The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice in Everyday Life

Renunciation is not a dismissal of the world. It does not involve surrendering the joy found in all the precious and delightful impressions and experiences that will visit us in this life. Through withdrawing the projected promise invested in sensation, impression, and experience, we learn to find a sense of balance that embraces the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experience. Believing that happiness and fulfillment lie outside of ourselves we project onto the 10 thousand objects and experiences in this life the power for them to devastate, enrage, gratify, or elate us. We then become a prisoner of those 10 thousand things. Withdrawing this projected promise, we can deeply appreciate the pleasant, remain steady in the midst of the unpleasant, and be fully sensitive to the neutral impressions and experiences life brings. We discover that the root of happiness lies not in what we are experiencing but how we are experiencing it. It is the withdrawal of the projected promise and the surrender of the fear of deprivation which enables a relationship to life that is rooted in sensitivity, compassion, and intimacy. Craving propels us outwardly, away from ourselves and from this moment, into an endless quest for certainty and identity. By exploring the energy of craving and loosening its hold, we are returned to ourselves, able to acknowledge the sacred hunger within us for intimacy and awakening. At ease within ourselves, we discover a profound refuge and happiness rooted in our own capacities for awareness and balance.

The Enlightened and the Unenlightened

The Buddha spoke about the distinction between an enlightened and an unenlightened person. Both the enlightened and the unenlightened experience feelings, sensations, sounds, sights, and events that can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When an unenlightened person encounters the unpleasant experience they grieve, lament, and become distraught and distracted. Two levels of sorrow are experienced; one in the actual experience and one in the reactions and story about it. It is as if a person crossing the pathway of an archer was shot by an arrow; whether enlightened or unenlightened, that person would experience pain. The difference lies in the level of both the story and the fear that are added to the experience. In seeing the archer prepare to shoot a second arrow, the unenlightened person would already be anticipating its pain, building a story centered around living with a wounded leg and entertaining thoughts of anger towards the archer. In the heart of the unenlightened person, layers of aversion and associations with the past and future lead them to depart from the reality of what is actually being experienced in that moment. The unpleasant experience is layered with aversion and resistance. We try to end the unpleasant experience by finding one that is more pleasant or by suppressing or avoiding it. In the midst of any of the unpleasant experiences, we need to ask ourselves what is more painful, the actual experience or the stories, fear, and resistance with which we surround it. Calm simplicity does not depend upon the annihilation or control of the unpleasant experience but is born of our willingness to let go of the layers of our stories and fears.

The enlightened person is not exempt from any form of feelings, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, but is not bound or governed by them. The arrow will hurt, but the pain of the body will not be matched by sorrow and struggle in the mind. Blame, judgment, and retaliation are the children of fear. Wise responsiveness, equanimity, and discriminating wisdom are the children of deep understanding. The enlightened person would find little value in shouting, “This is unfair” at the world, would not seek to take revenge upon the archer nor vow to never venture out again. The enlightened person knows the pathways of wise response rather than blind reaction. Surrendering the story is not a dismissal of the wounded leg but is an empowerment, releasing the capacity to care for what needs to be cared for with compassion and responsiveness, letting go of all the extra layers of fear, apprehension, and blame.

The pleasant experience evokes a different response and different story line in us. We want more, we don’t want it to end, we strategize the ways to defend it—it is layered with craving and grasping. We have a moment of calm during meditation and find ourselves rehearsing our debut as the next world-famous teacher. A smile from a colleague and in our minds we are already embroiled in the romance of the century. Once more our stories divorce us from the simplicity of the moment and we are puzzled and disappointed when these stories are frustrated. Pleasant experiences are hijacked by craving and wanting, and once more we are not living in the simplicity of the moment but in the dramas of our minds. In the midst of the pleasant experience, we can learn to let go of our stories, projections, and fantasies. We can learn to love what is.

The neutral experiences, sounds, sights, and sensations we encounter become layered with voices of confusion that tell us that something is missing, something needs to be added. If the things of this world neither delight nor threaten us they are often dismissed, ignored, or simply missed. The tree outside our window, made familiar by time, no longer appears to offer anything to attract our attention. We fail to notice the texture of its leaves, its changing colors, its growing and aging, the way the sun reflects on its leaves. We believe we need something more stimulating and exciting for it to be worthy of our attention. In learning to stay in the present, we discover that it is the power of our attention that makes all things worthy.

There are experiences of pain that are inevitable in this life, rooted in our bodies as they age or sicken. In our lives we will all experience loss, separation, and contact with those who threaten us. There are levels of sorrow and pain that are optional, rooted in fear, aversion, and grasping. We need to learn to let go of the stories that carry our fears and wanting, we need to learn to see life, ourselves, others, as they actually are. Simplicity is always available. Learning to let go of the layers of our stories and cravings, learning to let go of our craving for the pleasant and our aversion for the unpleasant, is the discovery of peace.

