been perfectly happy to look for targets of convenience, profiling anyone who might look Latino or Somali, or Hmong, even when they are at work at Target of all places.

Those feelings of grief I experienced last year came rushing back with the very public killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and in sympathy with those whose family members have been snatched up and disappeared into the Whipple building and often quickly whisked away to a camp in Texas before the families even know they’ve been detained.

It’s been a crazy time witnessing the best and worst of humanity from one day to the next. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about all that’s happened, but for now I’ll return to the original piece I wrote about my father’s death.

I recently lost my father. He died from metastatic bladder cancer, which progressed rapidly. One day, we were told he’d fallen in the middle of the night and couldn’t get up, and that he was in the hospital. I imagined a short stay until he stabilized. Within a few days, we were hearing he was transitioning into “comfort care” (hospice), and we’d better come as soon as possible.

In addition to the cancer which we were unaware of, he had also begun to suffer from Alzheimer’s over the last year or so, but other than some aphasia, grasping for words, and some memory lapses here and there, it wasn’t apparent how quickly it was progressing, at least from the remove of living in another state with the busy family life and often hectic schedule which comes with being married to a physician and raising two teenaged daughters. In hindsight and in closer proximity, it was clear his dementia was becoming more pronounced than we realized.

After the initial conversations, I’d booked a flight for a few weeks out, when family responsibilities and schedules aligned. When the next call came, we dropped everything and went. We made it in time, in a manner of speaking. He was still conscious and relatively aware, at least for brief periods.

What “making it in time” looked like was brief flashes of recognition of who was present, followed by his awareness inexorably drifting back to the soothing nature scenes playing on the television in his hospital room. He’d pretty much lost the ability to speak beyond a few mumbled phrases, mainly in response to his nurses’ questions. But what he lacked in words, he seemed to be trying to make up for in his facial expressions.

When he saw my eldest daughter, his eyebrows rose and he seemed to communicate, mainly through his expressions and gestures, “You’ve grown so tall!” After which his focus drifted back to the nature scenes in short order.

By the next day, he wasn’t really conscious anymore. We’d gone to dinner with my brother and his family, and then I’d returned to the hospital and sat with my father for several hours as it seemed his time was getting short. I was torn about staying with him that night. I vacillated until about 11:30 before deciding to get some sleep and return early in the morning. As I was getting ready to go the next morning, I got the call that he had just passed. I hadn’t made it in time.

In Daoism, death isn’t regarded as an ending, but simply the last visible change in a series of natural transformations. However, this doesn’t mean we don’t grieve. Grieving is also a natural part of life. As the book of Zhuangzi acknowledges, we all naturally mourn the loss of a loved one, but it also reminds us that when we reflect on their lives, we realize that we all go through many transformations that follow a natural course, like the seasons.

We are born and grow through the Spring of our lives. We reach maturity and our prime physical years in Summer. We reap the rewards of wisdom and experience gained over many years in Autumn, and we enjoy our hard-earned rest in the Winter of our lives when we leave our legacy and prepare for our final transformation back to the formless state we enjoyed before our birth. This isn’t necessarily seen as a leap of faith into the great unknown, but as a return or a homecoming.

We have a series of ponds in our neighborhood. I’m not sure if they have always been there or if the creek, which now flows mostly underground, was integrated into the storm drainage system in the area, or used to flow above ground in their place. I walk our dogs around them frequently and stop often, looking for wildlife. Especially for the otters, which took up residence last fall.

We spotted a family of four a few times in the waning days of autumn before they seemed to have disappeared over the winter. I’ve spotted at least one of them again this spring. Otherwise, I keep an eye out for the occasional muskrat or mink, blue or green heron, great egret, or painted turtle. From the woods around the ponds, a deer or three, or an owl, either great horned or barred, will sometimes appear. Recently,, I’ve been walking the ponds around sunset when the great egrets have been returning to the island they take up residence on for a few weeks every spring.

One evening at sunset I was struck by the silhouette of an empty bench facing the brilliant display of color reflected in the pond and the overwhelming wish that I could sit on that bench with my dad and have just one more conversation.

The conversation that so many of us wish we had. The one that we missed out on, whether because we didn’t arrive on time or that we simply didn’t take the initiative to have on countless occasions throughout our lives, or theirs. The one about what mattered most to that person who is now gone. The one that seems like it might somehow fill the hole left in our hearts.

Of course it wouldn’t. It is their absence that we feel, and that won’t be filled. And yet, as with so many things in life, their absence also brings them back to us in the form of long-forgotten memories. Somehow, the idea of them becomes more and more vivid after their departure. We inevitably take people for granted when they are still with us. Especially our parents.

For as long as we can remember, they’ve always been there, and so naturally a part of us assumes they always will. In a sense, they are, but not in a way we can see, hear, or touch. The Daode Jing says the Dao is invisible, inaudible, and formless. We understand it by observing its patterns and manifestations in the natural world around us and within us. This is also how we attempt to understand the impact of a life when someone we love has returned to the formless, through the patterns and manifestations they’ve left behind in the many lives they touched.

My father always loomed large in my consciousness. Both physically and mentally. He was a relatively tall man at six foot three. Only a couple of inches taller than I am, and yet for much of my life, his presence seemed much larger. But by the time we saw him in the hospital, he’d grown gaunt and spare, despite how his long frame filled the length of the bed.

