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Place notes with the word “Earth” or pictures of the globe in appropriate places in your environment. You could also put some dirt in a small dish on your desk, countertop, or dining room table.

DISCOVERIES

At the monastery we decided to begin this mindfulness practice each day by touching our forehead to the floor as soon as we got out of bed. It seemed like an odd practice at first, but we all came to appreciate it. Although we do many full bows each day as part of our Zen practice (touching our heads to the floor of the meditation hall), this morning practice had a feeling of poignant vulnerability that we did not experience in our other daily bows. To wake up, stand, and immediately kneel and touch the forehead to the ground helped us begin the day with humility and with gratitude for the earth that holds us to itself. We ended the day with the same bow before bed, an acknowledgment and expression of gratitude to the ever-supportive earth.

All day long we humans are walking and driving around on the surface of the earth and we are almost completely unaware of the huge ball that is our platform for life. We are equally unaware of the force of gravity that the earth exerts on us. Becoming aware of the earth beneath us—supporting our every step, grounding our lives—is deeply encouraging for many people.

When we are “up in our heads,” distracted and ruminating, we are easily pushed off balance. If our attention is extended through the bottoms of our feet into the earth, we feel rooted, more solid and less swayed by thoughts and emotions or unexpected events.

The Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is to walk on earth . . . a miracle we don’t even recognize.

DEEPER LESSONS

The Buddha gave the following instructions to his son, Rahula,

Develop meditation that is like the earth: as the earth is not troubled by agreeable or disagreeable things it comes into contact with, so if you meditate like the earth, agreeable and disagreeable experiences will not trouble you.

The Buddha observed that you can pour any liquid, pleasant rose water or unpleasant sewage, onto the earth, and the earth remains solid and immovable. The earth keeps supporting us no matter what we humans create—beauty or war. Whatever’s happening on the surface of our planet, the earth lies firmly beneath us. Mindfulness, meditation, or prayer has the power to train our heart and mind to rest in a state that is equally steady and untroubled.

Of course, recognizing the stable, immovable quality of the earth does not mean we should be unconcerned about the health of our planet and allow it to be polluted. However, it is also very important that we not let our worry for the environment poison our mind. Once, my Zen teacher Maezumi Roshi attended an international conference on environmental awareness in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He had never shown much interest in environmental issues and we (his students) were pleased that this conference might educate him. When he returned, we asked him what he had learned. He told us that the conference was held in a group of university buildings that were arranged around a green commons area. He had spent the week watching how environmental activists took shortcuts across the grass instead of walking on the paths, eventually turning the little park into a sea of mud. To him, this was a living example of the ignorance at the root of all human problems. Everyone was ignoring the grass and earth as they talked and fretted about how to make humankind care for the earth.

We can think and talk a lot about a problem, but if that prevents us from being present or from developing an unpolluted mind, the problem we’re seeking to address will remain unsolved.

Final Words: If I could