I do not know from when I began my love for trees, and then for forests of myriad trees. The call from trees is close and cozy! Only during the days when I devoted myself walking in the mountains could I enjoy complete REST and PEACE.
Trees do not know how to talk, but there are other ways to communicate with one another. Just fix your eyes on a tree, with deep affection, and he will speak unceasingly on the mysteries of life, and perhaps tell you a story about the struggle for existence hundreds of years ago.
Trees have never attended lessons in the performing arts, nor are they concerned about the petty gossips of the art critics. Yet if you fix your eyes on them, with deep affection, they will enter into your heart and reveal their utmost beauty. It is a performance at the same time relaxingly serene and excitingly robust, practically bringing together at once the arts of painting, music and dance.
Not only the trees. There is a green pasture opposite the forest. A flock of sheep is sauntering on the other side of the fence, as if quietly tarrying for the passing of time. You walk towards the fence, fix your eyes on them with deep affection, they would get excited, also walk towards the fence, turn towards you from various positions, and fix their eyes on you with deep affection.
In the realm of Nature everywhere is purity unspoiled and affection wide and open. Go near Nature, relax yourself, remove all barriers, be ready to become one with the Universe, realize the true position of man in the world of living things, and you will be able to allay all your fears and worries, completely freeing yourself up.
It is a pity that, no one knows starting from when, man is chosen “to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Man has thus been flattered, no longer treats Nature as his friend, kills whatever living thing he cares to kill: a hundred year old tree thus vanishes within seconds under a bulldozer; fish and shrimps, hitherto swimming with vigour, lie silently in the next instant on the dining table, their gills and feelers still making their last shudders. Neither does he treat his neighbours as his friends. He looks down upon them and persecutes his fellow beings, making use of every possible kind of force: arms, finance and power to coerce and oppress the more unfortunate. The result? Both heaven and earth are grieved and angered; and the whole world is pervaded by an atmosphere of disgust and hatred. Nowhere now can we find a happy and blissful corner to dwell.
To get away from such a pathetic situation, to regain simple inner peace, to look for joy long lost, the easiest, surest and most effective way is to return to Nature, abandoning the undeserving, worthless honour ‘the wisest of all creatures’, relegate the false icon of being more important than others, go into the forest to befriend flowers and birds, experience their unsophisticated yet liberated way of life, and relearn the fundamentals of being a man. No honours to seek after, no wealth to accumulate, no insatiable desires to satisfy. Millions of beings are living there plainly and solidly. By returning to Nature, the rich and famous can extinguish their ‘no one but me’ arrogance, while the nobodies can get all-encompassing relief of their manifold wounds.
Life is short, yet we have to consider and handle a lot of missions and visions, a lot of gains and losses, a lot of emotions and feelings. After long years of tiring till and toil, what, in fact, have we acquired, and what have we succeeded? Look at the little flowers and grass by the mountainside, they just put out a tender shoot if they care to come to the world, and just fall to the ground if it is time to end their life. So simple and so graceful. No wrong or remorse, no right or fortune, only an unadorned pure existence. If you go back to Nature, regard yourself as a simple flower or blade of grass, you, too, know not gains and losses, know not honour and disgrace. The mind will immediately become peaceful, and you will start to embrace this very moment of pure existence.
Thoreau: “Regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.”