He was born in 1940 and grew up in the small towns of the sagebrush and rimrock country of Eastern Oregon, playing basketball and football in high school and hunting deer with my grandfather. On the other hand, I have practically never met a team sport or activity I would participate in. He joined ROTC in high school with an eye on getting out of his small town and seeing the world, joined a fraternity in college, and ended up as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne. I grew up skateboarding and listening to punk rock, alienated and aimless. On the surface, we couldn’t have been more different, or at least that’s how I felt growing up.

As I’ve aged, and dare I say, matured (a little), I’ve come to see us as more alike than not. Our differences had more to do with the circumstances we grew up in rather than a difference in temperament. We both rebelled in our own ways. He rebelled against small town life and mentalities, and I rebelled against the corporate world he was a part of after the military, and which was all I could see growing up.

My image of him from childhood was of a man in a suit going off to catch the BART train to his office in San Francisco, or later driving his sports car off to work in one of the many places we lived. I caught glimpses of his childhood mainly through stories told by my grandmother or aunt, but never really connected with it through him.

That said, some of the decisions I made later in my own life, such as working on an organic farm, owed at least a little bit to the knowledge that he grew up in a farming and ranching community and that many generations of my family on both sides had done the same. We both forged our own paths in unexpected ways.

He also served as an example in many ways in which I’ve since come to emulate consciously or unconsciously. He was a voracious reader and the consummate lifelong learner. After leaving the corporate world, he returned to academia, getting a PhD in his fifties and starting a new chapter of his life as a college professor, teaching in various places in the US as well as a decade in New Zealand, before semi-retiring to the Oregon Coast. He had begun teaching online classes for colleges in the US while still in New Zealand, and continued to teach until just a few years ago.

In the early seventies, around the time I was born, we lived in Montreal. In the era of singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Jim Croce, and Gordon Lightfoot, he began writing songs as well. He was never the world’s greatest guitar player, but he learned to play well enough to play what he wanted and often brought out his guitar in the evenings after dinner or when friends came over to visit.

The soundtrack of my childhood is equal parts hearing those records on the big seventies turntable and my dad singing and playing his guitar. He even managed to get a song on the radio when a neighbor in Montreal introduced him to Marty Butler, the Canadian pop singer. The result was a song called Once Loved Woman, Once Loved Man recorded by Butler, which made it to number 27 on the Canadian pop charts in 1973. I didn’t follow in his musical footsteps, but both of my daughters love music, and one has recently started to learn some of his songs on piano from the sheet music we found tucked away in an old wooden chest my parents bought in Abu Dhabi in the mid-seventies.

I’ve never had his same discipline or focus or sense of direction in life. I’ve often felt like I’ve been wandering through life, for better or worse. As the only one of my siblings not to spend some time in the military, I sometimes think I might have benefitted from the discipline of it, but that ship sailed long ago and I was more likely to have ended up in a monastery than the military, but an ill-conceived first marriage in college changed that early trajectory.

That said, my father did try to impart a sense of determination in us all, a sense that we could accomplish whatever we set out to do. He had a favorite quote which hung in his home office, long before the inspirational posters of rock climbers with quotes about reaching the top or cheesy pictures of mansions with three Lamborghinis telling us that, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”

Before the pervasiveness of search engines and social media, and the endless inspirational memes we have available now. It was a simple framed printout on plain white paper of a quote from Calvin Coolidge, entitled Press On.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

And really, if we are to boil life down to its essence, what else is there to do? Whatever life throws at you, persist. Press on. Keep going. Everything else is built from this simple lesson.

I’d forgotten about that quote for many years, only reminded of it after his passing, and yet I now realize I’ve spent much of my life searching for different ways to learn that same simple lesson over and over again. It’s a universally understood truth which many traditions have expressed in their own ways. In Daoism, one of the ways this lesson is taught is called the Three Hearts (sanxin). These three attitudes or mental qualities are trust, sincerity, and perseverance.

In Daoist practice, these are interpreted in terms of following our spiritual path. We must have trust in our teachers and the teachings; we must be sincere in our learning, and we must persevere in our practice. Of course, one of the keys to spiritual practice, whether we are following the Daoist path, the Buddhist path, or any other, is to bring our whole lives onto the path. In other words, we recognize that our daily lives and our spiritual practice are one and the same. We realize that we will be following our path in each moment, in each situation we find ourselves in, until we take our last breath.

When we extend these virtues to the rest of our lives, we trust in our families and communities, we are sincere in our interactions with others, and we practice perseverance in dealing with our daily responsibilities in life, whether that be dealing with the interpersonal drama of middle-schoolers or coworkers, or digging ourselves out of debt. Not to mention anything we hope to achieve beyond that, like building stronger community relationships, adapting to a changing climate or responding to the specter of fascism.

Life requires perseverance.

If we were able to have that conversation on that bench, I can’t imagine he’d have much more to add, other than to leave the world better than you found it, live a life you can be proud of, and spend it with those you love.

This article originally appeared in The Journal of Daoist Studies, Volume 17, 2024. The online version can be found here.

