The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice in Everyday Life

The Middle Way

In the story of Siddhartha’s journey of awakening, after leaving his palace of luxury, security, and pleasure, he commenced an ascetic path of meditation that involved complex practices of severe austerity. Punishing his body almost to the point of death, he found himself recalling a time in his childhood when he sat beneath the shade of a tree, watching the farmers tend their fields. He remembered the quiet contentment and happiness found in the simplicity of that moment. Nothing special was happening; the birds were singing, the sun shining, his mind and body were at ease, yet that moment was filled with a powerful sense of “enough.” Nothing lacking, nothing to be added, nothing needed—simply seeing, listening, being, and a profound happiness and stillness. It was a powerful memory, reminding him that simplicity of peace did not lie in another dimension, nor could it be gained through mortifying or manipulating his body or his world.

The recollection of this simple peace was the beginning of his search for a “middle way”—not one rooted in avoidance or gain, denial or ambition, but through turning a wholehearted attention to shine upon this moment and discover the freedom he longed for. We need to find the “middle way” in our own lives. It is the art of finding balance. Reflecting upon our lives, we soon discover what serves us well—nurturing calmness, ease, and simplicity. We also discover what it is that leads to entanglement, confusion, distress, and anxiety. Wisdom is being able to discern the difference, then knowing what we need to nurture and what we need to learn to let go. Foolishness is the belief that we can continue treading the same, familiar pathways of confusion and complexity, hoping that at some point they will lead to a different outcome.

The Buddha said, “This is the path of happiness leading to the highest happiness and the highest happiness is peace.” He never said that the path of meditation was a path of misery in pursuit of greater misery; it is a path dedicated to the discovery of peace in each moment. To understand this deeply, we are called upon to reconsider our understanding of true happiness. Happiness is more than the roller coaster highs we experience through excitement, success, or gain. We all encounter these moments in our lives and they bring a delight to be savored and appreciated. But they also remind us to discover a deeper happiness that is not dependent upon such circumstances. Happiness that is dependent on pleasant experiences is a fragile happiness which can trigger an inner busyness that only thirsts for more sights, sounds, tastes, and experiences. Living a life governed by the pursuit of the pleasant experience and the avoidance of the unpleasant rarely leads to a sense of ease and simplicity but instead to a complex web of pursuit and avoidance. Once, when I was teaching a retreat for young children, we spent some time talking about the nature of wanting. I asked the group what they felt would happen if they went through their lives always wanting something more, never feeling that they had enough in their lives to be happy. There were a few quiet moments, then a five-year-old voice piped up, “Trouble.”

Just as moments of delight will touch our lives and hearts, we will also be asked to respond to encounters with loss, failure, blame, and pain. There will be times when we are separated from those we love, face disappointed dreams, experience loneliness and tension, or are hurt by others. Can we be at peace with all these moments? Can we find a simple, clear understanding within our hearts vast enough to embrace the variety of our experiences? Speaking to a community of monks and nuns, the Buddha said, “Any monk or nun can be at peace when showered with praise, kindness, and adoration. Show me the one who stays serene and balanced in the midst of harshness and blame; this is the monk or nun who is truly at peace.” If we do not know peace in our hearts, it will elude us in all the areas of our lives. True peace is not a destination projected into the future, but a path and practice of the moment. Thich Nhat Hanh, the wonderful Zen teacher, once said, “Buddhism is a clever way of enjoying life. Happiness is available. Please help yourself.”

Peace is not the absence of the unpleasant or challenging in our lives. Peace is most often found in the absence of prejudice, resistance, and judgment. Learning to live with simplicity does not mean that nothing difficult, unpleasant, or challenging will happen to us. Meditation is not an attempt to armor ourselves against life’s realities. Instead, it is about learning to open, to discover a heart as vast as the ocean that can embrace the calm and the turbulence, the driftwood and the sparkling waves. Peace is not a denial of life but the capacity to be wholeheartedly with each moment, just as it is, without fear or avoidance. We learn to simplify, to strip away our expectations and desires, to let go of our fears and projections, and see the simple truth of each moment. Out of this simplicity is born an understanding and wise responsiveness that manifests in our speech, actions, and choices. We discover what it means to embrace our lives.

A woman once came to me wanting to be taught how to meditate. She was understandably distressed by the tension, struggle, and conflicting demands present in her life—financial hardship, an alcoholic partner, and a hostile stepson. She said, “All I want is some peace.” After receiving some instructions she went home to practice only to return a week later even more distressed. She spoke of how, as her mind began to calm down, she became even more acutely aware of the nature of the conflicts in her life and what she would be called upon to change to bring the tension to an end. Puzzled, because it seemed that the meditation was indeed working, I asked her what the problem was. She answered, “I didn’t ask for awareness, I only wanted peace.”

