Nature

[sandandfoam]

I love nature. I love being outside in nature. Especially on the mountains and in the sea.
I find something extraordinarily peaceful about being battered by the elements. Surfing - especially in rough weather takes me somewhere special. I was out for a couple of hours this morning and I had one of those perfect experiences, high winds, high seas, strong currents. Perfect.
Lucky for me (as I'm not the worlds greatest surfer!) I get as much of a kick from being tumbled around underwater as I do from riding a wave. I really like that feeling of awesome power when you're being tossed around inside the whitewater on a day when the sea is rough. It occured to me today (underwater I might add!) that there is something almost womb-like about the experience of being in nature.
High mountains and seas have consistently provided the backdrop for my most intense experiences. There's a clarity there that I don't experience anywhere else.
Below is one of my favourite surf spots. Long ago the monks liked it out there on Skellig Michael too, I sometimes feel we are on the same page.

 

[Heneni]

I completely understand. Nature is grounding. And at the same time it makes you feel as free as a bird.

heneni

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I love nature. ... I get as much of a kick from being tumbled around underwater as I do from riding a wave. I really like that feeling of awesome power when you're being tossed around inside the whitewater on a day when the sea is rough. It occured to me today (underwater I might add!) that there is something almost womb-like about the experience of being in nature.

I grew up in Southern California. My dad had me bodysurfing at Zuma by the time I was six or seven. If you consider being in the agitate cycle of a wave a "womb-like" experience, your pregnant mother was far, far more active than most.

 

[sandandfoam]

I grew up in Southern California. My dad had me bodysurfing at Zuma by the time I was six or seven. If you consider being in the agitate cycle of a wave a "womb-like" experience, your pregnant mother was far, far more active than most.

I must ask her!!
Do you still surf Jay?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I must ask her!!
Do you still surf Jay?

I'm 62 and living near Chicago. The only waves I see are the ones I make here ...

 

[sandandfoam]

I'm 62 and living near Chicago. The only waves I see are the ones I make here ...

If you ever visit Ireland I'll take you out!
My wife heard a 67 year old man from America on the radio the other day. His dream was to come here and surf a tow in by the Cliffs of Moher. He did it too! Fantastic.
Have a look at this clip of people doing tow ins there. I think it's great.
YouTube - Surfing by the Cliffs of Moher
Pretend you're near the ocean and enjoy the clip!

 

[kai]

that picture is great.

 

[sandandfoam]

that picture is great.

You should see it in real life. There's normally diving gannets and shags drying themselves on rocks. Sometimes you can see basking sharks, one evening myself and my wife sat on the beach and watched dolphins playing with the surf for about an hour. It's one of my favourite places on the planet. There's almost always great waves, it's a wonderful spot.

 

[Mjolnir]

I am with you. It makes me think of that poem by Lord Byron:

[FONT=Courier,sans-serif]There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal
- Lord Byron

[/FONT]Great picture by the way.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There is nothing that brings me pleasantly back to my youth so much as the taste of salt water! (Except for the Dead Sea. Oh my God!)

 

[Willamena]

I read this just today:

'The Twelfth Patriarch Asvaghosha, in expounding the "Buddha-nature Sea" for the sake of the Thirteenth Patriarch, said: "The forming of mountains, rivers, the great earth itself, is totally dependent on the Buddha-nature..."'

In this way, mountains, rivers, and the great earth are all the Buddha-nature Sea. 'The forming of mountains, river, the great earth itself, is totally dependent' means that the very time they are being formed is mountains, rivers, and the great earth. As for 'the forming is totally dependent on the Buddha-nature', you should know that the mode of the Buddha-nature Sea is like this. It is not concerned with inner or outer or in-between. As the Buddha-nature Sea is like this, seeing mountains and rivers is seeing the Buddha-nature. Seeing the Buddha-nature is seeing a donkey's jowls or a horse's mouth [not apart from the actual, everyday things around us]. You understand, you do not understand, that 'totally dependent' is "whole dependence," is a depending whole.

The footnote explains: 'The forming is totally dependent on the Buddha-nature' does not connote dependence in terms of a subject-object duality. Just as the forming of waves is totally dependent on the sea, and the sea does not exist without the waves, the forming of each individual thing is dependent on the ocean of Buddha-nature, and Buddha-nature does not exist apart from individual things. Given this nondualistic relation, formation is itself Buddha-nature, is mountains, is rivers, and so on. Mountains, rivers, and so on and the Buddha-nature are two names for one and the same dynamic reality. This is realized at "the very time of their being formed," hence the identity of time and being, a key concept for Dogen: "[Time is being(s), being(s) is all time]…. Mountains are time and seas are time. If they were not time, there would be no mountains and seas" (Shobogenzo Uji, pg. 56).


EDIT: Another footnote: Each and every thing is wholly and utterly dependent on (cannot exist without) Buddha-nature. Given that the nondualistic activity of "depending" and the nondualistic function of "forming" are both the Buddha-nature, "wholeness" and "dependence" are absolutely reciprocal. On the one hand, this is to be understood, but on the other hand, even without our understanding, it is always being disclosed here at this very moment.

Neat.

 

[sandandfoam]

I was surfing again today, more wild weather. My kids are all asleep and I've been looking around the 'net at surfing stuff (since it's dark and I can't surf!) this photo is taken close to here. It's the kind of white water I love. Isn't nature fantastic.

 

[Willamena]

It's beautiful.

 

[autonomous1one1]

I love nature. .........

Greetings. Yes, same here for many reasons.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobnank/2129077337/
Nature can be an agent to stillness of the mind and a window to Buddha-nature that Willamena posted on. Perhaps some will be interested in these threads where many of us have expressed various notions about nature:
http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...804-what-spiritual-values-can-we-learn-2.html
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/39018-god-man-nature-3.html#post588435
http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-you-see-nature-being-part-4.html#post595245
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/35284-american-nature-religion-3.html
http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...9570-god-synonymous-nature-4.html#post1014774

 

[Jack_Ripper]

I love nature. I love being outside in nature. Especially on the mountains and in the sea.
I find something extraordinarily peaceful about being battered by the elements. Surfing - especially in rough weather takes me somewhere special. I was out for a couple of hours this morning and I had one of those perfect experiences, high winds, high seas, strong currents. Perfect.
Lucky for me (as I'm not the worlds greatest surfer!) I get as much of a kick from being tumbled around underwater as I do from riding a wave. I really like that feeling of awesome power when you're being tossed around inside the whitewater on a day when the sea is rough. It occured to me today (underwater I might add!) that there is something almost womb-like about the experience of being in nature.
High mountains and seas have consistently provided the backdrop for my most intense experiences. There's a clarity there that I don't experience anywhere else.
Below is one of my favourite surf spots. Long ago the monks liked it out there on Skellig Michael too, I sometimes feel we are on the same page.

Even I love nature- especially forest and greenery. I just get fresher and more relaxing than ever because it is very hard to see all of these in cities like mumbai or delhi. I just wish i can own a large park or garden of my own when i grow old. It would be like NAture in my backyard

Though not ocean, the vast open sea gives me creeps

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