Forest Bathing (Jap.: shinrin yoku 森林浴) is the practice of immersing oneself in nature expressly for its physical and psychological health benefits. The term was coined in Japan in 1982 by Tomohide Akiyama 秋山智英,, then Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in Tokyo. The practice was envisioned as an antidote to the tech-boom and corporate burnout of Japanese office workers and the accompanying rise in cancer and autoimmune disorders. Research in Japan and elsewhere has since confirmed the health benefits of the practice, such as increased heart rate variability, lower blood pressure, increased "natural killer" T-cell production, stress reduction, and a greater sense of well-being, to name a few.

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The practice has come a long way since then, spreading worldwide, especially through the work of Amos Clifford and the organization he founded, the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT). Forest Therapy involves a session of Forest Bathing led by a trained guide who offers "invitations," practices that invite the participants into a deeper relationship with nature. These invitations involve bringing awareness to the senses to cultivate an embodied sense of presence, then turning it outward to cultivate a deeper connection with nature through relationship and community with the more-than-human-world.

The Daoist connection to Forest Bathing in China goes back to at least 2005 when Abbott Ren Xingzhi 任兴之 of the ancient Daoist temple Louguantai 樓觀台, established the Heavenly Harmony Garden Forest Bathing Area (Tianxie yuan senlin yuchang 天諧園—森林浴場) at Tiejia Ecological Daoist Temple 鐵甲生态道觀 on Mount Taibai 太白 near Xi'an. (Ren 2006)

When I began training as a Nature and Forest Therapy Guide with the ANFT, I quickly noticed the many conceptual and practical similarities between Daoist practice and Forest Bathing. In this paper I outline a few.

Intention

What turns a simple walk in nature into Forest Bathing? It is our intention. When we head out into nature specifically with its health benefits in mind, we are Forest Bathing. In Daoist terms this is a form of nourishing life (yangsheng 養生). When Forest Bathing, we also maintain an embodied sense of presence and walk slowly and mindfully, attuning our pace with the forest to receive the most beneficial effects of the practice.

In terms of Daoist cultivation, our intention when we head out on a Forest Bathing walk is to return to our original nature (benxing 本性). We might also say we are returning to our "roots" (ben 本) in nature and "harmonizing our brilliance and joining with the dust" (heguang tongchen 和光同塵). We acknowledge that as humans we are part of nature, not something uniquely superior to the rest of life. Just as we evolved in a reciprocal relationship with nature, in Daoist terms we might say that we "mutually arose" (xiangsheng 相生) with it.

This is the foundation of our spiritual journey. We seek to return to who we were before the conditioning of society and life's many travails created fictional narratives about ourselves, which we then internalized. When we begin to peel away the layers of stories and untruths about ourselves, we are returning to a state of natural simplicity (pu 樸) or what we sometimes think of as our "uncarved state" in Daoism.

In terms of Forest Bathing, this is like the preliminary stage of a walk. It happens in the first few minutes when we go out into a natural area and we take some deep breaths, drawing the world of grasses and trees we are inextricably linked to into our lungs, pulling oxygen out of the air and into our bloodstream where it permeates our entire system. Then we release carbon dioxide and other waste gases back into the air, where they become available for the trees and plants around us in a symbiotic exchange that links us back to life on earth for millions of years. We embody "the unity of humankind and nature" (tianren he yi 天人合一). We can also become aware of the fact that we are "bathing" in the atmosphere (tian 天) like fish swim in water.

The fresh air found in the forest has a great concentration of negatively charged ions; it also contains phytoncides released from trees, found to have beneficial effects on our immune systems. We might consider these microscopic beneficial airborne chemicals as a form of qi 氣 in the Daoist and traditional Chinese medical sense. We can also draw a parallel between the quality of the qi in the environment and modern systems like the Air Quality Index.

As our breathing deepens and we take in the sights and sounds of the natural world around us, we begin to feel the stresses and strains, worries and anxieties of the work-a-day world loosen and dissolve. Our conditioning begins to drop away, if we allow it, and we begin to remember our original selves as we return to a naturally relaxed and alert state of awareness which we can equate with the Daoist idea of clarity and stillness (qingjing 清静).

Nonaction and Mystery

In Forest Bathing, although we have a basic intention to undertake the practice, we should hold it lightly. We should let nonaction (wuwei 無為) inform our walk by not clinging too tightly to plans and ideas, or concepts of right and wrong. We can have a general idea of what we are doing but should not feel tied to a strict itinerary of tasks to be completed or accomplished. We let nature speak to us, surprise us, delight us! If we take any preconceived notions into the experience, we may spend the entire time in our heads instead of in the woods, entangled in the brambles of our own thoughts. We may miss the forest for the "trees" of ideas about whether we are doing it right or whether this a good use of our time. Pretty soon we are lost in thought and no longer present in the forest at all, even though it surrounds us.

We want to embody that attitude of nonaction, of non-contrived action, on our walk by practicing carefree wandering (xiaoyao you 逍遥遊) as recommended by the Daoist sage Zhuangzi. This matches what later Daoists and Chan Buddhists call "cloud wandering" (yunyou 雲遊). It means drifting through the landscape in a light and relaxed manner. As Wang Chongyang 王重陽 (1113-1170), the founder of the Complete Perfection (Quanzhen 全真) school, recommends in his short treatise on basic practice, as we wander, we should not simply, "relish the spectacular scenery of mountains and rivers and enjoy the colorful blooms of flowers and trees," but also, "seek our inner nature and life destiny (xingming 性命) and search for mystery and wonder" (xuanmiao 玄妙) (Komjathy, 2013, 108)

Another way to express this "wonder and mystery" is the experience of awe. In Japanese aesthetics this is called yugen 幽玄, an awareness of the universe that triggers an emotional response too deep and pro-found to put into words. Pronounced youxuan in Chinese, this term was used by Daoists and Buddhists to refer to profound mystery or truth beyond intellectual understanding.

