BY BRUCE DAVIS

People are discovering that going green in the world includes going green inside ourselves. The big changes needed to save the environment call on us to devise a whole new approach to our inner environment. There is too much concrete in our world, including our own fixed thoughts, hardened beliefs, and our sense of identity, which leads us to think we know who we are when in fact we know very little of the mystery of life. The out-of-control forces in nature are mirroring our internal forces struggling for awareness and compassion. Our lack of a true spiritual life, connecting to the heart of life, has a profound effect in how we treat the earth. Going green inside is healing the separation of our mind from our heart.

Inside each of us is an inner mystic who loves harmony, wholeness, freedom, and simple peace. The worries, cravings, and pressures crowding our mind are expressions of our constricted heart. We can clear our inner world and free our awareness. Our awareness can be grounded, planted in our heart. Here instead of being endlessly busy trying to manage life, we find our home inside. There is unlimited space to live from. When we know our inner vastness, we have no wish to be busy consuming. We naturally find ourselves giving more. Life conforms to the ripple effect. We offer our love into the great ocean of being, the precious moments of each day. Our love and care spreads through the world, including our hurting environment.

It is time to go green inside by regularly practicing heartfulness meditation, bringing our awareness to the safest, most loving place in our heart. Here we receive and absorb the vast presence of simple peace. Heartfulness restores our inner world as we heal the world around us and awaken these important qualities in our life:

Silence

Taking the time to listen to the quiet of our own heart is to hear another wisdom, to discover a presence that satisfies many of our desires, and to calm our worry. The noise of the world and our inner noise keep us separate from simple peace. Silence is more than unplugging. It is an opportunity to receive. Retreat in silence frees our mind of so much thought. Our awareness finds something greater. The great silence inside and around us gives us a wholeness beyond words, connecting us to something that can best be described as eternity.

Emptiness

Emptiness is something not talked about much in our culture. But it is the mystic’s path through the many worlds. Embracing simple being, the space of no thought, our no self is to create room for transformation. Life changes when our minds are not overfilled with all the stuff of our thoughts. Emptiness curbs self-importance, allowing us to see the vulnerability of life. Emptiness, and our ego loses some weight as we discover the heart inside our heart. Emptiness is a practice. We receive the vast space we find within. The gentle humility unveils an awakening, a treasure beyond description.

Offering

Life is an offering. What we offer in life finds a way to move aside our problems and the problems of the world. Offering is both an inner and outer practice. We offer what is on our mind, what is in our heart. The more we offer, the more we realize all that is being offered to us. Offering is a life practice, healing our selfishness as we discover how connected we are to each other and to all of nature. The more we offer, the more we find the presence of life’s sacredness. This inner abundance makes us want to offer even more to a needy world around us.

Purification

So much news, so much fear, so much entertainment that is really not so entertaining. Purification is not something of old-time religion but an opportunity to remember and celebrate our original innocence. Very early in childhood our awareness becomes overloaded. Our feelings, self-esteem, and heartfulness get lost. Purification happens as we receive the pure quiet of our own heart. Purification naturally occurs as we absorb our heart essence in meditation and daily life. We think it is normal to have so much on our mind. Our over-intellectualizing of life is a giant filter that keeps us apart from the lightness of being, joy, and unending surprises we find in the moment.

Gratitude

There are many green paths and meadows full of flowers calling for our attention. Gratitude keeps us in the garden of life and not always fretting with the weeds in our mind and life. Gratitude enlightens a life of judgment by finding gratefulness instead. It is so easy to judge ourselves and others, which keeps us defensive and sad. Our hearts rest as we embrace a life of gratitude. Gratitude can be remembering the best moments of each day and taking the richness of these moments with us as we close our eyes and fall into dream worlds, imagination, creativity, and cosmic wonder.

The greening of our inner environment is calling us. Freedom grows as we plant new seeds in the rejuvenated soil of our heart. The heart of this moment is where life is really happening. The heart of this moment is green with infinite possibility and potentiality.

Bruce Davis, PhD, is author of Monastery Without Walls and retreat leader at Silent Stay Retreats near Napa. In addition to retreats, Silent Stay offers pilgrimages to Assisi, Italy, and Bali, Indonesia. SilentStay.com