In the Tao it is said, “In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is gained. In the pursuit of freedom, every day something is let go of.” We tend to hold grandiose ideas of renunciation, regarding it as a spiritually heroic task or breakthrough experience on our path that will happen at some future time. A spiritual life asks us to hold onto nothing—not our opinions, beliefs, judgments, past, nor dreams of the future. It seems a formidable task but we are not asked to do it all at once. Life is a journey of 10 thousand renunciations, sometimes in a single day. We are not asked to be an expert, but always a beginner. The only moment we can let go is the moment we are present in.

The Wisdom of Impermanence

As we reflect upon the nature of life and ourselves, we discover that there is an innate naturalness to letting go. The nature of all life is change; winter lets go its hold to change into spring; for summer to emerge spring must end and this season can only last for a time before it fades into autumn, which in turn lets go for winter to emerge once more. In the same way, our infancy was let go of as we emerged into our childhood. All of our life transitions, our capacity to grow and mature, depend upon a natural process of letting go of what went before. No matter how strenuous our efforts, we cannot make one single thing last. No matter how much we delight in a pleasant thought, experience, or connection, we cannot force it to stay. No matter how much we dislike or fear an experience or impression, it is already in the process of changing into something else. There is a remarkable simplicity discovered as we harmonize our own life with the natural story of all life, which is change. From the moment of our birth, our life has been teaching us about letting go. There is remarkable complexity in seeking to bend and mold life’s story to support our personal agendas of craving and aversion. We are not separate in any way from the process of change, not just detached observers. We are part of this life with all of its seasons and movements.

Aitken Roshi, a much beloved Western Zen master, once said, “Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away.” A deep understanding of impermanence is an insight that has the power to transform our lives. Understanding the nature of change deeply and unshakably loosens the hold of craving and aversion, bringing calmness and great simplicity. To study life is to study impermanence. This insight into impermanence is not a breakthrough experience but an ongoing exploration of what is true. Take a walk through the rooms of your home—can you find one single thing that is eternal, that is not already in a process of change? Explore your body—it speaks to you of the inevitable process of aging and change. Walk through the rooms of your mind with its cascade of thoughts, plans, anxieties, memories, and images. Can you hold on to any of them? Can you decide only to have pleasant thoughts or ideas, only pleasant feelings or sensations? Neither sorrow nor complexity are born of this changing world, but of our grasping and aversion, and our desire to seek the unchanging in anything that is essentially changing. As you take those walks through the rooms of your life and mind, ask yourself whether anything you encounter truly holds the power to dictate your happiness or sorrow, or whether it is more true that the source of happiness and sorrow lies within your own heart and mind.

When we hear the word “impermanence” we tend to nod our heads wisely in agreement—it is an obvious truth. Yet, when caught in craving or aversion, we suffer bouts of amnesia, convinced that everything is impermanent except this experience, feeling, or thought. Life continues to be our greatest teacher, penetrating these moments of forgetfulness, if we are willing to listen and pay attention. In truth, there is no choice but to let go; the nature of impermanence tells us that no matter how desperately we hold onto anything, it is already in the process of leaving us. Our choice is whether or not we suffer in the course of meeting the inevitable arrivals and departures, the beginnings and endings, held in every moment of our lives. Each time we are lost in craving or aversion, we open the door to a flood of thoughts, stories, strategies, and images. Each time we learn to let go, we open the door to peace and simplicity, to joy and appreciation.

Renunciation is not a spiritual destination, nor a heroic experience dependent upon great striving and will. Renunciation is a practice of kindness and compassion undertaken in the midst of the small details and intense experiences of our lives. It is the heart of meditation practice. We learn to sit down and let go. Each time we return our attention to the breath or to the moment we are in, we are practicing renunciation. In that moment we have let go of the pathways of stories and speculation about what is happening, and have turned our attention to what is actual and true in each moment. The practice of renunciation is essentially a celebration of simplicity.

A group of businessmen renowned for their dishonesty went to visit a great Indian saint, intent on earning the merit they hoped would balance their covetousness. Sitting down, they proceeded to sing her praises, extolling her great virtues of wisdom, renunciation, and simplicity. After listening for some minutes her face creased into a smile and she began to laugh. Disconcerted, the group asked what was so amusing to her. Answering she said, “It is not I who is the great renunciate, it is you, because you are living in such a way that you have renounced the truth.”