This kind of wandering was also beautifully described by our own American sages, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. As Muir told the writer Albert W. Palmer,

Do you know the origin of that word "saunter"? It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages, people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "a la sainte terre," to the Holy Land. And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not "hike" through them. (1911)

When we cloud wander or saunter through the forest, our walk takes on a different quality. We are in no hurry to reach our destination. Our journey becomes a sacred pilgrimage. Every step is a step d…

Note: This essay was written before the pandemic. The cabin fever it talks about became even more pronounced for many of us during the two years of lock downs, and various levels of social distancing, especially if we live in urban environments. Here’s hoping we all have many more opportunities to experience and remember our deep connection with nature in the coming years. It was also written long before the current administration’s roll backs of environmental protections, attacks on our National Parks, and purported plans sell off our public lands. With all that, awareness of our connection to nature becomes ever more vital. We have no choice but to face the realities of climate change. For a livable planet for future generations, we simply must center this awareness at the heart of human culture. This essay was originally published on The Center for Humans and Nature website at https://humansandnature.org/the-eyes-of-an-owl/

I didn’t know what the woods had in store for me when I set out that day. I only knew that I’d been cooped up too long and I was feeling a bit of cabin fever. Not the kind you get from being stuck inside during a blizzard in the Rockies, or the kind you get during a long, cold Minnesota winter, but the kind you get being a typical member of modern American society where we spend close to ninety percent of our time indoors.

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I also felt like I needed to burn off some steam. We’re fortunate in our neighborhood to have wooded trails around two ponds — where much of the run-off of our watershed collects — just a short distance from our house. My plan was to take a good long walk around those ponds.

It was chilly for late fall. Highs weren’t much above freezing, there was a slight breeze, and my body had yet to acclimate to the change of season. I chuckled at myself; by early spring those same temperatures would feel downright balmy. I was determined to set a vigorous pace to get my blood pumping and warm up. But as I walked a short distance into the woods, I stopped to take in the stillness. There was a sudden, silent flash of wings from the forest floor ten feet away. All thoughts of a vigorous walk, let alone the stresses of daily life, the push and pull of work and family, were forgotten in an instant.

A large northern barred owl, Strix varia, had startled at my approach and flown up to perch on the horizontal trunk of a storm-toppled tree. I stood transfixed at the sight as she turned her gaze my way, flooding me with a familiar sense of joy and connection. Looking into her eyes, I was looking into the eyes of nature herself. In that mutual gaze, the owl and I, and the rest of nature were not separate. I say familiar, because I experience a similar feeling any time I encounter nonhuman beings in nature.

We don’t think of these kinds of experiences, these moments of deep connection with nature as something that typically happens in an urban environment, but they can, and do, if we allow them to. This requires us to pay attention to something other than our smartphones for a moment and get out of our boxes, whether our homes, offices, or cars. Urban planning that allows for the interpenetration of nature with our cities can certainly help in this endeavor, but whether we reconnect with nature individually or as a society, the same thing is required — a change in consciousness.

Fortunately, this isn’t as daunting as it might sound. This isn’t a new state of consciousness, something we’ve never experienced and might have a hard time recognizing, but simply a remembrance of what it means to be human. What it means to be alive on planet earth. Daoism, the ancient spiritual tradition of China, frames the spiritual quest not as a linear progression, or an evolutionary branching as we are used to thinking of it, but as “a path of return.” A return to our own individual true nature and a return to the true nature of existence, the ground of being. As Laozi says about this ground of being in the Dao De Jing, “There is something before Heaven and Earth, undifferentiated and whole… It may be considered the mother of all things. I do not know its name, but I call it Dao.”

There are many techniques or activities that can help us on this path of return to nature. One of the simplest is “free and easy wandering” inspired by another ancient Daoist text, the Book of Zhuangzi, which has a chapter named after this idea. A later Daoist, Wang Chongyang, had this to say about it, “There are two ways of wandering. The first is to relish the spectacular scenery of mountains and rivers and enjoy the colorful bloom of flowers and trees. The second way of wandering is to pursue inner nature and destiny and search for mystery and wonder.” Or in other words, a nature walk. I didn’t set out to have an encounter with another being that day. But it was a welcome wake up call. A reminder to rouse myself from the sleepwalking state that we can often find ourselves in. Asleep to the natural world around us, wrapped up in the drama of our daily lives.

Owls have often played a role in our myths and stories. Some cultures see them as symbols of wisdom or good fortune, others as harbingers of doom. I’ve always tended to view them as the former rather than the latter. Although, the next time I returned to those woods, hoping I might spot the owl again, the only trace I found was an imprint of her wings in the snow where she found prey. Good news for the owl, doom for the rabbit who had become dinner.