Awareness and understanding have real implications in our lives. We need to be willing to be changed by the insights that come to us. When we recognize our habitual pathways of complexity, we are invited to find new pathways to travel. Understanding the rhythm of change, the beginnings and endings intrinsic to life, is an insight that invites us to let go more easily. To try to hold onto, maintain, or preserve anything in this life, inwardly or outwardly, is to invite the experiences of deprivation, anxiety, and defensiveness into our hearts. Learning to embrace and live in harmony with all the changes, the births and deaths, beginnings and endings that life will inevitably bring to each of us, is to invite stillness and serenity into our hearts.

Simplicity is a journey that involves both our inner and outer worlds—they are interconnected, endlessly informing each other. Our lives are simply our hearts and minds taking form, made manifest. Our words, thoughts, actions, and choices are born within our hearts and minds. Untangling the knots of complexity found within our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, we learn to untangle the knots of our lives. We learn how to be at home in each moment with calmness, balance, and the willingness to learn. Simplicity is not passive, a benign detachment from the turbulence of life; it is a way of placing our finger upon the pulse of our life and discovering the ways of liberation.

Patience and Compassion

In the Tao Te Ching it is said,

I have just three things to teach: Simplicity, patience, and compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thought, You return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, You accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, You reconcile all beings in the world.

We carry with us the habits of a lifetime. We are not asked to unravel them all in one instant, but to care for and understand just one moment at a time; attuning ourselves to just this moment we begin to understand what leads to distress, complexity, and conflict, and what leads to calmness, balance, and freedom. Patience is the foundation of discovering simplicity. Patience is a gesture of profound kindness. We all have moments when we stumble and lose ourselves in our stories, fears, and fantasies. And we can all begin again in the next moment, recovering a sense of balance and openness. Patience teaches us to seek an inner refuge of simplicity, balance, and sensitivity in even the most turbulent moments. It is about learning to be a good friend to ourselves. Blame, judgment, and avoidance only divorce us from ourselves and exile us from the moment. Impatience always leads us away from where we are; wanting to jump into a better, more perfect moment. Impatience is the manifestation of resistance and aversion, it is the face of non-acceptance. Impatience never leads to the calm, simple contentment of being, but to perpetual restlessness and frustration. Patience is one of life’s great arts, a lesson we learn not just once, but over and over. In the moments we find ourselves leaning into a future that has not arrived, we can pause and learn to stand calmly in the moment. When we find ourselves frustrated with ourselves or another, we can remember that this is the very moment we are invited to soften our resistance and open our hearts.

Once I found myself in a monastery filled with a burning motivation to practice meditation and be silent. Contrary to my expectation, the monastery was no oasis of peace and serenity but a construction site. The sounds of saws and hammers, scaffolding being erected, and trucks arriving with building materials permeated every corner. Radios played, dogs barked: clearly the value I placed on silence was not shared by others. In despair and frustration I found myself demanding of the abbot how I was supposed to meditate in the midst of this chaos. His answer was, “How can you not?”

We gladly turn our attention to those most significant of questions, “What is truly important to us in our lives? What do we truly value in this moment?” Holding these questions clearly, we discover that we want to be happy, to be free from struggle and separation. They are questions that return us to this moment, to ask ourselves, “Where is peace, where is freedom, where is simplicity in this moment?” Patient not just outwardly with the circumstances of our lives, but with the friends and enemies within ourselves, we learn the happiness and simplicity of being with what is.

Compassion is another essential companion on the journey to simplicity. Simplicity is not only a gift of compassion for ourselves, but also for the world. Deprivation, poverty, and hardship will not be eased by ever more strategies, councils, or prescriptions. As Gandhi once said, “There is enough in the world for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Each moment we lay down the burden of endless need, we become a conscious participant in easing the sorrow of the world. When we are no longer guided by the inexhaustible thirst of wanting, our relationship to life is guided by integrity. Compassion for ourselves is found in letting go of the stress of separation from the possibilities of richness, harmony, and freedom that lie within. Thomas Merton once said:

Of what avail is it if we can travel to the moon,

If we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves,

This is the most important of all journeys

And without it all of the rest are useless.

In Japan there is a monastic tradition whose practice is not only composed of traditional meditation but also the service of cleaning the local villages and public conveniences. Each morning the monks and nuns board their buses with buckets and mops to begin another day of cleaning toilets, streets, and waiting rooms. It is held as a sacred task, an act of thanksgiving, of caring for the world. When questioned on the spiritual value they found in such work, one of the nuns answered, “We are learning to live a simple life with great affluence.”

