Simon, a Forest Monk, shares some wisdom from the woods

Description

Simon has been living a simple life in a log cabin in the woods for almost two months now at ReWildU. Already he has found some great wisdom that he shares with us in this video.

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

this is simon christensen and you came to revalue one and a half months ago yeah okay and I guess so yesterday you you did this the wine day experiment and you said that it's kind of tied into some of the other things that you've experienced up til now so just be cool to hear about about your blind experiment and just what you you know not a lot of people get to go and live out away from all of our stuff I receive all his stuff for a long time yeah so you know being able to go and live in not such a civilized manner for a longer period of time you you learn up a lot of different stuff and blind day when I when I had spent my horse with a blindfold on I could notice how all in my experience was getting more the best word I think I come to think I was intimate into more intimate relationship with things I've felt and heard and tasted like food tasted more as well for some reason and it felt like I was more in my you know my own internal world more than interacting with an exterior world and you know one I was getting frustrated at some point because of the stove I can't I couldn't get the fire going again because you this wasn't just blind I'm gonna sit in one place you were trying to I was normally I was even trying to make some dough at some point and I'd followed the recipe supposedly and my fingers were all sticking everything I had to add more flour to it but but I forgot where I'd put the flour jar so I could kind of just I don't have to abandon that project because with no more flour then yeah I couldn't find the flour jar at all and you know you know how the dough sticks yeah your hands if these mittens a sticky dough and and I was thinking removing the line as well but then that would become Allstate yes yes they were frustration and a lot of stuff I remained calm foremost but when the when the hut hut was getting too cold and I wanted to have a fire racket I had to cheap so I kind of broke my promise though with with spending a whole day that was the mission was spending a whole day lying down but if we put them back on after they made the fire but when I did that I realized how beautiful so like the day was outside and you know I walked outside sat there with my blindfold on but after a while I I didn't remove it you know how a said like that I had like an intimate relationship with my own internal world when I took the blindfold off I felt like you it was still that intimate relationship I can't drag that with me into the experience without the blindfold so I'm trying to picture this for people that haven't experienced being blind usually our vision kind of tells us the world is out there but without vision you felt like the world was right here like its internal like it's happening here rather than out there mm-hmm but when you're saying when you took the blindfold off even your visual field you experienced this to some degree at least it felt like it was a meeting of the external and internal world cliche wait I said would be internal and external became one yeah but just felt like that so I just that's why I decided to finish half the day without the blindfold because it felt like there was something to learn about that transition yeah instead of just spending a whole day blindfolded hanging that as a mission and like going through with it I allowed myself to break my own promise which is something I really do but I did allow it this time and I'm glad I did because I probably spent a few hours just being in awe of sight well like sight is something we take for granted and I think people who were born with sight and lost it would agree it is something we take for granted I appreciate it more now but now it's a day after so you know it's it's kind of back to normal but I learned something from it on my take from it is that there might not even be any such thing as internal or external like there could be a debate of whether it's it's a difference between two a better I don't think there is any like internal or external I think like that's just another label you know in terms of spiritual path you know like laundry and stuff

internal and external are to me now just a story kind of doesn't change my experience but it's it's another golden corner he's experienced on discovery on the subject of contrast you've been on the kind of forest monk diet which is pretty basic for quite a while now today we were on a field trip up to Lake Superior here and it's also a going into civilization field trip where well the first thing we did is we stopped at a restaurant end of a cafe and you said something that was kind of almost shocking you said this was maybe the best meal you've ever eaten in your life no no this is not the best restaurant in the world and that wasn't the best plate of food in that kind of way but what did you mean and what was going on there you know there's doubt in saying that because I would have to have all the meals to say that but I can I could say that with certainty because it wasn't necessarily the taste that was making it so incredible yeah it's kind of like you know when you long for something if you haven't had in a while I think it it it relates to anything you can imagine in life if you want it for long enough or you stayed away from it for long enough then it's ten times better the next time you had which could be like getting fire in the stove after you've had a cold night like if you have it warm all day you don't appreciate that fire as much and I haven't had like a cheesecake or grilled ham and cheese for such a long time or any similar meal like I've been eating beans and rice yeah probably mostly man for a while that way that just took it to a whole new level