Reflecting on my experience with the northern barred owl near my home, I recalled another owl I’d heard about a few years back, a blind western screech owl named Zeus. Zeus greets the children and adults that visit the Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar, California. His unseeing eyes hold a surprise for those who meet him — his dark eyes look like the star-filled night sky. Like a blind oracle, he reminded me that when we look within, we can see a whole universe inside us, and when we experience the natural world around us, we may gain insight into our selves. Zeus’s distant cousin, the barred owl I encountered on my walk in the woods, left me with a similar feeling. Her gaze affirmed that “free and easy wandering” is not only a cure for cabin fever; it is a pathway to the universe without and within.

Qiu Chuji, also known by his Daoist name Qiu Changchun is considered the founder of the Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage of Daoism. He was the youngest of the group of disciples of Wang Chongyang known as the “Seven Perfected”. There are many interesting stories about Qiu, from his traveling for three years to visit Genghis Khan in the Hindu Kush, to his practice of carrying a stone up the mountain like a Daoist Sisyphus.

His legacy also includes texts on neidan or internal alchemy style meditation, but one of his most important writings for our current times might be his text, Qiuzu Chan Hui Wen (Ancestor Qiu’s Repentance Text). This text forms a part of the Morning Liturgy of Longmen Daoism and serves as a moment of reflection and repentance of our shortcomings. It allows us to acknowledge that ignorance is difficult to overcome and that we all have fallen short of our own ideals many times in the past. We have all behaved in ways that we regret and we all hope to do better in the future.

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Repentance in Daoism is a little different than what we might typically think of if we have been raised in a Judeo-Christian society. We aren’t confessing our sins to a priest or other intercessor but are acknowledging our own mistakes to ourselves. We are seeking to be completely honest with ourselves so that we can move forward from an accurate perception of our lives.

This practice is often done daily, so with that we are acknowledging that we will surely mess up tomorrow and the next day (and probably every day after that). We might be aiming at some ideal of “perfection” but we don’t necessarily expect to get there any time soon. Whether we think of it as spiritual practice, self-cultivation, or simply refining our character, it is a journey, not a destination. It is a path we will continue to walk until we take our last breath and the only destination we can arrive at is here and now, in the eternity of the present moment.

As we practice, we remind ourselves to be mindful of our thought patterns and behaviors that we so often take for granted, unraveling the tangled ball of yarn made up of our unconscious habits and conditioning, the narratives we’ve told ourselves and the stories we’ve internalized from others. We then dedicate ourselves to doing better in the future, by reciting a series of vows, aspirations, or what I like to call “auspicious wishes.” A few of these that are especially relevant to online communications are included at the end of this post.

As we all know online communications are fraught with the dangers of misunderstandings, knee-jerk reactions, and the verbal violence of flame wars. The silent words on the screen of our computer or smartphone can resonate in our minds as though someone is actually there in person, insulting us or screaming in our face.

Couple this with the fact that it can be hard to discern when someone is trying to have a real discussion with us or is simply trying to score rhetorical points, or even just trolling to get a rise out of us. Add in the fact that social media algorithms love a good click bait hot take designed to get us all riled up, and it can be a recipe for disaster. The most well-intentioned post can become like chum in the digital currents attracting the most intense emotions to a discussion like moths to a flame. In that light we need to approach online communications with a cool head and an open receptive heart. We must sweep out any delusive thoughts and nonsensical views we may be holding onto and approach each online interaction with the freshness of Spring. (Changchun means Eternal Spring)

“Sweep, sweep, sweep!

Sweep clear the heart till there is nothing left.

He with a heart that is clean-swept is called a ‘good man.”[1]

This Spring cleaning of the mind is something we can do in every moment. When we do this before engaging with others, it allows us to take a step back and make sure we are using our words carefully and communicating clearly, and that we are actually seeking to understand each other in a meaningful dialogue, not the dueling monologues which so much of our online communications devolve into. While a conversation might begin like discordant dueling banjos, we eventually want to harmonize so that we resonate with new understanding, transforming our duel into a duet.

Returning to Qiu’s text, the following are some of the aspirational prayers which I find particularly relevant to good communication, especially online. Reciting these to ourselves, silently or aloud, or simply just reading them before we head into the fray of social media can ground us and remind us to keep a cool head and an open heart.

May these verses help you on your path, whether virtual or IRL.

In my online communications:

May I not speak rashly or deceptively and behave with honor and sincerity.

May I submerge the ego and forgive others, conceal my own anger, and tolerate that of others’.

May I have a compassionate heart, and humbly treat all with respect.

May I not lose balance and follow distorted views.

[1] The Travels of an Alchemist (1931), by Li Chih-Ch’ang, tr. Arthur Waley

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” So ends Albert Camus’ famous essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus sees the myth of Sisyphus as a parable about the absurdity of life and how even in the face of drudgery we must all decide that life is worth living and carry on. I agree with Camus on this point, yet we might ask, how can he be happy? Is there a mechanism or a practice through which this happiness can be attained? Surely it can’t be resignation? Resignation is not happiness, though perhaps acceptance may be a first step.

The key for my own understanding of how we might imagine Sisyphus happy lies in another tradition, far removed from either Greek mythology or European Existentialism. It lies in a little-known spiritual practice attributed to Qiu Chuji (aka Qui Changchun), the founder of the Dragon Gate lineage of Daoism in China called “the Heart Polishing Stone”. (Note: I’ve heard this called both moxinshi 磨心石 “heart polishing stone” and moxingshi 磨性石 “stone for polishing one’s inner nature”, but the meaning is essentially the same.)

