Roots And Breath Outdoors

A simple wooden bench beneath redwoods can teach more about mindfulness than a stack of books. Sean Fargo shares how years as a Buddhist monk distilled into one essential practice: sit at the base of a tree, feel your breath, and let nature lead. From Thai forests to a Berkeley backyard, he traces the quiet power of practicing outdoors and explains why fresh air, shifting light, and the textures of the world sharpen attention and soften judgment.

We explore a practical, element-based approach—earth, fire, air, water, and space—that makes awareness tangible. You’ll hear how to work with sun on the skin, breeze on the face, and the honest feedback of uneven ground. Sean offers simple ways to start today: eyes open or closed, sitting in a park, or taking a slow walk while sensing heel, ball, toe. For teachers, he maps out how to guide groups off Zoom and into parks, trails, and campgrounds, where presence becomes easier and distractions become part of the practice instead of problems to fix.

If you’ve wondered whether public meditation looks strange, this conversation offers permission and a plan. We talk about building resilience by staying with both pleasant and unpleasant conditions, noticing judgments, and returning to raw sensation. By the end, you’ll have a clear, friendly roadmap for bringing your practice outdoors—alone, with friends, or with a class—and a renewed trust that nature is a steady mentor when we show up to listen.

Subscribe for more grounded guidance, share this episode with someone who loves the outdoors, and tell us in the comments: where in nature do you practice mindfulness?

Chapters

• 0:00 From Monkhood To Backyard Roots
• 1:44 Why Practice Outside Matters
• 2:35 Sensing Nature Without Judgment
• 3:39 Elements Inside And Around Us
• 4:40 Taking Mindfulness Outdoors Together

Transcript

From Monkhood To Backyard Roots

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, Sean Fargo here with Mindfulness Exercises. I just wanted to share that you know a lot of people ask me what it was like being a Buddhist monk. And quite frankly, most of my time was spent just like this, sitting at the base of a tree. It was very simple. Here in my backyard, my wife and I live in a home in Berkeley, California, where there's these redwood trees in the backyard. And I don't know if you can see it, but they're kind of like growing from the same place at the bottom. And one of the major reasons why we moved here is because these trees. And so we put a bench here that was generously bought for by my wife's aunt. She bought it for our daughter a few years ago when she was born. So this is my daughter's bench. And so it's just really nice to sit back here at the root of a tree, kind of doing what I was doing for a couple of years as a monk. You know, as a monk, our teachers would say, you know, even if we don't teach you a thing about mindfulness or Buddhism or any of that rhetoric, you'll learn everything you need to know by sitting at the root of a tree, kind of sensing into your breath, move in and out of the body, observing your thoughts, sensing your experience with less and less judgment and more and more wakefulness. And so that's mostly what I did. I just found a tree somewhere in the forest, and I would live in different forests in uh throughout Thailand, in Northeast Thailand, in Central Thailand, Northern California, and I would just sit at the base of a tree and meditate. And I think that's something that's not really encouraged much in the West to practice outside. You know, most of us will sit on a cushion inside and we'll have like our spot inside our house that's quiet and we'll meditate there, which is great. But not all of us consider just walking outside and meditating. I admit, you know, especially in places like the United States, it might look a little weird to be closing your eyes outside by a tree, but who cares? We can sit at a local park, we can sit at a beach, we can sit in our backyard, we can go camping and just practice mindfulness outside. We can have our eyes open or closed, it doesn't really matter, as long as we're sensing into our moment-to-moment experience without judging it. And and so, you know, as we're sitting out here, we can sense into the sensations of the sun on our skin, the breeze on our skin, sense into the temperature, whether it's cool or warm, we can notice our reactivity or judgments of it being hot or cold. And can we just be with the actual sensations and the skin and the flesh and the bones without judgment and just kind of being with it moment to moment? Can we notice the thoughts that arise? The elements of the body, so sensing into the earth element of skin and bone and flesh, hair? Can we sense into the fire element of temperature or lack thereof? Can we sense into the air element of the breath moving in and out of the body? Can we sense into liquid element or the water element of blood in our body and saliva and urine and tears? Can we sense into space inside us? And then can we sense into the elements outside us of the earth element, water element, fire element, wind element, space element? So we're we're sensing into the elements of nature both inside us and outside us. And you know, as mindfulness teachers, can we encourage people to practice outside, to find the roots of a tree to sit at? Maybe you can do mindful walking outside and practice sensing into the bottoms of our feet as we walk on a trail. You know, we can lead sessions at a local park or a campground, we can lead retreats at a campground, or do a long day long at a park. So we're not confined to the internet as mindfulness teachers, we're not confined to boardrooms or libraries or community centers or offices. We can take groups of people or individuals outside to practice mindfulness. This is where most people have been practicing mindfulness for thousands of years is outside, not on Zoom, not inside offices or anything like that. It's outside. And so, you know, my encouragement to everyone is to find what works for you. You know, where in nature do you practice mindfulness? I'd love to hear, you know, where you practice mindfulness. So please write a comment in the comment section where your favorite places in nature are to practice mindfulness or to teach mindfulness. And I'm sure we'll get some interesting answers and hopefully, you know, inspire all of us to take our mindfulness practice outdoors. So those are my thoughts for the day. Hope all of you are doing well. Whether you know it's a beautiful day or not, you know, it's always fun to practice outside and just being with what is, whether we like it or not, whether it's pleasant or not, can we be with it without judgment? And just kind of staying with our experience as it arises. You know, if it's unpleasant, we'll probably learn a lot and build resilience. If it's pleasant, then we had a great time, right? So thanks again for for listening, and I hope you all are doing well. Take good care.