Nature can be our greatest teacher if we learn how to listen correctly. It can teach us patience, its beauty can inspire, and we can understand its (and ours) nurturing, loving way. 

We don’t have to go off and meditate in a cave for 30 years to become aware of our place in the cosmos, either. Our nature, our true nature beyond all our societal programming and upbringing, can be seen in every animal, in every baby, and in every plant or tree.

As a high-ranking Buddhist lama reminded me, we can all make our minds like nature. We can become present. We can experience life without shame, self-consciousness, or doubt. We can nurture, love, and protect without attachment, without resistance, and without any stress or longing. We can simply be, and we can simply appreciate life in all its mystery and majesty.

Before I went to New Zealand to spend 50 days meditating alone in the middle of a forest, I sought the counsel of a very high-ranking Buddhist Lama, one of the highest-ranking Buddhists there is. His lineage goes back even before the Dalai Lama.

It was amazing to arrive at this beautiful monastery, filled with intricate Buddhist artwork, and to see a long line of devoted Buddhists who had come just to have a meeting with him.

About an hour later, it was finally my turn. I was ushered in and sat on the floor beneath him. I told him about my plans to meditate in solitude and asked if he had any advice.

At first, his advice was very practical. He asked me, “Are there any tigers or bears?” (He was coming from India, so that was an important question.) I replied, “No, there are no bears or tigers.” He said, “Good, good, good.”

Then, after a moment of silence, he said something so simple yet so powerful that I carry it with me to this day:
“Make your mind like nature.”

And that was all. I left feeling a little let down, honestly. I had hoped for something more detailed, something more “helpful” for the challenges I might face on that journey. But I thought about those words for a long time.

It was only a week or two into my 50 days in New Zealand that I began to understand the depth of what he meant. It came to me through simply observing the beautiful, majestic wild horses that roamed the forest.

I noticed that they were always present, even while doing things. There was a deep stillness and peace in them, no matter what was happening, whether they were running or grazing. They always moved with calmness.

I watched these horses. A mosquito could land on one once or a hundred times, it would just swat it away with its tail. No temper lost, no panic. Just a calm, natural reaction. Again and again, it would brush it away. No anger or frustration. No resisting the reality that they lived among bugs. They just accepted it and responded mindfully.

We are like those horses. We used to live in forests too. We used to live with the bugs and brush them away, no stress, no fear, no frustration.

And over time, I was able to slow my mind down to the pace of nature. I was able to be present and face each challenge without resistance.

This is something we can all do in our daily lives. Because we all have little annoyances, little frustrations. But all that frustration lives in the mind. We have the ability to act clearly, decisively, consciously, conscientiously, and with an awareness and wisdom that only comes from being present.

We don’t need to lose our temper. We can choose to act instead of react. Nature can be our teacher.

So whatever you’re doing, whether you’re a computer programmer or anything else, you can make your mind like nature. And by doing so, a greater understanding and wisdom can arise within you, beyond thinking, analyzing, and trying to translate all of life’s complexity into a sentence or thought.

From that still place, we can act, with insight. We can act with confidence, without self-doubt, without the inner critic constantly weighing us down. We can act from understanding instead of overthinking. And that is where our best ideas come from, when we’re open, not controlling, not stuck in the limited thinking mind.

Only by being fully present, fully alert, fully aware, and responding to the needs of this moment, without bringing in the baggage of the past or worries of the future, can we create the best future possible. So:
Make your mind like nature.