UN Report: 'Living As Nature' — Day 197

The UN recently released a report looking at our human relationship with nature. Investigating this relationship is precisely what we are doing every day in our mindfulness practice. What is my nature?

What we find over time, is that we are a self-aware, full-spectrum reflection – writ small – of this natural world/universe. We are all of that. But so long as we remain unaware of this fact, we will continue to cause problems individually, culturally and for the planet.

The final perspective listed below expresses the point of the practice particularly well: living as nature. In order to be able to do this, we are engaged in uncovering our deeper and true nature.

The Guardian: Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive, UN report finds...with spiritual, cultural and emotional benefits of nature ignored

Taking into account all the benefits nature provides to humans and redefining what it means to have a “good quality of life” is key to living sustainably on Earth, a four-year assessment by 82 leading scientists has found.

This means properly valuing the spiritual, cultural and emotional values that nature brings to humans, according to the report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes).

The review highlights four general perspectives that should be taken into account;

• “living from nature” which refers to its ability to provide us with our needs like food and material goods;

• “living with nature”, which is the right of non-human life to thrive;

• “living in nature” which refers to people’s right to a sense of place and identity, and finally,

• “living as nature”, which treats the world as a spiritual part of being human.