“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature,” wrote Rachel Carson while reminding us how to rediscover the mystery of the natural world that sustains our planet. “The assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

Whenever we go out in nature, it has a strange capacity of making us, at least for a few moments, become completely still, not thinking, and just delighting in the state of being and oneness with the universe. For our tired bodies, minds, and souls, there is something soothing and inexplicably captivating in the changing cycles of day and night, winter and summer, life and death. Life and death… Do we really know what these two words mean, or are they just mental labels obscuring nature’s wisdom?

This is what Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher of immense wisdom and insight, takes up in his nature meditation included in his sublime collection Stillness Speaks. In this meditation, he teaches us how to truly see the infinite abundance of life and witness the essence of life and death that drives forth the perpetual cycles of renewal behind all creation.

NATURE MEDITATION
by Eckhart Tolle

When you walk through a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life all around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step. Wherever you look, you will find death as well as life.

Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this?

Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.

“We call spirituality a journey and speak in metaphors of travel, yet many of us never leave the neighborhood. The journal becomes the metaphor made real, a travelogue of the mind,” wrote Christina Baldwin in the opening chapter of her book Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice. “On days when I’m not sure what the journey is or why I’m on it, I can still be sure what the journal is and why I write. I can hold onto my journal, write in it, lament and question and celebrate.”

Keeping a spiritual journal is a revelatory experience. It allows us to see everything we’ve done, thought, or been in retrospect, showing us what we managed not to see. We marvel at what we were and that we now see we’re not. We look at our pages as we look at our past life, a field lit up by the sun when it breaks through the clouds, and we note with metaphysical astonishment all our deliberate acts, our clearest thoughts, and our most logical intentions. As our awareness grows, we start to see that some of the things we wrote about we didn’t even act out. We were the role that was acted. At most, we were the actor’s motions. Christina Baldwin writes:

Imagine walking down a path, participating in everything around you. You notice actions near and far, you interact with people and deal with obstacles and opportunities along the way. This is the walker: the active self. Imagine a mirror path running parallel to the path you’re walking. The mirror path reflects feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs about what is happening. This is the watcher: the reflective self. Together these two selves create consciousness: the awareness of ourselves within our own existence. … We hear the mind think. We observe our own behavior.

When we take up a spiritual journey, we gain the ability to experience our consciousness as an ongoing, intimate dialogue within the self. We become intrigued by the processes of our own minds. As conscious people, we can see the guidance available through this invisible channel of wisdom, directions that come from within. But how to keep track and make sense of it all? Baldwin counsels:

So, now imagine a quiet place from which you contemplate the paths of action and reflection. From this quiet place you can observe both the walker and the watcher. You hear what the mind says. You record what the walker does and how the watcher responds. This is the writer: the self who acts and reflects on paper. … Writing bridges the inner and outer worlds and connects the paths of action and reflection.

As we sit down to write, the blankness of a piece of paper becomes the canvas on which we paint the inner workings of our minds. It becomes our way to visualize the elusive stream of consciousness, harness our thoughts, and shape the essence of who we are. Christina Baldwin concludes:

My journal is my life’s companion. The format changes, the pens change, the contents vary, the cast of characters comes and goes. Yet this tangible object reminds me that my life is being lived on many levels; it reminds me that I need to act, watch, reflect, write, and then act more clearly.

Life’s Companion, full of practical exercises, writing prompts, and inspiring examples of spiritual journaling, will change the way you put your thoughts on paper. Writing will become your window into the interior conversation with the wisdom of your consciousness, your newfound friend on your life-long spiritual journey.

“Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at the level of the individual,” wrote the Dalai Lama in the opening chapter of his book Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. “If people lack moral values and integrity, no system of laws and regulations will be adequate. So long as people give priority to material values, then injustice, corruption, inequity, intolerance, and greed — all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values — will persist.”

If we look at the advances in all spheres of human activity, we have many reasons to rejoice. But at the same time, beneath the layers of popular narratives painting too bright of a future, there remains a vast field of suffering, difficulties, and problems. There is no denying that our activity as a collective human body is eating away at our planet beyond a point of no return, a threat that creates unease and preoccupation for the fate of future generations. And on the individual level, all the pressures of modern life cause stress, anxiety, depression, and, increasingly, loneliness. It is obvious we are missing something in the way we’re doing things. But what is it that we’re missing? The Dalai Lama gives an answer:

The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values. By inner values I mean the qualities … bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warmheartedness — or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values emerge.

Ethics, the Dalai Lama writes, is not simply a matter of knowing but, first and foremost, doing. For this reason, even the most in-depth and refined ethical understanding, if not applied in daily life, is of no use:

Now, regarding the question of how to put ethics into practice in everyday life, it may be helpful to consider the process as having three aspects or levels…. As outlined in some classical Buddhist texts, these are as follows: an ethic of restraint — deliberately refraining from doing actual or potential harm to others; an ethic of virtue — actively cultivating and enhancing our positive behavior and inner values; and an ethic of altruism — dedicating our lives, genuinely and selflessly, to the welfare of others.

