Mark Coleman and the Importance of Mindfulness Within Nature
Mark Coleman joins Health Gig to share his passion for bringing meditation and nature together. His new book “A Field Guide to Nature Meditation” shows both beginners and those well-practiced how experiencing the outdoors helps us become better stewards of the Earth. Doro and Tricia explore his outlook on the importance of being outside and discuss how teaching mindfulness to our children is the most important work for our future. Listen in to this insightful and meaningful conversation!
More on Mark Coleman:
Book: A Field Guide to Nature Meditation
Website: markcoleman.org
Website: awakeinthewild.com
Website: mindfulnesstraininginstitute.com
Facebook: facebook.com/markcoleman365
Instagram: instagram.com/markcoleman365
Twitter: twitter.com/markcoleman365
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Quotes:
Nature does a lot of the work. It invites us into the present. It invites us to be quiet, embodied, and in our senses, and it opens the heart.
Mark Coleman
When we go outside Mindfully, we become more sensitive. We take in the beauty, richness, and diversity, and we can’t help but feel fondness, affection, appreciation, or gratitude. Mark Coleman
The most important work that happens with mindfulness is the teaching of our children. Mark Coleman
Show Notes:
Mark Coleman: I grew up in northern England, in Northumberland, kind of a wild, rugged country bordering Scotland.
Mark Coleman: My journey took me to India and to study with various teachers there and then eventually ended up in the US and, then fell in love with the wilderness here.
Mark Coleman: India has, I think, for millennia really has been such a rich, deep spiritual culture and particularly the home of many very profound meditation traditions.
Mark Coleman: Being in nature is not dissimilar to meditation; that the peace, tranquility, calm, clarity that I find.
Mark Coleman: We came from the earth and our ancestors came from the earth. And we eat the earth and we go back to the Earth eventually.
Mark Coleman: We're in a relationship where other creatures are knowing us and feeling us and sensing us, smelling us.
Mark Coleman: We are a slightly idiosyncratic, quirky part of nature, but so is so much of life.
Mark Coleman: I invite people out into nature in this contemplative way, as I hope that they both wake up, they fall in love and they become better stewards of the earth.
Mark Coleman: When we spend more time outside, it gets more real. It moves from the head to a lived visceral experience.
Mark Coleman: We're becoming an indoor species. They say the average American spends 95% of their time indoors.
Mark Coleman: When we go at doors, nature is inviting us into the present.
Mark Coleman: When people are asked about their profound spiritual experiences of the sacred of divine, you know, 80 to 90% will say it's in nature.
Mark Coleman: the idea came to me in I had been teaching a lot of these practices and I thought, well, what would be a good kind of manual for nature meditation?
Mark Coleman: The idea was to just a sample, a meditation, a week, explore it, play with it, feel it out, try it in different environments, and get to know the really just like the keys to the doorway into nature.
Mark Coleman: The book, is designed both partly for people who haven't meditated before and who want to try this particular style of mindfulness practice. And it's very much also attuned to people who have a meditation practice, mindfulness practice, or whatever kind of practice, and then want to take that practice outdoors.
Mark Coleman: We all have some connection with nature, even if we're a city dweller. And so it's like it's waking up, it's rekindling what's already in our DNA.
Mark Coleman: The most important work that happens with mindfulness is the teaching of our children.
Mark Coleman: If we don't raise generations that care for the earth, we're going to keep repeating the harm and putting the life of all species at risk.
Mark Coleman: Spirit Rock is an insight meditation center, as you know. It's in northern California, just north of the Bay Area.
Mark Coleman: It's a very pioneering meditation center based in the Buddhist tradition, the insight meditation tradition. And they offer retreats and trainings and programs and teacher trainings.
Mark Coleman: I started this thing called the Mindfulness Institute as a way of taking the richness of mindfulness and meditation and the Buddhist tradition that I learned into a more secular setting.
Mark Coleman: So much of the joys of life come mysteriously.
Keywords:
TriciaReillyKoch, DoroBushKoch, HealthGig, Longevity, Wellness, PhysicalHealth, MentalHealth, Health, HealthCare, MarkColeman, Mindfulness, Joy, Happiness, Meditation, Nature, Earth, Wilderness, SpiritRock