What Trees Can Teach Us
About Compassion
It was like beaming down onto a strange, mystical planet, the kind you’d see in a Star Trek episode. There were huge boulders and smaller rocks that looked like rubble, all piled on top of each other as though they had dropped from the sky eons ago and been abandoned there. Dotted among the rock debris were twisted and bent scrubby pine trees, as if in defiance of that dry, barren landscape. The rocks, the pines, and other low, spiny shrubs, squat cacti, and sand underfoot all contributed to a sense of quiet, almost eerie yet somehow sacred space.
I was in Joshua Tree National Park in southern California recently – part of this planet, this country. Like other places considered high desert, the life forms that live and grow here have adapted to the dry, sometimes harsh conditions.
As we hiked on various trails around the rocks and scattered plants, my eyes were lured to those Joshua trees, shaped unlike any trees I’ve seen before, other than in a Dr. Seuss book. It brought to mind a story I have shared with my meditation students. It is one of countless pearls of wisdom from now-deceased spiritual teacher Ram Dass:
“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree, and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so, I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
I find this quote to be a great reset; a helpful reminder that we are all shaped by our lifetimes of experiences, some easy and leaving us well-shaped and beautiful, and some hard and gnarled, leaving us hurt and bent. We’re shaped by all the experiences of our lives; those handed to us by our past, our family, our culture, and our life circumstances, as well as the experiences we’ve created through our many decisions and actions along the way. This combination is the conditioning that creates who we are today, the trees we are today. Those strange and beautiful Joshua Trees live in a harsh environment, and it shows; they work hard just to survive. All types of trees, the gorgeous flowering dogwood, the mighty oak, the tender saplings, and even the species we don’t like or conside ugly, all have as much right to be on our planet as any other tree.
I am reminded of the poem Compassion by Miller Williams
Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit,
bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign
of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on
down there where the spirit meets the bone.
So, when I see a bent, twisted, or frightening-looking ‘tree’, rather than judging, shaming, and rejecting it, which often feels good and even safe, I try hard to remember that I have little or no idea what has brought about that twistedness. Like the Joshua Trees, maybe such a person grew up in harsh conditions. What I do know is that whatever it was, it was painful for them, and that opens the door for some compassion. There are many times when holding that in mind is quite challenging, but I feel it is part of the way toward creating and living in a more loving and compassionate world.
Something we can really use right now!
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