Environment

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Thursday,  January 20, 2022

            Like most people, I greatly value what is called ‘the environment’ – the hills and rivers and sky and animals and people with which I live on this earth – but I treasure even more the much vaster environment, the endless domain of spirit. The truth is that we all live in a mental territory much more than in a physical one. Our world is the world of the present moment – of spirit, the inner and limitless land of awareness. When I think about taking care of the environment, I do think about maintaining the purity of our seas and skies, but I also think, even more seriously, about preserving the purity of the central lifeforce of everything, which is, in fact, the pervasive and boundless present moment. I, and all of us and everything, actually dwell in ‘a natural world’ – the present moment – that has no boundaries, no beginnings or endings, and no imperfections. It is what it is, and this ‘is-ness’ is wider than the never-ending sky. This is the habitat that I most want to help, and I can do that best by simply always residing, with full awareness, right here and right now, because that’s where the only dependable and pure paradise is.

A poem from a few years back …