Simplicity, Solitude, Emptiness (1)

Simplicity doesn't mean to live in misery and poverty.  You have what you need, and you don't want what you don't need. - Charan Singh in the Zen Calendar (April 8, 2003).

Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. - Freeman Teague in the Zen Calendar (September 5, 2003).

If one's life is simple, contentment has to come.  Simplicity is extremely important for happiness.  Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital:  satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements.  And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. - The Dalai Lama in the Zen Calendar (April 3, 2009).

Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness:  the one which makes us take on thousands of less important activities. - Matthieu Ricard in the Zen Calendar (December 26, 2006).

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter . . . to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. - John Burroughs in the Zen Calendar (July 29, 2006).

Day 338.  I swear, despite appearances, I am not resorting to excessive quoting to fill up empty blog space.  I have resigned myself to the Reality that I have saved more Zen Calendar quotes than I will have blogs to match them with.  I am also nearing resignation that (sigh . . . ) I may actually write a blog or two following February 3rd.  But only when I take a break from The Novel.

My Zen Calendar pages are in a big stack, separated into categories.  I noticed over the past couple of weeks that the last three categories in the stack are Simplicity, Solitude, and Emptiness.  Crucial elements in Zen.  I do not recall consciously grouping them in that sequence, but if there could be a sequence to Zen (there cannot), I would order the categories exactly as they occurred in my stack.  If I could write a linear depiction of my experience with zazen during the past year (I cannot), it would read something like Emptiness emerged through Solitude, which was only possible after establishing a degree of  Simplicity.  I decided to write three blogs about these three elements of Zen. As if they could possibly be treated as distinct entities - Ha!

Through a fairly instinctive process, I believe I have attempted to establish Simplicity in my life.  My office is essentially a small and harmonious place to work, and is two blocks from my home.  As is my bank and grocery store.  I don't shop, avoid serving on boards and committees, and elected to have an only child (something akin to a punishable crime in the state of Oklahoma).  I look for quality rather than quantity in friendship, have a family who abides by healthy boundaries (whew! at last!), and honor my introversion, which requires me to replenish in solitude rather than relationship.  I have, by today's standards, a minimalist relationship with media:  I don't watch much TV, own precious few electronic items, limit the mediums through which I receive news, avoid FaceBook and (most) e-mail, basically ignore my computer, and turn off my cell phone.  A lot.

Yet today I feel as though I performed a thousand tasks, and need to wrap up this post so that I can address a thousand more.  Granted, I did elect to undeck my hall, interspersed with laundry, kitchen cleaning, and trying to locate the items I sacrificed to clear space for the snowpeople village.  As I prepared to leave my office late this evening, I glanced around, feeling discouraged at the remaining clutter, even though I had done a major sweep over the past hour when my last client canceled.  Sighing deeply, I had a distinct memory from the mid-90's, when each evening I exited my office at the university counseling center with my OC neurons sated and pacified.  In box:  Empty.  Client charts:  Completed.  Phone calls:  Returned.  To Do List:  Checked (I may have actually constructed one back then, because completing it wasn't so absurdly impossible).  It doesn't seem as though I was particularly an overachiever (or underachiever, for that matter).  The days were more reasonable with their requirements.   There were a lot fewer piles.

I wonder if we have become numb to the lament of busyness because our level of activity has gone beyond the ridiculous to the absurd.   Saying, "I am stressed/exhausted/overwhelmed" is so ordinary and redundant, it garners about as much interest as if we had announced, "I just blinked.  My heart beat.  My lungs inflated."  Just about everyone appears to feel this way a lot of the time (my professional journals insist on documenting and quantifying the Overwhelmed Phenomena as though it were news).  We recognize we need to . . . wait for it . . . Simplify! - and yet we slog out of bed each morning, bleary-eyed with chronic sleep deprivation, and mount the treadmill once again.  I worry that, as a culture, in time we will forget that there is another way to be.

This blogger is going to keep issuing the reminder (along with the Dalai Lama) that Simplicity IS extremely important for happiness.  I am going to keep watching the stars, pointing at wildflowers, and refraining from buying so many kinds of things that I do not need.  I am going to mindfully apply the greatest skill there is for attaining Simplicity, starting right now:   I . . . am . . . going . . . to . . . . stop . . . . . . . . . .

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc