Douglas-Klotz Neil - Wild Wisdom

EDITED BY

NEIL DOUGLAS-KLOTZ

FOREWORD BY

M. AMOS CLIFFORD

Copyright 2021

by Neil Douglas-Klotz

Foreword copyright 2021 by M. Amos Clifford

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Cover and text design by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Cover Tibet, 1936 by Nicholas Roerich,

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia/Bridgeman Images

Typeset in Weiss

Excerpts by Rachel Carson from Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing
of Rachel Carson. Copyright 1998 by Roger Allen Christie.
Reprinted by permission of Frances Collin, Trustee.

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

Distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

www.redwheelweiser.com

Sign up for our newsletter and special offers by going to

www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

ISBN: 978-1-64297-008-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Printed in the United States of America

M&G

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The work of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth.

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough.

The truths of the earth continually wait,

they are not so concealed either.

They are calm, subtle, intransmissible by print.

WALT WHITMAN, from The Real Words

T wo decades ago, while perusing the library of a small Zen center in California, I came across a Chinese text from the 10th or 11th century in which the Master instructed his disciples to choose a wild place to meditate. The type of place they chose mattered; it depended upon the disposition of the meditator and what barriers along their path were ripe for shattering. My memory (an unreliable instrument) holds his teachings thus: forests are a place for those who have not yet understood the interbeing of all things; rivers are for those who are rigid in their thinking, unable to discern how understanding flows through many states. Mountains, with their vistas and exposure to the weather, are for those whose egos are inflated in a way that prevents them from seeing beyond the narrow stories of their own wisdom. Deserts brought into vivid awareness the great matters of life and death.

Choosing the right kind of place for contemplation is an important matter on the journey toward wholeness. Sustained, intimate connection with nature is essential. These ideas inspired me to start a project I called Coyote Zendo. I periodically chose a place in a wild setting and invited others to join me there for meditation. Away from the still halls of the temple, with its characteristic aroma of incense and the iconography of sacred images, another mind came forward. The trees and winds and shy creatures slowly emerged as the living manifestation of the Great Matter. As much I loved the temple, like the Buddha it was among the wild places that at last the world cracked open for me.

Twice I've returned to that library seeking the text. I wanted to make sure I remembered it correctly, but my efforts have been fruitlessI cannot find it, nor can I remember the author's name. Yet those pages have taken a mythic place in my mind as a kind of lost manuscript of great power. I have felt this as a loss and have regretted that I might never find these teachings again.

Until I read this volume.

The contents are organized in the ancient way of that Chinese master. Voices that speak from across the centuries are those of the forest, the waters, the mountains, and the desert. The teachings are in here, I realized I as savored each page. Each selection spoke to me. Again, and again I felt seen with a gaze turned to words deftly said. The selection on each page is an expression of wholeness and within that wholeness, there is always one particular line that pierces me, like an arrow to the heart. We are seen by such an arrow, and opened by it, so that we may see more.

If I may be so bold as to suggest a way to read (and be read by) this book it would be this: as you enter the pages, set notions of time aside. Declare it to be so, that clocks don't signify. Without seeking, let the words of these teachers seep into your body. Notice which phrases are your particular arrows to the heart. Let each of these piercings ripen, let them open a bleeding of your spirit onto the land, and let the land reach back into your heart. You don't have to figure out what it means. Let the intelligence of your whole living body simply know. Notice where in your body you are pierced; for the heart is not just a physical organ located in a singular space, but when we are in accord with our own nature, there is something of the heart that pervades our entire body and extends beyond it. The piercing you feel may be shared by the nearest stone or a distant mountain. If it is so, this too is an arrow to your heart.

The voices in this book point to an almost forgotten knowledge: that humans belong on the earth, that the land celebrates us in our capacity to witness it and to feel it fully. The wild places awaken within us an innate untamed longing. This longing is itself a kind of wisdom. It guides us to awaken to who we are. Each step forward on this path is a right step, a holy step. The authors gathered here knew this intimately. Through their writing we can walk with them in a wild windswept landscape, their company that of teachers who knew how to hold the silence in which true companionship ripens.

Nowadays we can go into most natural areas with a relaxed and leisurely mind. We don't need to worry much about tigers or grizzly bears. Yet the wild places amplify even the smallest mistakes. Recently, while walking an easy trail in the New Mexico desert, a moment of inattention led to a misstep that has, at least for now, ruined my knee. The learning from this injury continues to unfold; our wounds also carry the voice of the wild. We are reminded to pay attention to the details, to not try to hurry things along. What is offered, what we need, will emerge on its own terms and in its own time, like ripening fruit. The journey is much more about being here than it is about getting there. For this we need a different kind of map. This book is one such map.

In these pages is the knowledge of the old Chinese master, transformed with time, like the weather and the forests, as the mountains themselves have changed. All along the volume I sought was in the library of wild places. In Wild Wisdom, the lost manuscript is returned to me and I am grateful.

M. Amos Clifford, author of Your Guide to Forest Bathing:
Experience the Healing Power of Nature

O ver centuries, explorers, mystics, and seekers from many traditions have sought inspiration in nature and solitude. Many of them not only spoke about the wilderness, described it, but also lived from it, bringing back to us a message in living, wild words.