“A moment ago, when you talked about the eternal present and the unreality of past and future, I found myself looking at that tree outside the window. I had looked at it a few times before, but this time it was different. The external perception had not changed much, except that the colors seemed brighter and more vibrant. But there was now an added dimension to it. This is hard to explain.
“I don’t know how, but I was aware of something invisible that I felt was the essence of that tree, its inner spirit, if you like. And somehow I was part of that. I realize now that I hadn’t truly seen the tree before, just a flat and dead image of it. When I look at the tree now, some of that awareness is still present, but I can feel it slipping away. You see, the experience is already receding into the past. Can something like this ever be more than a fleeting glimpse?”
That was the question spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle answered while explaining how to practice tree meditation. This reminded me of another tree meditation — albeit in a poetic form — written by John Ashbery (July 28, 1927–September 3, 2017) and included in his “Collected Poems”.
Like all spiritual insights, it was penned in a state of presence when the author’s mind was free of time. He moved into the Now and saw trees without the screen of mind.
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SOME TREES
by John AshberyThese are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chanceTo meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees tryTo tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.And glad not to have invented
Such comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emergesA chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.
Complement “Some Trees” from John Ashbery’s “Collected Poems” with Eckhart Tolle on how to practice tree meditation.
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