In Love with the Earth: Reflections on Earth Wisdom, Human Love & Meditation

Blue fir, stands tall. 

On the other side of the fence.

In the moment of seeing

There is no other side.

Zen meditation is an invitation to see beyond this apparent separation of self and other. This invitation, when taken up seriously brings one into the heart of what it means to be alive. With the global pandemic and climate crisis turning over some of our most beloved paradigms and beliefs–what does it mean to live with purpose in a changing world? 

I wish to consult with the great Zen Master Hongzhi and the contemporary Zen teachers Thich Nhat Hanh and Zenju Earthlyn Manuel to explore this question of meaning. What I find is that I am led to intimacy and love for the living Earth. 

Hongzhi says in his poem Silent Illumination: 

When silent illumination is fulfilled, the lotus blossoms; the dreamer awakens.

A hundred streams flow into the ocean. A thousand ranges face the highest peak.

Zenju says in The Deepest Peace.

The winter winds sing. The chattering in my head stops. It is earth that I love the most.

I feel drawn to speak about love. Love as glue. A movement of the heart. Love–perhaps the reason we do anything at all. Was it love that brought Hongzhi to write this poem of Silent Illumination?

Love for his students. Love for us. Love for the mystery of zazen. Love for the intimacy with the blooming lotus, the hundred streams, the ocean, the countless mountain ranges and the peak.

Is it love that brought you here, to this place? To your depths? To listen to the words of the dharma? To practice some form of contemplative art? 

If not love, then what? What motivates you?

I have been reflecting on Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings following his death. And he had this point in his practice where he claims to have fallen in love with the Earth. He started writing love letters to Mother Earth. Here is an excerpt from one of his letters.

Each morning when I wake up you offer me twenty-four brand new hours to cherish and enjoy your beauty. You gave birth to every miraculous form of life. Your children include the clear lake, the green pine, the pink cloud, the snowcapped mountain-top, the fragrant forest, the white crane, the golden deer, the extraordinary caterpillar, and every brilliant mathematician, skilled artisan, and gifted architect. You are the greatest mathematician, the most accomplished artisan, and the most talented architect of all. The simple branch of cherry blossoms, the shell of a snail, and the wing of a bat all bear witness to this amazing truth. My deep wish is to live in such a way that I am awake to each of your wonders and nourished by your beauty. I cherish your precious creativity and I smile to this gift of life.

I appreciate this as an act of humility. The Earth-body has its own intelligence. We participate in this creativity, as one being among multitudes intimately connected to this planet.

Thay had this way of teaching about interconnection and intimacy that was so simple, humble and wise. I remember the question: In this table, or piece of paper, or human being–can you see the clouds? The rain? The sunshine? Can you see the forest? The other human lives? 

Take a moment and let your eyes wander around your room, see if anything catches your attention. Look at it. How is it connected to the Earth? What is it made of? What is its story? Can you see the sunshine? The other human lives? The creatures and other beings who are a part of this object? Can you feel the presence of this object or being, in you right now? What energies does it embody, how does it make you feel to sit in its presence? Perhaps you can capture its essence in a movement, words, song, or deep feeling?

Zenju shares this story.

Scaled quail squabble and run together across dirt roads, making nests between small spaces. It’s a love affair. There seems to be genuine love between them, because they are each other. From here, it sounds like they talk the same language. The fact that they seem to know and prefer each other somehow says they are intimate, inseparable, moving with peace and harmony. Yet, as I observe this community of quail, I sense there’s another dimension to their togetherness. It isn’t because they are the same color or speak the same language. What I see is that they’re intimately tied together because they are fiercely connected to the land. They walk the land together. They talk, sing, and eat on the land. They create their homes from the tiniest amounts of grass and offerings of twigs and rocks. Imagine if they were not in close relationship to the earth. Their lives would be chaos. The quail would not know where to go, whom to trust, or how to live. They could not rely on each other. From the Earth beneath their feet comes the intimacy between them. Their interconnection to the earth ensures their relationships with each other. Interdependence with the earth is complete intimacy. 

She talks of quails and she is also talking to us. 

