Understanding Orangutans Is a Meditation Into Our Own Being

There are moments in the forest—quiet, humid, suspended in time—when the line between observer and observed dissolves. When the breath of an orangutan, slow and deliberate, becomes the breath of the human watching. When the rustle of leaves above is not simply a sign of movement but an invitation to awareness.

Understanding orangutans is not merely a scientific pursuit or an exercise in ethology. It is an inward journey. A kind of meditation. A way of remembering a part of ourselves we have nearly forgotten.

In the stillness of the canopy, stripped of the digital noise and the relentless demands of modern life, we meet a different version of ourselves—the one that knows how to be, how to wait, how to listen.

A Mirror in the Forest

For decades I have watched orangutans move with a mindfulness that borders on the sacred. Every gesture is intentional. Every pause meaningful. They do not rush, yet they do not waste time. They navigate the world with a clarity that feels almost foreign in our era of screens, distractions, and perpetual urgency.

To truly understand them, I’ve had to shed layers of my own conditioning—my need to categorize, interpret, and control. Orangutans defy hurry. They ask us to slow down. Sometimes they insist.

And in that slowing, something profound happens.

You begin to sense that your mind is not separate from the forest around you. That the distinction between “self” and “other” softens. That the orangutan gazing back at you is not inviting you to decode her, but to remember yourself.

Oneness Without Pretension

People often imagine mindfulness as a technique—a set of steps to calm the mind. But in the presence of an orangutan, mindfulness is not a practice. It is simply what is.

When you lock eyes with a mother orangutan who is nursing her infant high above the forest floor, you feel time loosen its grip. Her patience is not cultivated. It is embodied. Her awareness is not forced. It is natural.

She teaches without speaking:

Slow down.

Watch closely.

Trust your senses.

Take only what you need.

Let life unfold instead of forcing it.

And in that moment, stripped of our human striving, we are reminded of a primordial truth: stillness is not something we acquire—it is something we return to.

The Forest as a Clearing of the Mind

The modern world trains us to live in a constant outward orientation. Our attention pulled from one notification to the next. Our thoughts scattered across obligations, fears, ambitions. But the forest has its own rhythm, and orangutans abide by it without apology.

When you follow an orangutan through the canopy for hours, you enter that rhythm too. The mind begins to settle. The body matches the pace. Thoughts no longer rush; they meander.

This is not escapism. It is reacquaintance.

A reunion with the quieter parts of ourselves.

A Lesson in Pure Being

To know an orangutan is to sit with a being who lives free from the trappings of technology, ego, status, or performance. They are not trying to be anything other than what they are. They do not posture. They do not pretend. Their intelligence is calm, measured, deep—attuned to survival yet suffused with contemplation.

In their presence, we glimpse a version of humanity unencumbered by our own inventions.

A humanity grounded in presence.

A humanity rooted in connection.

A humanity capable of oneness.

Understanding orangutans is not about decoding their minds. It is about reawakening our own.

Coming Home to Ourselves

When I reflect on my time with Princess, Siswoyo, Rinnie, Moocher, and the many other wild and ex-captive orangutans who shared their lives with me, I realize they were not merely teaching me about their species. They were guiding me back to something in my own.

They reminded me that being human does not require being hurried. That our worth is not measured by speed or productivity but in our capacity to attend—deeply, quietly, lovingly—to the world around us.

In the forest, with the orangutans, I learned to breathe again.

To listen.

To be patient.

To be present.

To be whole.

And that, perhaps, is the greatest meditation of all.

Honor the Echo

 

There’s a moment after any meaningful learning—whether a class, a field training, or a life-changing encounter—when the world feels newly tuned. You walk differently. You listen differently. You notice what you never noticed before. The teaching still hums inside you, not as loud as it did when the lesson was fresh, but as an echo.

And if we’re lucky, we learn to honor that echo before it fades.

I’ve come to think of these echoes the same way I think about orangutans moving through the forest canopy. Their presence lingers long after they’ve crossed from one tree to the next: a slight sway of branches, a few falling leaves, the soft memory of movement. The forest remembers, even as it grows quiet again.

So do we.

The Echo After the Training Ends

Many of us have had moments of deep attentiveness—workshops, retreats, field courses, meditation trainings, mentorships—that sharpened us. In the days that followed, we applied the new habits with zeal. We were more aware, more grounded, more patient, more focused.

And then life happened.

Tasks piled up. Old patterns returned. New urgencies replaced old intentions. What was once clear became background noise.

But here’s the truth: the echo is still there.
Even if faint, even if buried under the busyness of living—it remains.

My Own Echoes From the Forest

I think back to my earliest days at Camp Leakey in the late 1970s, when the forest was both classroom and teacher. Every lesson was embodied: patience, stillness, observation, trust. The orangutans taught me more than any university lecture ever could.

Rinnie’s slow, deliberate movements.
Princess’ careful stare before choosing to interact.
Siswoyo’s way of pausing—really pausing—before acting.

Each encounter shaped me.

There were routines I learned then—ways of watching, listening, breathing—that made sense only in a peat swamp forest where every decision is calibrated for energy and purpose. When I left the forest and returned to the rush of the human world, the attentiveness didn’t vanish. It softened into an echo.

And I’ve spent much of my life gently tuning myself back to it.

Why We Need to Revisit Our Echoes

The echo of a training is not a demand—it’s an invitation.
A reminder.
A call back to our better selves.

In my conservation work, in building the Orang Utan Republik Foundation, in guiding students, in writing books, in navigating the complexities of life with people and institutions alike—those old forest echoes have surfaced again and again.

When I rush, something inside me whispers: slow down.
When I get caught in the noise, something urges: listen.
When I face challenge or conflict, something steadies me: be deliberate.

These are not new lessons. They’re remembered ones.

Learning to Listen Again

Honoring the echo doesn’t mean returning to the past.
It means letting the past steady your future.

Maybe you took a mindfulness course.
Maybe you sat through a leadership retreat.
Maybe you had a teacher, mentor, guide, or even an animal who shaped the way you move through the world.

The echo is the remnant positive feeling of that experience—a resonance inside you waiting to be acknowledged. And the more often we pause to notice it, the louder it becomes.

A Simple Practice: Echo Retrieval

Here is something I do—born of the forest, but usable anywhere:

1. Pause. One breath in. One breath out.
   Just enough to become aware again.

2. Ask yourself:
   What was the last training, lesson, or experience that truly shifted me?

3. Listen for the echo of how you felt then:
   Clearer?
   Calmer?
   More purposeful?
   More alive?

4. Let that echo guide one small choice today.
   Just one.

That’s how we honor the echo:
not by recreating the whole training,
but by living one moment shaped by it.

The Echo Is Evidence of Growth

I’ve learned over 50 years in the canopy, in classrooms, in boardrooms, and in communities across Indonesia:
we are always becoming.

Training, education, and insight aren’t temporary events.
They’re seeds.

And the echo is the sound of the seed still growing.

So if you feel that you’ve drifted from the attentiveness you once had—don’t be discouraged. It only means you’ve been busy living. The echo is still in you.

Honor it.
Return to it.
Let it help you move forward with greater clarity, presence, and compassion.

Because the quiet lessons—often the oldest ones—are the ones that stay with us the longest.