Simplicity is like seeing things from a bird's eye view.
When we are too involved and clinging to our activities,
everything seems complex. By detaching we can gain
perspective on clarity on what is going on.
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."
William Blake from "Auguries of innocence"
Renouncing eating meat has turned was first from
compassion but after a while turned to judgement. When we renounce
it is a choice we make for the better of all, but not a
moral imperative.
While distributing clothes to homeless people recently, a
homeless person responded by not accepting it, feeling no
need for extra clutter or for things he doesn't need.
When we are born we start in state of utter simplicity
and innocence, then we are conditioned into beliefs and
habits which add clutter. One way to simplify is to unlearn and
shed past conditioning.
Usually simplicity is associated with material objects.
Sometimes accummulations occurs by collecting experiences,
being involved in what many others are doing.
The thought of 'simplicity should look a certain way and
mean certain behaviours' often gets in the way.
At Baja Fresh the 'bare burritto' is a good lesson in
simplicity.
There was a time in life where everything I owned fit in
a duffel bag, which felt so good. Made a decision a long
time ago only to have as much clothing as needed, not to
have the retailer's merchandising my closet.
Feels good to incorporate uncooked food into diet.
Often when we think of simplicity we think in terms of
less quantity and giving up something. Someone asked
recently "are you on the simple side of simplicity or the complex
side of simplicity?" In one way, we have all these modern
technologies that make our lives simpler, cell phone, car.
We arrive at simplicity through different means and it is
us to discover what it means to us.
Recycle, Reduce, Reuse
Recently forced into simplicity, during a need to
coordinate much, laptop and pda stopped working. Learned that it
is ok to use these things, but not get used to them.
Someone saintly was asked "If you are so much of a saint,
why are you attached to this ring you are wearing?" .. So
the Saint gave the ring away without resistance.
"If you truly love something, let it go. If it comes
back it is yours, if it doesn't, it never was."
During the homeless clothing drive, realized the event is
inappropriately labeled as "help-the-homeless" because we
were those that were helped. While listening to a homeless
man speaking, so many thoughts went by of "what are the
passerby's thinking? what is he saying? When should I go?"
and then realized that this is like meditation-in-action,
just letting the thoughts go by without attaching to them.
The internet can create a lot of mental clutter, by just
going from place to place without much convergence or
internalization.
One of the ways to get closer to simplicity is by being
present in the moment
Simplicity to me is remembering I'm human.
Read an article about intentions behined actions, in it,
a long-time vegeterian visited the house of a butcher who
mentioned he prays over every animal he kills, so she ate
some meat.
As a lifelong vegeterian, only recently did I realize
that for some eating meat is a matter of survival.
The research of Chandra Bose and Luther Burbank has shown
that plants too have feelings and emotions and can feel
pain.
just by simply sitting in meditation the clutter of the
mind clears up. Outwardly things keep changing, but
internally this kind of sitting can help permanently.
Nipun & Guri were given a tour of monasteries in
Singapore and ate at a restaurant where you actually choose to pay
whatever you feel the food is worth.
On Jun 12, 2006 Yaniv wrote :