Everyone who isn’t who they are – raise your hand

April 1, 2008

So are trees “born” enlightened? So glad you asked 🙂 Yesterday, during my morning walk, I was passing a tree on the street – and suddenly stopped dead in my tracks cause it occurred to me: this tree is only what it is. It is a tree. It seemed a wonderful realization at the time, and it does still. Tree is a tree. It’s nothing else, it’s never been anything else. It is fully, completely and only itself. I am not sure, therefore, if the term “enlightened” applies to trees at all, or to nature at large. “Enlightenment” describes a realization, doesn’t it? A realization of one’s true nature. But how can one realize something one always was? I don’t think that, at any point of tree’s existence, does the tree “realize” it is a tree. Tree simply … is … a tree. And nothing else. I think that we, humans, have so much trouble being who we are because we don’t really want to. We want to understand who we are, know who we are, discover who we are, realize who we are, we want to get enlightened, find enlightenment – we want to DO all kinds of things. But all we have to do is – nothing. We just have to BE. We, humans, have refined and perfected DOING. It is my observation that nature has refined and perfected BEING.

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