Shinrin Yoku: The Best Meditative Process to Open Energy and Minds

Nature has all the answers we need. Philosophy is just a way for us to examine them. Hold thoughts, impressions, sensations, and ideas in your mind that slowly unfold through immersion in a deep forest. Or, a grassland, prairie, desert, or even a field of snow.

The setting doesn’t matter as much as finding a myriad of sensations.

When the human mind is not repeatedly distracted, it opens up to learning. This is evident in any classroom. Today we have thousands of distractions, not the least of which are worrying thoughts about the state of our lives.

But nature offers immersion rather than constant distraction. With the many distractions we have in modern life, it is no wonder that we have difficulty being present and mindful in each moment.

There are alternatives.

Forests are ideal, because they are strings of life and material that offer tremendous diversity. They are woven together with fungi, supportive biodiversity, wind, water, air, earth soil, and you. Every element that comprises a forest is detectable — and amazing when we take the time to tune in.

Every breath should remind you that all plants make all our oxygen. They are also an extremely important means of storing carbon to fight climate change. It’s easy to forget our belonging to biodiversity and interdependence when we neglect to connect to all other life.

Today, there are so many elements to a place so separate from our indoor and online lives, that we can feel overwhelmed. That is the time to just admit we modestly cannot take in everything, and that’s a good thing. Our limits can teach us to realize there are many systems even bigger and more complex than our human devised systems. In either situation, we must take a breath, and give a thought to these ecosystems. (environment created by interwoven networking.)

A human mind added to the scene can stay intrigued even while humble. Curious and open to know whether our consciousness adds anything. If a tree falls in the forest, do you hear it? What is hearing? Do thoughts of your credit care bill distract, so you never really hear it? Does your bipedal stance change perception? What is perception,… and so on.

If possible, just stand still and experience.

This is difficult for an activity-driven species to do. But just try for as many seconds as you can. Open all your senses, and be open to more than the usual five: (hearing, seeing, scent, taste, touch) that usually are in your awareness. For example: hunger, temperature, vibration, cognition, and so on can slowly open up and provide unexpected feedback.

Endeavor to find any sense of belonging. Breathing the trees and plants, for example, or finding you can attune to sounds that are unfamiliar.

You will find that stress is reduced, mood is enhanced, focus is improved, and day-dreaming is enlightening. Indeed, research shows most health benefits happen when we allow ourselves the self care of “care free” thought, especially in a woodland.

And your senses can attune to that. Focus and find thoughts meander off. Sense: the flutter of wings, the wind through branches, coolness, warmth, scent of ferns, fragrance of leaves, cedar or pine, the patterns playing with shadows and lattices. Green leaves turn scarlet, compose soil, then life. Moss is a calm compress, but also a wild riot of symbiosis. Slow time and alertness are rewarded. Finding mindfulness and patience are natural flowing streams that can open the mind.

Shinrin yoku lets us slow down. Even with a million sensations pulsing at once, they are there continuously. Changing, sparking, surprising, even startling or frightening when a branch breaks, or an unknown creature calls. Time can expand. Time can contract.

Feeling alive and breathing the trees adds an element of belonging. Our minds and bodies have not always done well to protect and cherish our planet. But, if thought and mindfulness are to find solutions, we need immersion in our own awareness. We need to rediscover the natural world to which we need to belong.

Maybe you don’t live near a forest, or you don’t feel you have time to think, or sense.

But if you are human you will find the natural world and can sense it even in the darkest shadows of night while media measures your worth in a digital world and time. While apps whir. While you sleep.

Even then, your breath is connected to the forest, ocean, wind, and plain. All elements essential to life affect all eight billion people who breathe. In short, there is no removal of the human mind from our origins.

At least, not yet. So embrace your belonging in thought, reflection, and contemplation. Then, write about it on Medium. To see if it becomes real. Or, was abstract thought ever really real?

These are questions we can ask the forest.

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