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Qiu Chuji was the youngest student of Wang Chongyang, founder of the Complete Reality or Quanzhen school of Daoism. Each of Wang’s seven main disciples founded their own lineages with Qiu’s becoming the most well-known. Today it is one of the two main schools of Daoism in China.

The early Complete Reality Daoists (Qiu and his fellow disciples) lived a fairly austere lifestyle. They wandered like clouds through the mountains of China, practicing various forms of meditation and giving teachings to those they met along the way. Qiu became well known later after being summoned to see Genghis Khan in what is now Afghanistan. He travelled with a group of disciples and the journey there and back took three years. When Qiu arrived, the Khan asked him if he knew the secret of immortality. Qiu replied that there was no secret and went on to explain the Daoist view of life. Qiu engaged in a series of twelve in-depth conversations with the Khan and Ghengis was apparently so pleased with Qiu that he put him in charge of all Daoist temples in China.

Qiu’s lineage, Dragon Gate or Longmen is named for the Longmen caves where he spent many years practicing meditation and cultivating the Dao. It may have been during this time that the practice of the Heart Polishing Stone was developed. To “polish the heart” is another way of saying to ‘refine one’s character”. Just as many a father has given their children menial chores as a way to “build character”, we might view the myth of Sisyphus through this lens. Perhaps Sisyphus’ perceived punishment was actually an opportunity? Perhaps Sisyphus was given this seemingly meaningless “chore” to do to refine his character?

The practice of the Heart Polishing Stone involves a physical practice, but like much of Daoist practice, it involves both the mind and the body. They are seen as one unified whole. The main practice involves carrying a heavy stone up a mountain and throwing it down, only to walk back down and pick it up again. One can immediately see the similarity to Sisyphus’ punishment, yet this isn’t a punishment. This is a vehicle for self-transformation. As the stone rolls down the hill it gradually becomes rounder and smoother. As we continue the practice, the rough edges of our own character become smoothed out as well. This is a meditative practice which also provides ample opportunity to building a strong foundation in the body. This type of mind-body practice is called the “dual cultivation of life and inner nature” in Daoism.

In Chinese the heart is called xin. Xin contains aspects of both thought and emotion and so is often translated into English as heart-mind. Meditation in both Buddhism and Daoism is sometimes likened to “polishing the mirror of the heart-mind” so that it reflects reality clearly and accurately. This is another way of ‘polishing the heart”. In the Daode Jing, the most foundational text of Daoism, we find allusions to this polishing. In Chapter 4 we are told to “blunt our sharp edges, untangle our knots, dim our brightness, and unite with the dust.” We can easily read this as advice on polishing our heart-mind or refining our character.

Daoism views human nature as inherently good. There isn’t an idea of original sin. We are born into this world with an inner nature which is naturally pure and good just as it is. The world shares this nature too. It is good and pure and whole, just as it is. As we grow and develop, this inner nature may be obscured by what we are taught or experience. If we have a rough life, full of conflict, we may begin to think that’s how life is for everyone. We may begin to project our inner turmoil onto the world around us and view it as a living hell. If you’re not familiar with this view of the world, simply spend a day on social media.

The project of self-cultivation in Daoism is one of return, a return to our true nature. This is spoken of throughout the Daode Jing as well as later scriptures and meditation texts. So, we might think of that heart stone as one that is originally smooth, like a river rock or highly polished gem. As life throws things our way, our heart stone may become chipped and fractured. We may develop a rough exterior and sharp edges or even a sharp tongue. We may need to spend some time in the rock tumbler of self-reflection and meditation in order to return to that smooth inner nature we were born with.

So how do we imagine Sisyphus happy? Perhaps the part of the myth that has been forgotten is the part where Sisyphus figuratively hits bottom. The part where he falls into despair until he is shown the key to this practice. Just as Mr. Miyagi gave Daniel LaRusso the key to ‘wax on wax off’ and ‘paint the fence’ in The Karate Kid, perhaps one day Mercury flies down to explain the key to Sisyphus. Or perhaps through repetition and practice of “the heart polishing stone” he comes to realization on his own. When our perception of the world changes it seems as though the world itself has changed. Perhaps when Sisyphus sees things in a new light, his whole world transforms as well, and his personal hell is revealed to be a paradise, radiant, and bursting with life, just as it is.

Epidsode 2

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” So ends Albert Camus’ famous essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus sees the myth of Sisyphus as a parable about the absurdity of life and how even in the face of drudgery we must all decide that life is worth living and carry on. I agree with Camus on this point, yet we might ask, how can he be happy? Is there a mechanism or a practice through which this happiness can be attained? Surely it can’t be resignation? Resignation is not happiness, though perhaps acceptance may be a first step.

The key for my own understanding of how we might imagine Sisyphus happy lies in another tradition, far removed from either Greek mythology or European Existentialism. It lies in a little-known spiritual practice attributed to Qiu Chuji (aka Qui Changchun), the founder of the Dragon Gate lineage of Daoism in China called “the Heart Polishing Stone”. (Note: I’ve heard this called both moxinshi 磨心石 “heart polishing stone” and moxingshi 磨性石 “stone for polishing one’s inner nature”, but the meaning is essentially the same.)

