simplicity

In this episode of the series on attitudes, I'm going to talk about simplicity.

Adopting an attitude of being simple sounds rather strange, doesn't it? And perhaps attitude is not quite the right word for it. Really, I'm suggesting here that we try and live a simple life. And that literally means keeping life as simple as possible: perhaps finding a simple job, rather than a very complicated job that demands a lot of mental activity. The mind loves to complicate everything, not just work – relationships, accommodation – everything in life can be made complicated by the thinking mind.

And the difficulty with that is it starts to consume our life. All our waking hours are spent attending to the complexities of life, thinking about things all the time. and the mind becomes habituated to this complex way of being in the world. And then, you'll notice, some people live only in that world of the complexities of their own mind, and their conversation will be limited to their mortgages and their work situation and the complications in their relationships. Everything will feel complex and the complexity also brings with it a subtle feeling that there's a problem, and something needs to be adjusted or corrected. Something's gone wrong. That's just the nature of complex thinking. Life might actually be flowing very well. But the mind making everything complicated will create problems, even if there are none there.

So to avoid these pitfalls of the mind, it's great if we can develop an attitude of simplicity, and preferably a lifestyle to go with it.

The basic underlying attitude, though, is that things don't need to be complicated. It's the mind that makes complications when it's not really needed. So we can approach every moment trying to make it complicated, or seeing it as a simple situation. And with this simple attitude, we won't get so tied up with our thoughts about the situation. It frees up a lot of energy and awareness to feel the moment. And this is the great beauty of simplicity. It brings us back to this moment. Whatever is happening, we can simply experience the moment. We can really allow ourselves to feel the moment, without having to change it necessarily. And that's why this attitude of simplicity is of importance on the spiritual path. It's a route back to simply being.

To help develop this attitude of simplicity, it's of great benefit to try and simplify one's life. Most people are living very complicated lives. And so trying to live a simpler life is a great step. If the life is very busy with a lot of activities, a lot of different relationships, complicated work situation, when life is busy, it's natural that the mind is going to be busy too. So adopting a less busy life is a great way to help this attitude of simplicity to develop.

And we can also help it by watching our own thought patterns. Catching ourself when we're being very clever about things, when we're overanalysing situations and making very complicated stories in our head about what's going on in the world. When we see ourself doing this, we need simply come back to the present moment. 

The present moment in itself is always simple. It's only the way our own mind connects the present moment to the past or the future that makes everything complicated. So when you notice that you are thinking a lot and things seem complicated, take a few moments, take a few deep breaths, and just bring your awareness to the sensations in the present moment, and perhaps the emotional energy in you, but without having to build a big complicated story about it. Simply feel the moment as it is, and this will help develop this attitude of simplicity.