Photo by Don Pierce
To live a meaningful life, anchor yourself in morality by helping others and avoiding harm. Work to overcome the Ten Non-Virtues: physical (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct), verbal (lying, senseless chatter, divisive talk, insensitive speech), and mental (craving, ill-will, incorrect views).
Free yourself from “cyclical existence”—the endless cycle of birth, aging, sickness, death, and the struggle of constant striving—by understanding the Four Noble Truths:
Recognize the types of suffering: pain, change, and pervasive conditioning.
Discover the sources of suffering in yourself and others.
Learn how to cease suffering.
Practice stopping suffering.
Pain is familiar and often avoided. Suffering from change happens when something good turns bad. Pervasive conditioning arises from past actions and negative emotions like lust and hatred.
Facing difficulties with grace lessens their impact. Afflictive emotions sometimes need expression—like telling a friend how you felt when they didn’t call—but other times, especially with persistent sources of suffering, it’s wiser to replace these feelings with understanding and love.
Ending suffering means overcoming ignorance. Knowledge, especially realizing the emptiness of all forms, helps diminish struggles.
Stopping suffering starts by rooting yourself in morality—refraining from harm and helping others. This foundation supports deeper contemplation and understanding, guiding you toward a meaningful life.
HumaNatureConnect Activity
If today isn’t a day for unstructured time in nature, try this guided activity:
Generating Patterns of Human-Nature Interaction #9:
Cooking Around the Fire Circle and Building an Outdoor Shelter
After connecting with your chosen natural being, build a shelter. This could range from designing a house on a computer (a disconnected, perverse interaction), to pitching a tent at a campground (a domestic interaction), or, ideally, creating a natural sleeping space under a rock outcropping (a wild interaction). The wild interaction offers positive psychological benefits.
Next, build a fire circle and cook a meal outdoors. Cooking in a microwave (perverse interaction) or grilling in your backyard (domestic interaction) are common, but cooking over an open fire in nature (wild interaction) deeply nurtures your mind-body-nature bond.
In your journal, reflect on the meaning this wild interaction holds for you. Consider the joy it brings, how it strengthens your connection between mind and nature, and why this wild form is more beneficial than the perverse or domestic versions.
Reflect on how it would feel to be denied this wild interaction—cooking indoors or sleeping away from natural surroundings—and how the presence of your chosen natural being influences your experience.
Writing these reflections contributes to our shared nature language, vital for rekindling human-nature bonds.
Review your impressions before sleep and carry them into your dreams.
Nocturnal Pilgrimage
Tend to Your Dreams Before Moving On
This next section begins a series of discussions on how to become aware within your dreams—how to wake up while dreaming.
Ways to Perform a Reality Check
Number One: Ask the Question.
During your waking hours, ask yourself regularly, “Am I dreaming?” This isn’t about confirming you’re awake—you likely already know that. Instead, by asking this question about ten times a day at regular intervals, you train yourself to carry this habit into your dreams. When you can answer “Yes” to “Am I dreaming?” while dreaming, you enter a lucid dream state. Remarkable experiences can unfold when you are awake inside your dreams.
After a day of practicing these reality checks, rest and dream. Upon waking, tend to your dreams by journaling your experiences.
Once you’ve recorded your dreams, proceed to the next learning station. Be sure to spend time outdoors as instructed. This practice helps you learn about and strengthen your Greater Self. The survival of people, nations, and the planet depends on widespread recognition that nature is part of us. As Selhub and Logan write:
“Our perception of stress, our mental state, our immunity, our happiness, and our resiliency are all chemically influenced by the nervous system and its response to the natural environment” (2012, p. 33).
To continue your journey toward spiritual wholeness, work on increasing both your merit and your understanding. Increase your merit by serving others, giving away material things, sharing love, teaching, and offering relief from hardship. Increase your understanding by focusing on how phenomena arise and exist dependent on causes, conditions, and circumstances.