Qiu Chuji was the youngest student of Wang Chongyang, founder of the Complete Reality or Quanzhen school of Daoism. Each of Wang’s seven main disciples founded their own lineages with Qiu’s becoming the most well-known. Today it is one of the two main schools of Daoism in China.

The early Complete Reality Daoists (Qiu and his fellow disciples) lived a fairly austere lifestyle. They wandered like clouds through the mountains of China, practicing various forms of meditation and giving teachings to those they met along the way. Qiu became well known later after being summoned to see Genghis Khan in what is now Afghanistan. He travelled with a group of disciples and the journey there and back took three years. When Qiu arrived, the Khan asked him if he knew the secret of immortality. Qiu replied that there was no secret and went on to explain the Daoist view of life. Qiu engaged in a series of twelve in-depth conversations with the Khan and Ghengis was apparently so pleased with Qiu that he put him in charge of all Daoist temples in China.

Qiu’s lineage, Dragon Gate or Longmen is named for the Longmen caves where he spent many years practicing meditation and cultivating the Dao. It may have been during this time that the practice of the Heart Polishing Stone was developed. To “polish the heart” is another way of saying to ‘refine one’s character”. Just as many a father has given their children menial chores as a way to “build character”, we might view the myth of Sisyphus through this lens. Perhaps Sisyphus’ perceived punishment was actually an opportunity? Perhaps Sisyphus was given this seemingly meaningless “chore” to do to refine his character?

The practice of the Heart Polishing Stone involves a physical practice, but like much of Daoist practice, it involves both the mind and the body. They are seen as one unified whole. The main practice involves carrying a heavy stone up a mountain and throwing it down, only to walk back down and pick it up again. One can immediately see the similarity to Sisyphus’ punishment, yet this isn’t a punishment. This is a vehicle for self-transformation. As the stone rolls down the hill it gradually becomes rounder and smoother. As we continue the practice, the rough edges of our own character become smoothed out as well. This is a meditative practice which also provides ample opportunity to building a strong foundation in the body. This type of mind-body practice is called the “dual cultivation of life and inner nature” in Daoism.

In Chinese the heart is called xin. Xin contains aspects of both thought and emotion and so is often translated into English as heart-mind. Meditation in both Buddhism and Daoism is sometimes likened to “polishing the mirror of the heart-mind” so that it reflects reality clearly and accurately. This is another way of ‘polishing the heart”. In the Daode Jing, the most foundational text of Daoism, we find allusions to this polishing. In Chapter 4 we are told to “blunt our sharp edges, untangle our knots, dim our brightness, and unite with the dust.” We can easily read this as advice on polishing our heart-mind or refining our character.

Daoism views human nature as inherently good. There isn’t an idea of original sin. We are born into this world with an inner nature which is naturally pure and good just as it is. The world shares this nature too. It is good and pure and whole, just as it is. As we grow and develop, this inner nature may be obscured by what we are taught or experience. If we have a rough life, full of conflict, we may begin to think that’s how life is for everyone. We may begin to project our inner turmoil onto the world around us and view it as a living hell. If you’re not familiar with this view of the world, simply spend a day on social media.

The project of self-cultivation in Daoism is one of return, a return to our true nature. This is spoken of throughout the Daode Jing as well as later scriptures and meditation texts. So, we might think of that heart stone as one that is originally smooth, like a river rock or highly polished gem. As life throws things our way, our heart stone may become chipped and fractured. We may develop a rough exterior and sharp edges or even a sharp tongue. We may need to spend some time in the rock tumbler of self-reflection and meditation in order to return to that smooth inner nature we were born with.

So how do we imagine Sisyphus happy? Perhaps the part of the myth that has been forgotten is the part where Sisyphus figuratively hits bottom. The part where he falls into despair until he is shown the key to this practice. Just as Mr. Miyagi gave Daniel LaRusso the key to ‘wax on wax off’ and ‘paint the fence’ in The Karate Kid, perhaps one day Mercury flies down to explain the key to Sisyphus. Or perhaps through repetition and practice of “the heart polishing stone” he comes to realization on his own. When our perception of the world changes it seems as though the world itself has changed. Perhaps when Sisyphus sees things in a new light, his whole world transforms as well, and his personal hell is revealed to be a paradise, radiant, and bursting with life, just as it is.

Thanks for listening to The Dao of Nature & The Nature of Dao! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is the audio version of a post on substack. The full piece is in the show notes below.

Hey folks,

I’m going to try to get this publication up and running. I’ll mainly be writing about the place where I find myself, at the intersection of Daoism and Forest Therapy. I’ll talk about each separately as well as where they overlap and influence each other. That said, the state of the world being what it is currently, I’m sure I’ll be writing about it as well. To avoid the orange fascist elephant in the room and simply “stay in my lane” isn’t really in my DNA.

To begin I’ll be posting some writing I’ve done elsewhere, but I’ll be aiming at writing some new content here soon, as well as keeping you informed about what I’ve got going on like upcoming Forest Therapy walks, podcast appearances, or news like the recent publication of a Slovak language translation of my book, The Hundred Remedies of the Tao. Thanks for checking out the The Dao of Nature and the Nature of Dao.