Simplicity can be found nowhere else but the life we are in and the path we walk within it. It lives in our hearts and minds, awaiting our commitment and wholehearted attention. We do not create simplicity but rediscover its availability and possibility. We begin by being present, turning our attention to our lives and ourselves, and availing ourselves of the invitation offered in each moment to discover peace and freedom. It may be one of the most challenging journeys we make; we only travel it one step at a time. Responding to one of his ardent admirers, standing beneath the roof of the Sistine Chapel, Michaelangelo reportedly said, “If you only knew how much effort it took to get here, you wouldn’t be so amazed.”

GUIDED MEDITATION

Take a few moments in your day to be still. Relax your body, close your eyes, and listen inwardly. Bring a calm, gentle awareness to whatever appears in your mind. Be aware of what your thoughts revolve around and dwell upon most frequently. It might be the memory of an event or conversation that has been disturbing. It might be rehearsals or plans for the future. You might be aware of your mind obsessing about or judging yourself or another. You might be aware of a tension in your mind or body; a restless energy that is wanting something more than the simplicity of this moment.

The sticky, repetitive places our thoughts return to are messengers asking for our attention. What is being asked of us to release us from the complexity or confusion of this moment? Where does peace and calmness lie? Is there someone we need to forgive. Is there something we are being asked to let go of? Can we nurture a greater generosity of heart or compassion for ourselves or another? Ask yourself,

“Where does simplicity lie in this moment?”

Hold this question with a patient receptivity but without demanding an answer. Listen to the responses that arise within you. The release from complexity, the peace and calmness we seek for, will be found within those responses.

CHAPTER 2 Renunciation

When my house burned down I gainedan unobstructed view of the moonlit sky ZEN

RENUNCIATION is the unwavering companion of simplicity. A life dedicated to depth and compassion invites us to let go of the layers of relentless need and thirst to accumulate that can govern our lives, and to understand the insecurities and anxieties that separate us from ourselves and others. Renunciation is the greatest of all kindnesses—it teaches us not to lean upon anything that can crumble; it teaches us about genuine richness and freedom.

Some years ago I went into a Thai monastery for a period of retreat. The first morning I took my seat in the meditation hall and waited for the teacher to arrive with instructions on how to meditate. I waited and waited. On the third day I summoned up the courage to ask the abbot, “What should I be doing when I sit on a cushion?” expecting to receive a complex formula of meditation instructions. He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face before answering, “Sit down and let go.”

Can the heart of a meditative path be so simple—to sit down and let go? The lessons of simplicity teach us to love deeply and to let go; to savor each sound, taste, sight, and smell and to let go; to cherish each moment as a precious gift and to let go; to appreciate with profound sensitivity each connection with others, every thought and feeling, every birth and death, and to be a calm presence and conscious participant in their natural unfolding and passing. The path of simplicity is learning to live in harmony with the rhythms of life and each moment. It is a path of joy and freedom.

Hearing the word “renunciation” we may find our hearts quivering with fear and resistance. Images of ourselves as homeless and bereft, deprived of comfort and drowning in loneliness, pass through our minds. Renunciation may be equated with vulnerability and loss, a life of passivity and meaninglessness. We are faced with one of our deepest anxieties, of not knowing how we would define ourselves or find meaning without our array of possessions, opinions, beliefs, roles, and achievements. Culturally, we are encouraged to believe that possession, attainment, and achievement are the pathways to happiness. In the quest for simplicity we are invited to entertain another paradigm: that it is this very craving, holding, and possessiveness which brings complexity, confusion, and sorrow, and that renunciation is the mother of joy, simplicity, and freedom.

Complexity and entanglement have many sources in our lives. One of the main causes lies in the fear of losing what we have and the anxiety of not having enough. In fear of solitude and loneliness, we fill our lives and minds with distractions and busyness. Personal productivity has become the mantra of our time, the idea of stillness and simplicity terrifying—a sign of apathy or aimlessness. In the rush to be occupied endlessly and in the pursuit of stimulation, we neglect the quality of life, forget the simple joys of listening to the song of a bird, the laugh of a child, and the richness of one step taken with complete attention. George McDonald said:

Work is not always required of a person

There is such a thing as Sacred Idleness,

The cultivation of which is now

Fearfully neglected.

We may dream of a time when we can lie down beneath the night sky and do nothing but be present in its vastness with total attention. But our dreams are too often sabotaged by the busyness generated by anxiety. We seek evidence of our worth through what we produce, become, and surround ourselves with. Boredom has come to be regarded as one of our greatest enemies and we flee from it by generating endless complexity and busyness. Boredom may be no more than a surrender of sensitivity, yet, rather than turning our hearts and minds to rediscover that lost sensitivity, we thirst for even more exciting experiences, drama, and intensity. A young man about to bungee jump into the Grand Canyon was asked why he was engaging in such a perilous act. He answered, “These are the moments that shatter the boredom of living.” When alienated from inner vitality we mistake intensity for wakefulness.

