Mindful Hiking

Last week, I made my annual pilgrimage to Acadia National Park in Maine. I did four different hikes on this three day trip and each was amazing in its own way. What I love about Acadia is the dramatic vistas of ocean, mountain and forest. You can enjoy the thunderous collisions of waves against rock and also enjoy the quiet solitude of hiking through dense forest. The photo above is from the Acadia National Park website.

Hiking is one of my spiritual practices. By hiking in places of natural beauty, my soul is refreshed and renewed. However, a certain kind of awareness called "mindfulness" enhances the spiritual benefits of hiking (and other forms of activity, too). Mindfulness is being fully present in the present moment.

The key to hiking being a soulful experience is the attitude with which we do it. There are several ways to hike. A hike can be a race against other hikers where the goal is to finish as quickly as possible. A hike can become a time trial where the goal is to do your best time over a specific distance. A hike can also be done purely for exercise—to burn calories. A hike can also be done for spiritual nourishment.

When I hike mindfully, I am more aware of the natural beauty surrounding me. I notice the pattern of sunlight on the ground that filters through the branches of trees. I breathe in the musty forest air, rich with aromas of earth: decaying leaves, pine needles and evergreen cones. I look at the sky above the canopy of tree tops and marvel at the varying hues of blue and the puffy white clouds floating effortlessly. When hiking with this kind of awareness, I feel connected to the aliveness around me and feel more alert and alive within.

When it comes to spiritual practices, it's not so much what we do, but how we go about doing it. When we do something mindfully, we connect ourselves with what is holy, sacred and divine.

Paying Attention

According to brain scientists, "attention" is their holy grail. For years, scientists have been trying to discover what causes us to focus on one thing rather than another and why.

We've all heard of "attention deficit disorder" (ADD), a condition in which attention moves quickly from one thing to another. This is an impediment to learning, as the ability to pay attention to what we're reading or writing is a key academic skill.

When it comes to spirituality, attention also plays a key role. Being able to focus our attention on the sacred dimension of life is a critical spiritual practice. When our attention wanders, our soul meanders.

Attention is an important dimension of "mindfulness"-- being present in the here and now. Another way to understand mindfulness is "being fully present in the present moment." When we are mindful of what we are doing (or not doing) our spiritual connection is strengthened and deepened.

Another name for mindfulness is "flow," the ability to be fully engaged in what we are doing. I find that mindfulness/flow is fostered by "losing" myself in whatever I'm doing. That's where paying attention comes in. To focus our attention serves to keep us from being distracted or having what Buddhist's call a "monkey mind" that moves rapidly from one thought/feeling to another.

I don't believe it's possible to always stay in the present moment. But when I do, I am engaged, energized and, at the same time, calm and balanced.

Fear and Mindfulness

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Connecticut-- sunny and around 40. So I took a midday hike in one of my favorite places: Devil's Den Nature Conservancy. I love Devil's Den because of the thick forest and many streams, but especially the numerous dramatic rock outcroppings.

When I hike in this place of natural beauty, I usually find it easy to hike mindfully while focusing on the surroundings. However, today was different. After hiking for a mile or so, I remembered the mountain lion sighting nearby in Westport, CT.

Even though this sighting was a few weeks ago, I began to think about it more and more as I hiked alone deeper into the forest. Every so often I would stop and look behind me, making sure that nothing was sneaking up on me. I began to plan what I would do if attacked (use my trekking poles in self-defense) and who I would call and what I would say. My imagination stoked my anxiety.

This brought home the lesson that fear is the enemy of mindfulness. When we're afraid, it is difficult, if not impossible, to be fully present in the present moment. Paradoxically, fear does cause us to focus, but we focus on the negative possibilities (i.e. being attacked by a hungry mountain lion).

Since I'm writing this, you can surmise that I wasn't attacked by a mountain lion or anything else. My fears were unfounded, as most fears usually are. Yet, to be human is to fear. We need to learn which fears to pay attention to and which to dismiss as remote or improbable (i.e. being attacked by a lone mountain lion that hasn't been seen for two weeks).

Slow Food and Slow Eating

I recently had dinner at Recipe Restaurant on the Upper West side of Manhattan. This restaurant uses local ingredients and is part of the "Slow Food" movement. We all know what fast food is, but have you heard about “slow food”? According to www.slowfood.org: “Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.”

The Slow Food Movement embodies three basic principles. First, food should be good in the sense that it be from healthy plants and animals and taste delicious. Good food builds community and celebrates regional diversity. Secondly, food should be clean-- nutritious for humans and grown in ways that respect the environment. Finally, food should be fair—available to everyone and produced by workers who are treated fairly

There is much wisdom to be gleaned from Slow Food. For, one of the ways that food can feed our souls is to simply slow down our consumption of it.

There is a vast difference between dining and eating. When we dine, we pay attention to all aspects of a meal. We are conscious of the aesthetics of space we are in, how the table is set, the presentation of the food. Manners govern our dining behavior as we wait for the hosts to start eating before we begin. When dining, we make an effort to converse with those who are at table with us. Because we’re engaged in conversation, we eat more slowly and gratefully.

In many ways, what I’ve just described is eating with mindfulness. When we eat mindfully, we eat more slowly as we savor each bite. We are attentive to the aromas, the color and texture of the food and, of course, the taste. We pause between each bite and reflect upon its flavor.

When eating mindfully, we are also eating gratefully. A table grace is a wonderful way to begin a meal. To give thanks to the Source of all food and life seems appropriate. When eating in restaurants, a silent grace will help center you and make the meal a more soulful experience. This gratitude also includes those who grew the food, packaged it and prepared it.

Mindfulness

Lately, I’ve been working on being more mindful of what’s going on around me and within me. The concept of “mindfulness” comes from the practice of Buddhist meditation and focuses in particular on an awareness of breathing.

However, I've tried to expand the concept of mindfulness to include nearly everything I do. For, to be mindful is to pay attention to the spiritual dimension of life.

Here’s an example. I love to hike. There are several ways you can look at hiking. You can view it as exercise, especially when you are hiking uphill. You can see it as a race to get from one place to another as quickly as possible. You can understand it as a competition and try to hike faster than everyone else.

You can also understand hiking as a spiritual experience. As you hike, you can look at the beauty of the trees, the rock formations, the streams and the wildlife. You can breathe in the smell of the woods. You can notice how the sunlight filters through the trees. You can look up at the vast sky above. If you come to a vista, you can stop and look over the treetops for miles and have a sense of eternity.

While hiking, you can also notice what is going on within yourself. How hard are you breathing? How hard is your heart beating? Are you feeling tired? Are you carrying your anxieties, worries and concerns with you? Are you feeling a sense of freedom or joy?

To be mindful is to be deeply aware and it can make all the difference in how we experience an activity.

To be mindful is to be fully present in the present moment. Mindfulness places you in the here and now. It takes you from doing to being. Mindfulness is a spiritual discipline.

Frederick Buechner writes, “If God speaks to us at all... I think that he speaks to us largely through what happens to us…if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, then I think we come to recognize that he [God] is speaking to us…”

So then, let us look and listen carefully to what is happening to us. For being mindful is a way of connecting with the holiness and sacredness of life; it’s a way of connecting with God.