Take Care,

Gregory

The Dao of Nature: Daoist Principles for a Sustainable Future

Daoism is an ancient philosophical and religious tradition which developed in China over 2000 years ago. While mainly known in the West through its most foundational text, the Daode Jing, Daoism is a living tradition which has always valued a harmonious relationship with the natural world. The core of its teachings has remained through its many historical developments and Daoists have always sought to maintain this relationship. This continues into the present day. As we seek to adapt to the realities of climate change and mitigate, if not reverse the worst effects of human driven global warming and habitat destruction, Daoist principles and ethical values have much wisdom to offer towards building a sustainable future.

Daoists in China have been among the leaders in serving as role models for sustainable solutions in modern times, formulating a statement on ecology as well and developing a network of “Daoist Ecological Temples” some of which double in function as ecological education centers. The Daoist Faith Statement on Ecology lists four guiding principles beneficial to the relationship between humanity and nature.

* Follow the Earth: Human beings should help everything grow according to its own way. We should cultivate the way of non-action and let nature be itself.

* Harmonize with Nature: Someone who understands this point does not exploit nature but will treat it well and learn from it. It is obvious that in the long run, the excessive use of nature will bring about disaster, even the extinction of humanity.

* Avoid Too Much Success: If the pursuit of development runs counter to the harmony and balance of nature, even if it is of great immediate interest and profit, people should restrain themselves from it. Insatiable human desire will lead to the over-exploitation of natural resources.

* Find Affluence in Biodiversity: Daoism has a unique sense of value in that it judges affluence by the number of different species. If all things in the universe grow well, then a society is a community of affluence. If not, this country is on the decline. This view encourages both government and people to take good care of nature. This thought is a special contribution by Daoism to the conservation of nature.

While a modern formulation, these four principles harken back to the roots of Daoism and the first Daoist values explicitly expressed as such, often referred to as “Laozi’s Three Treasures” from Chapter 67 of the Daode Jing. “I have three treasures which I cherish and hold dear; compassion, simplicity, and humility.”

Compassion for other beings — humans as well as other life forms—and humility would go a long way toward solving our environmental challenges. If we don’t feel a sense of love and compassion for life, we won’t be motivated to care for it. As the Senegalese environmentalist Baba Dioum said, “In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.”

Simplicity in the above quote can also be translated as frugality or economy. Nature is frugal in the sense that it does not waste anything. Everything is recycled. Because it is frugal it can also be generous. Think of the way a maple or cottonwood tree throws out thousands of seeds. This “generosity” ensures the next generation of trees, but it also provides food for animals, insects, and so on, as the nutrients go back into the rest of the system. When we lead simpler, more frugal lives, we free up more resources for others.

Being humble as a species we can regain a place in the greater system of nature which does not throw off the equilibrium of the biosphere. An example of this humility could be looking to nature for inspiration when trying to find solutions to our environmental or technological challenges as with biomimicry (and the second principle above). Modern people in the Industrial Age took an immensely arrogant stance in the world. We thought we could do a better job designing things than nature, often with unintended consequences which proved detrimental to the health of the biosphere. In fact, the phrase translated above as “humility” is more literally “not daring to be first in the world” or “not putting oneself above the world”. The well-known meme of ego vs eco might come to mind here.

We can also think about humility in terms of possessions. We tend to become very attached to things that we “own.” We tend to think if we own something we can do whatever we want with it, even extending this to the earth itself through owning a parcel of land. A more realistic and sustainable attitude might be that we are simply caretakers while we own something. If we are fortunate enough to own a piece of land, we bear some responsibility for the health and welfare of that land and the many beings that dwell there.

Daoism has traditionally included rules and guidelines among its ethical teachings which show a concern for the more-than-human world. For example, The 180 Precepts of Lord Lao from the fifth or sixth century contains many precepts that promote an attitude of conservation and preservation of the natural world.

* Do not burn fields, wild lands, mountains, or forests.

* Do not carelessly cut down trees.

* Do not carelessly pick herbs or flowers.

* Do not throw poison into wells, ponds, rivers, or the ocean.

* Do not wantonly dig holes in the earth and thereby destroy mountains and rivers.

* Do not drain waterways and marshes.

* Do not fish or hunt and thereby harm and kill living beings.

* Do not dig up insects hibernating in the earth in winter.

* Do not carelessly climb trees to plunder nests and disturb birds’ eggs.

* Do not catch birds or animals in cages or nets.

* Do not startle birds or animals.

Sometimes it’s thought that these precepts only reflect a concern for the environment insomuch as harm to the environment could harm the community itself. We might compare this to the founder of Deep Ecology, Arne Naess’ idea of “shallow ecology” which is primarily geared towards the health and affluence of people in the developed world. However, Daoism views humans as embedded in the world, not as separate from it as environmental thought in the West historically has. These precepts go beyond a sense of separation, reflecting a concern for animals and for the earth itself for their own sake, not because of what they provide us. While Daoism does see humans as holding a unique place in nature because of our powerful ability to impact the world for better or worse, perhaps it is more a difference in magnitude rather than a difference in kind. This view would be closer to the ecological egalitarianism of Deep Ecology as Naess saw it, in which all life on earth had a right to exist and thrive. In Daoist thinking we refer to this as an attitude of “nurturing life” (yangsheng 养生).

Ecologist Stephan Harding also pointed out this similarity in an interview with Tom Levitt. “Deep Ecology is a kind of western Daoism. It focuses on the …