Imagine if they were not in close relationship to the earth. Their lives would be chaos. The quail would not know where to go, whom to trust, or how to live. They could not rely on each other. From the Earth beneath their feet comes the intimacy between them.

I feel like she is giving us some deep medicine, as individuals and as a human species. That perhaps if life feels like it is chaotic–we are not honoring or living in close relationship to the earth. If we feel that we don’t know where to go, whom to trust, how to live–perhaps we are somewhat estranged from our homes, from our bodies, from our interdependency with the living earth and the nourishment and intelligence it provides.

Interdependence with the earth, she says, is complete intimacy.

How do we come back to this intimacy? Remember your interdependence! We sit on, walk on, and are carried by the earth’s body. We breathe the earth’s air, we are sustained through the earth’s atmosphere. 

I witness the bamboo outside my window, or stand in the cool damp grass, or linger close to a tall tree on a walk, or catch a moment with a branch heavy with dew. And feel this intimacy. I feel the deep peace of the earth reaching out, reminding me that me too, I am earth and water, fire and air, and space. I am made of earth and in partnership with the living earth, part of this ecosystem.

And when I connect to that. There is peace. It opens the mind beyond the limits of this one being’s judgements and short-comings. It opens this heart to feel the pains and joys of being in love, of being alive at this time of so much forgetting–a time of just beginning perhaps to remember more about who we really are as a species. Because we are so much more than our limiting beliefs. We are earth and deep space, the unfolding of the universe is happening through us. How do we allow ourselves to open to this wonder and mystery? The generous unfolding of a universe so ancient and so new. 

Zenju continues in this chapter entitled: close to the earth–intimacy, from The Deepest Peace.

The winter winds sing. The chattering in my head stops. It’s the earth that I love most of all. I’m so close to the earth in this moment, my only thoughts are of the rain, of the coming snow, of the mountain ranges spread from here to there. The only voice is the earth’s. Trouble is far behind.

The earth is everywhere. The simple willingness to be close to the earth will open ground for the deepest peace. In such peace the stars are not far away.

Stand still. Wind wongs in the bitter cold will surface. The sweet tastes of life will come alive. Let the rain come down your mountain to your riverbed. Stand still. Distant birdsong will take you across the sky to where the song is being sung. The seasons come and go. The desert stays.

The Earth is constantly teaching us, in Zenju’s, Hongzhi’s and Thay’s writing, it feels inseparable from zazen. We are never separate from this planetary body. This one, our bodies which breath earth air and stand on earth, that eat earth and are nourished by the diversity of earth’s offerings. 

I guess you could spend sometime in a spaceX craft and potentially visit the moon, but our bodies are currently adapted to this planet. And without loving it, what are we doing? I think of the phrase, taking it for granted. And ponder the ways in which I take life for granted, take my body’s health for granted, take the natural world and biodiversity of the planet for granted. How do you love something that is changing? What does it mean to love something that is in transition?

And aren’t we all? In process? In transition? Evolving?

The seasons come and go–these bodies come and go–what stays?

We have the words of the ancients, we have a deep imprint of peace, we have the mysterious heads on Easter Island, and countless ancient human sites across the world, we have the openness of the sky that releases into the cosmos. We have wonder, joy, innocence, heartbreak, fear, anxiety.

To love it all. Is that too big a task? To love all that is unknown about our pasts, about our futures, about where we are headed as individuals and as a human species.

To love what changes and passes away. To love what emerges fresh and new.

I appreciate in the passage above how Zenju transmits a teaching from the Earth. This is part of the lineage of Zen, the lineage of human beings–to listen deeply to the earth, to receive and to give back. Perhaps even writing a love letter of your own. What do you love about the Earth? How are you delighting in and sharing this love right now, today–right here?

Whether indoors or outside our lives are constantly supported by the Earth. We are never alone, never separate from this care. I rejoice in the opportunity to remember and commit to love, which means committing to justice too and to staying close to the mystery and the messages the earth is sending to me, to us. Perhaps we are always receiving these teachings, in dreams, in creative expression, in wonder, in grief and in all that we experience.