There is great value to be realized in periods of solitude and silence for those whose lives are in and of the world. Although I had gone into solitude for four days every year over the past twenty years, I needed a more sustained period of aloneness to recover the freshness of my spirit and to see that which was not true. "Nowhere to go, nothing to do" — these were the words that informed my days.
When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent. You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying "You are too this, or I'm too this!" That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.