yes I said it might not have been the prettiest best round ever but to me it was you know it's real doesn't matter the quality or the number of stars rational yes if it's Tatum beans for any restaurant we'll do think there's a Zen story about the butcher and somebody asked him like which cut which cut of your meat is best and he says everyone is fast good thing yeah that really relates to to losing sight and getting it back it's the same it's not the same contrast but it's on the same topic of contrast and appreciating something more when you know that how life is without it and that's why I felt like I had some of my what like one of my more amazing spiritual experiences when I got my sight back which was also because of there was this amazing weather but also just contrast yeah I think that'll like encapsulate a lot of the goals with this whole program really the contrast is making me able to find my balance maybe winning it hello miss Waller I've been able to experience how it is without some things and then when I get back in a like y'all I don't have to have it all the time because I appreciate it more if I limit it or spread it out instead of having it all day or every week so you don't foresee yourself going back and being never gonna play video games again or I'm never gonna eat a doughnut again I'm I'm looking so much forward to get home and play some video games but at the same time I know but I won't enjoy it unless I limit it and do other stuff as well hmm

like if I don't then I'm really looking forward to something that I won't enjoy if I do that whole day yeah so there's no point in like going back to the same extreme as I was earlier I think and also another extreme is to plate all day or or never play it again as you said the balance is key in that I guess I think that relates to food as well I imagine myself going blind for a few hours now and then like once or twice just to kind of remind myself that there is this contest and how much we appreciate aside I think when you said that about the Emil you're eating now I looked around at all the plates of food at our table with our whole group and just made me realize kind of the beauty of of our civilization that we've created something where we can all sit and you know we can choose these different meals and have these amazing experiences but if we're doing that every day it's so easy to you know I've caught that in myself again and again you sit down to this really great meal on now you eat your way through it and talk to the other people and ignore the food almost when wow there's these incredible experiences in nature but also in this world we've created if only we don't get so sucked into them that we just our habitual eyes do the hand we no longer taste that food we no longer enjoy that video game we no longer you know enjoy that warrant yeah it's also fair to say that you know the food can be like even today I I was having an incredible experience with the food but I have to catch myself sometimes being bite after bite and going into the same rhythm as I was in before but I catch myself it's like oh now I'm just eating like it was doing before like before I came here I stopped and I took a step back and I took another bite and returned to that more present feeling with the fluid on and I return to that incredible experience on the food again I had to catch myself I think even now I still have to be careful of that because it's even spending three months without it it isn't enough you kind of have to be careful about that I think your whole life you're going to yeah take take something from that yeah I think you know living in our civilized world it's just I totally agree every day I find that it sucks me in so that I don't know I just feel like I'm a machine almost I'm just moving mindlessly through life and then catch myself doing that it can come back into being present and enjoying whatever it is you know that's there but it's so easy to get hypnotized or something like that I get lost you know I think it's interesting you know I'm not that interested in I don't follow any religion but I am interested in how religion points to so much other stuff but in my experience seems to be real for example it's contrast I think I think it's fair to say that we can't believe in heaven here on earth because we have all this amazing stuff that's delicious

it's giving us a Cicilline there's so much good to be experienced but we're kind of not allowing ourselves to I know it is a lot of that yeah and then we're so much in my mind going on about it's the stuff that isn't right and that's hell it's not somewhere else yeah and also I think I had a thought yesterday when I was hiking after I took the blindfold off I was contemplating you know comfort is another thing because you know you can sit around the campfire with your friends have a good meal and everything everything is fine but if you're used to the sofa and and a comfortable chair

you have amazing food on the campfire and you're sitting on the stone or something and if you're not comfortable very like if the stone is grabbing our attention too much then you're not able to enjoy that amazing food or company with your friends so also I think mean getting rid of all the comforts or mostly yeah is a big part of this both in terms of food and everything like it everything ties together everything I learned Harris

it's getting tied together in one big bowl of mention experience well thank you for doing this first video hopefully we'll get to see you more when you break through the ice is coming share in the comments if you know any thoughts you have about this idea of contrast or you know the good things in life being so present in your life that you haven't you know been able to experience that contrast and you know I know some of you if you're much crafters or or ultralight hikers or you know veterans you've been in situations where you don't have those comforts of life and what are the gems that you've pulled out of those experiences thank you for watching Thank You Simon