What Is True

It is December and the woods I run through are down to their bare bones. Missing the vibrant lushness of the greens canopying over the trails and filling the negative spaces, I‘ve been running and feeling a chill of loneliness out there. That was the case until the other day when I looked out at the open spaces between trunks and branches, which extended as far as my eye could see. It occurred to me that the trees didn’t leave me. They may be bare, but they are very alive. It was me, in fact, that had abandoned them by thinking I was now alone in the woods. Instead of feeling emptiness, I could feel full of what is there. These solid trunks and flexible branches are as present as ever doing their internal work of resting. Just because they are not adorned in their finest doesn’t mean I should stop seeing them. Just as when I am not at my finest, I should not abandon myself. We are all worth more than that.

It is so easy to forget what we do have, to abandon what is in front of us in the desire for something else. We do it with people and objects and we do it with ourselves. In those moments of longing for something, someone, some situation, or ourselves to be different, if we can pause long enough to stay with what is here, just as it is, we might recognize, as I did in the woods, that this place is enough and maybe even has gifts that we were too closed to see before. We still might need something more, but we are seeing clearly and there is more possibility in that.

I once read, in one of his many books, Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh express the importance of asking, “is it true?” For a long while, I had it written on my desk so I could see it often. I have since learned through another practice to ask, “what else is true here?” The leaves may be gone, but am I really alone in the woods? I may be at this Thanksgiving table with my newly shaped family and feeling out of place, but am I really? Am I not fully embraced by this beautiful group before me? That question of “what else is true” recognizes that there is something I’m sensing that is real for me (and important to embrace), but that there is likely more to it that allows for a fuller experience. In seeing from this more complete existence, I can get a greater perspective and choose where my thoughts take me. I might need to make a change, ask for something, stand up for myself, call for help, but it comes from a more open place, which in turn makes me better able to receive.

What I’ve learned in and out of the woods this fall is that I can stay close to what I love though it might temporarily take a different form. By taking that moment to pause, step back, and see, I get closer to what is true and it usually brings me closer to what I love.