In the search for calm simplicity it is important for us to remember our dreams of intimacy, stillness, and happiness; to value their discovery. We may need to remember that boredom is a state of mind and not an accurate description of reality. A meditation master listening to his student’s complaint of being bored, advised, “If you find something boring for ten minutes, stay with it for twenty minutes. If it’s still boring do it for an hour. Stay present until you know what it means to be alive.”

Some time ago the keepers at the Bronx Zoo became concerned when Gus the polar bear was observed swimming repetitively back and forth in his pool for hours on end. Animal psychologists and experts were consulted and the conclusion was that Gus was bored. Not that Gus wasn’t somewhat aggrieved at living in New York rather than bounding through snowdrifts, or may have missed his freedom; boredom was the problem that needed solving rather than the issue of Gus’s captivity. The solution—fill his pool with toys and distractions. As one keeper stated, “Hey, it works for us.”

The times when we feel most discontented are the times when our minds flee most readily to the past or future in search of guarantees, control, and safety. Inner complexity is easy to identify—the mind swirls with a burden of thoughts, images, anxiety, speculation, and obsession. The feeling of “I can’t let go” is a painful one. Seeking to end the pain of being trapped in our own turmoil, we make confused and desperate choices that lead to greater entanglement. Feeling adrift and fragmented, we search for happiness in the world of people, things, and fantasy, and find ourselves falling into familiar pits of frustration and discord.

The young Prince Siddhartha left the comfort and security of his palace and family to lead a homeless life, in search of enduring happiness and freedom. The homeless life is often praised as being the model of greatest renunciation. For many of us it is a much greater renunciation to discover what it really means to be at home in ourselves. To commit ourselves to being at home in our bodies, minds, hearts, and life, asks us to renounce the habit of abandoning ourselves and the moment. We often practice a kind of unconscious renunciation and homelessness—fleeing from where we are into the past or future and into the disconnected world of our daydreams and fantasies. To renounce the inclination to flee may be the greatest of all renunciations.

We find simplicity in our hearts and lives through paying attention to the roots of our complexity and then letting go. Albert Einstein advised, “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Simplicity does not rely on divorcing ourselves from the world or on adopting a path of austerity, but on a careful examination of our relationship to the acquisitions, opinions, objects, and dreams which crowd our lives. We bring a simple question into this maze of complexity: “What leads to happiness and what leads to complexity and confusion?”

Baker Roshi, an American Zen master, said that the definition of an enlightened person is that they always have what they need. Whether sitting alone on a mountain, or in the middle of a crowd, there is no sense of anything being absent or lacking. Each moment, each situation, and each encounter offers everything that is needed for deepening sensitivity, compassion, peace, and understanding as long as we are paying attention. The mind calms, we step back a little from the forces of craving and aversion and turn our attention to this moment, discovering our capacity to be delighted by all that is before us.

Releasing Anxiety

We live in a culture that trains us to believe that we never have enough of anything and that we always need more in order to be happy. This is a training in anxiety and complexity. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition there is depicted a realm of beings called “hungry ghosts” who sadly inhabit bodies with enormous stomachs yet whose throats are as narrow as needles. Unable to satisfy their appetite, they desperately roam the world in search of gratification. Trained in anxiety and complexity, we come to believe that life is made meaningful by possessing more, gaining more, and achieving more; protecting ourselves from loss and deprivation by holding on to all that we gain as tightly as possible.

Every year my insurance salesman visits me to assess my various insurance policies. Of course, his unspoken agenda is to persuade me to purchase more insurance cover. With a smile on his face he begins a long discourse on the unspeakable terrors and tragedies that may befall me. What if you had no work? What if you or your partner contracted a terminal illness? What if your children were in an accident? The list of possible disasters seems endless. Listening to him my eyes grow wider and wider, yet I also glimpse the bottomless chasm of fear I could inhabit if I lived by the rules of “what if?” The choice seems simple: do I choose to make fear my companion in life or do I choose to live with trust and skillful means?

We tend to believe that there will always be a better moment for us to find simplicity and happiness than the moment we are in. We cling tightly to all that we have and want, not seeing that this desperate holding and wanting only generates greater depths of fear. We look upon the world as an enemy or thief, intent upon depriving us of all we have accumulated. There is a story of an elderly, cantankerous man, miserly with everything including his love and trust, who awoke one night to find his house on fire. Climbing to the roof for safety, he looked down to see his sons holding a blanket for him to jump into. “Jump, father, jump, we’ll save you,” they called. He answered, “Why should I believe you? What do you want in return?” “Father, this is no time for arguments. Either jump or you’ll lose your life.” “I know you boys,” he shouted, “lay the blanket on the ground and then I’ll jump.”