If we want these three stages to be effective, we must consider them in relation to all our behavior: our actions, speech, and ultimately our thoughts and intentions. Starting with the ethic of restraint, the Dalai Lama writes:

Here, as in other areas, we need to observe the “golden rule” found in all of the world’s ethical systems: “Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself” or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” When it comes to avoiding harmful actions of body and speech, in addition to this fundamental rule, I personally find a list of six principles from a text by the second-century Indian thinker Nagarjuna to be helpful: 1) avoid excessive use of intoxicants; 2) uphold the principle of right livelihood; 3) ensure that one’s body, speech, and mind are nonviolent; 4) treat others with respect; 5) honor those worthy of esteem, such as parents, teachers, and those who are kind; 6) be kind to others.

If we’re able to follow the ethic of restraint by not harming others in our everyday actions and words, we can start to practice the ethic of virtue by giving more serious attention to actively doing good. The Dalai Lama writes:

We can benefit others through our actions by being warm and generous toward them, by being charitable, and by helping those in need. … Benefitting others through our speech includes praising others, listening to their problems, and offering them advice and encouragement. … It is [also] useful to cultivate an attitude of sympathetic joy in others’ achievements and good fortune. This attitude is a powerful antidote against envy, which is not only a source of unnecessary suffering on the individual level but also an obstacle to our ability to reach out and engage with others.

And finally, the ethic of altruism is a genuinely selfless dedication of one’s actions and words to the benefit of others, which is recognized as the highest form of ethical practice by all the world’s religious traditions. But we shouldn’t feel discouraged if it seems like an unattainable standard of personal excellence, the Dalai Lama reassures us:

This does not mean that altruism cannot be undertaken by anyone. In fact many people in caring professions such as social work and health care, and also those in teaching, are involved in the pursuit of this third level of ethics. … Yet there are countless other ways in which ordinary people can and do lead lives which benefit others. What is required is simply that we make serving others a priority.

Complement Beyond Religion, an enlightening read from one of the most revered spiritual leaders of our time, with Aristotle on virtues as habits, and then revisit Socrates on moderation as a harmony that permeates all aspects of the human soul.

“If I didn’t belong to you, I wouldn’t have written this book. If you didn’t belong to me, you wouldn’t be reading it. I’m you, and you are me — you just don’t know that yet,” wrote Ruth King in the opening chapter of her book Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out. “We are here, sharing these pages, to embrace our membership in each other’s lives, to discover our wholeness, and to remember that we belong.”

For those of us who are on a spiritual journey, it’s all too easy to fall into an invisible trap of losing ourselves in the ultimate reality of “no-self,” a reality where we do not build walls of separation based on age, gender, sexual orientation, or the color of our skin. But if we care deeply about the world we live in right now and want to contribute to racial harmony among people, we need to keep in mind that we are also part of the relative reality, a reality where the “conditioned self” thrives on seeing otherness of others. Ruth King writes:

In relative reality, I am a woman, African American, lesbian, great-grandmother, artist, and elder. However, in ultimate reality, I’m none of these things. I am beyond conception; I am awareness dancing with the karmic rhythms of life. In ultimate reality, there is neither race nor a reason to suffer. We are undivided and beyond definition. But in relative reality, we’re all in considerable pain as racially diverse beings driven by fear, hatred, greed, and delusion.

Drawing on her professional background in designing diversity leadership programs, as well as her experience as a mindfulness practitioner and teacher, Ruth King recounts all the ways in which language, while being an indispensable communication tool, can also serve as a barrier to understanding and healing, especially when talking about issues of race. For example, white people often say, “I don’t see color. Aren’t we all the same?” while people of color often say, “Right, we’re going to talk about race. This means that in addition to being disturbed by white people’s ignorance, I’m going to have to teach white folks what they choose to deny knowing — amnesia of whiteness.” Reflecting on these common responses, Ruth King writes:

There is no getting around that fact that each of us is challenged with navigating the relative reality of race — the fact of these bodies in various shapes, colors, sizes, and experiences — so that we may know freedom. … To understand racial habits of harm — the ways we avoid more genuine connection and healing as individuals and racial groups — is to dive below our knee-jerk responses, beneath the words themselves, to examine our conditioning.

To truly examine our conditioning is not an easy task, for it requires us to work deeply with our minds so that eventually we can change our hearts. It requires us to step out of our comfort zone and willing to be uncomfortable, to unravel the deep web of subconscious programming that compels us to distrust each other. Ruth King writes:

Ultimate reality and relative reality are to be understood as two expressions of one truth, two sides of one coin. Ultimate reality is often associated with the ocean, and relative reality, with the waves. … We were all conditioned by each other in relative reality. The good news about habits [of racial harm] is that, with awareness, they can change for the better.

Mindful of Race, an essential read during these times of unprecedented global challenges and conflicts, consists of three parts. In part 1, Understanding Habits of Harm — Diagnosis, you will discover the narrative we hold along racial lines — both conscious and unconscious. In part 2, Mindfulness — Heart Surgery, you will explore how to stay present to racial distress through mindfulness meditation. In part 3, Cultivating a Culture of Care — Recovery, you will shift your focus outward by using spiritual archetypes and discover what it means to contribute to a culture of care with integrity, talk to children about race, nurture racial literacy through racial affinity groups, and much more.

Complement Ruth King’s insight with Just Like Me, a simple on-the-spot compassion practice, by an American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron.