If someone in ordinary society dares to suggest that animals, trees, plants, mosses, fungi, and the very Earth exist in states of natural, even mystical, contemplation, that person is directly contradicting some of present-time humanity’s most fundamental prejudices.

Regardless, I wholly affirm that all the non-humans of this Earth, when in their natural states, are fully spirited, meditative contemplatives, participating spontaneously in profounder states of living awareness.

If one seriously observes and engages with them sensitively, their deep, simple, and clear awareness is obvious.

Without awkwardly structured religions, books, priests, temples, and the mostly clumsy insights of modern science, all the non-humans of the world live elegantly in states of significant contemplation – or natural meditation.

The entire Earth arises within a vast and universal field of Mystery, from which life endlessly exudes – inexhaustibly – without thoughts or restraints.

All of conditional existence is also abundant with apparent limits, including bodily mortality.

And all animals experience the chemistries of  this mortality, the chemicals associated with fear (fight or flight), but they do not “think” about it like we do.

Being largely free from conceptual thought structures, non-humans spontaneously feel into – and yield through – that fear… natively residing in a much more contemplative existence, rather than merely, and always, resisting life and death in their presently apparent forms.

In some of her writings, Jane Goodall openly refers to her intuitions of nature’s contemplative qualities.

And in his own way, David Attenborough often points to natural life’s intricate mysteries.

The famed ecologist, Joe Hutto, who lived years among wild turkeys, mule deer, and mountain goats, speaks intelligently about their qualities of the spirit more fully than most do.

Allen J. Boone, Henry Beston, and Rabindranath Tagore, also wrote poetically about the natural world’s intrinsic sacredness.

Others, such as Craig Foster (South Africa), Birute Galdikas (Indonesia), Monica Gagliano (Italy/Australia), Julia Butterfly Hill (USA), and Barbara Smuts (USA) each describe their sensing of the contemplative awarenesses universally existing throughout nature.

And within their own cultural contexts and languages, authentic traditional shamans will speak with much more clarity and certainty about the “Great Spirit” that lives and breathes all things.

Advanced yogis, saints, and sages – individuals such as Anandamayi Ma, Sri Ramana Maharshi, the 16th Karmapa, Meher Baba, Rumi, and others – in everything they say and do, also point to this truth of life.

Please Consider…

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to learn more about the naturally contemplative existence of this mysteriously appearing World.

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Humanity’s religions, and sciences, do not talk about this.

They do not even know about it, and prefer not to.

But that broader-seeing and feeling world is one in which most humans also once lived – themselves as natural contemplatives – and not so long ago…

My ongoing observations of and participation with animals, increasingly confirms that they are, clearly, in-filled with natural contemplative depth.

Sharing company with animals and trees softens and opens our minds and hearts… with time, space, and “individual self” readily dissolving into unintentional existence-intelligence.

There is indeed a sphere of universal contemplation going on – a field of prior unity – wherein existence arises without cause or reason.

And only there… all ideas of human and non-human – “you” and “me”, “us” and “them” – dissolve.

Rightly relating to animals and plants has made this completely clear to me…

They are more than what we think they are!

Just as we are more that what we think we are!

Something incomprehensible is going on all around us that we cannot know with our minds only.

And this wonder is more real than all of what we commonly think, imagine, hope for, and resist – because it is nearly, or fully, Free…

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