Moment-to-Moment Renunciation

Letting go is a present moment practice. We learn to sit down and let go. We love deeply and let go. We embrace wholeheartedly the laughter and joy of our lives and let go. We meet the challenging, disturbing, and unpleasant, and let go. We are always beginners in the practice of renunciation. Each moment we begin we are following the pathways of freedom rather than the pathways of sorrow.

Studying life, we see the truth of the process of change from which nothing is exempt. Understanding this deeply we live in accord with its truth, and we live peacefully and simply. We liberate the world, other people, and ourselves to unfold and change according to our own rhythms, withdrawing our personal agendas rooted in craving and aversion. Letting go, we liberate ourselves from the burden of unfulfilled or frustrated desire. We learn to rest in ourselves and in each moment. Reflecting on impermanence, we begin to appreciate deeply the futility and unnecessary sorrow of being lost in craving or resistance.

Renunciation comes effortlessly to us in times of calm and ease. Nothing stops; sounds, sights, thoughts, and feelings all continue to arise and pass—seen and appreciated wholeheartedly. Yet none of them gains a foothold in our minds and hearts, our inner balance and well-being is undisturbed; there is a natural letting go. There are times in our lives when calm and balance seem to be a distant dream as we find ourselves lost in turmoil, struggle, or distress. In those moments we remember the freedom of being able to let go, yet the intensity of our struggle overwhelms us. In those moments, the first step towards peace is to recognize that we are lost. In those moments, it is not more thinking, analyzing, or struggle that is required; instead we are invited to look for simplicity. In these moments of complexity, letting go requires investigation, effort, and dedication—recognizing the sorrow of being entangled.

The Buddha spoke of wise avoidance, a word that may carry for us associations of denial or suppression. There is a difference between wise avoidance and suppression. Suppression is the unwillingness to see; wise avoidance is the willingness to see but the unwillingness to engage in pathways of suffering. In moments of intense struggle, renunciation happens in a different way; by learning to step out of the arena of contractedness. We turn our attention to the fostering of calm and balance. Bringing our attention into our body, to listening, to touching, to breathing, we learn to loosen the grip of struggle and confusion. Recovering a consciousness of expansiveness and balance, the understanding of the nature of our struggle comes more easily to us and we may discover we can let go.

It is easy to let go when there is nothing that we particularly crave or resist. Yet it is in the midst of our deepest obsessions and resistances that renunciation holds the power to transform our heart and world. Our capacity to let go is often clouded by ambivalence and reluctance. We know we suffer through overeating, but the second plate of food really does taste so good. We know that our anger towards another person makes us suffer, but if we were to let it go they may get away with the suffering they inflicted. We know that fantasy is a poor substitute for happiness, but its flavor is pleasurable. We know we may suffer through exaggerated ambition, but the feeling of pride when we attain our goals justifies the pain. Pleasure and happiness are too often equated with being the same; in reality they are very different. Pleasure comes. It also goes. It is the flavor and content of many of the impressions we encounter in our lives. Happiness has not so much to do with the content or impressions of our experiences; but with our capacity to find balance and peace amid the myriad impressions of our lives. Treasuring happiness and freedom, we learn to live our lives with openness and serenity. Not enslaved to the pleasant sensation, we no longer fear the unpleasant. We love, laugh, and delight, and hold onto nothing.

The appetite of craving arises from the pain of disconnection. The pain of believing ourselves to be incomplete or inadequate compels us to seek from the world all that we feel unable to offer ourselves. This pain of disconnection is not always acute; at times we describe it as boredom, forgetting that boredom is never a description of reality but a description of a state of mind superimposed upon reality. Boredom is often a surrender of sensitivity, clouding our capacity to see, listen to, and touch each moment as if we have never encountered it before. The antidote to boredom is not more sounds, sensations, and experiences, but recovering our capacity to see anew in each moment. The world we think we know, the people we think we know, the sounds and experiences we have encountered countless times before, come alive to us in new ways each moment we give them our wholehearted attention. Our storehouse of images, associations, history, and concepts is burned down in the light of compassionate, full attention.

Renunciation is not the territory of saints or ascetics but the territory of each one of us who treasures freedom. Each moment we let go, we embody freedom and follow the pathway of happiness. It is a present moment practice; every moment is the right moment to learn how to let go.

GUIDED MEDITATION

Take a few minutes to sit quietly, relax your body, close your eyes, and breathe out. Reflect for a moment upon the places in your mind and heart you visit the most often, yet feel to be the places of greatest sorrow or struggle. A failed relationship, a childhood hurt, a tension with another person, a frustrated hope. Be aware of the stickiness and tightness of these places, felt in your body, mind, and heart.

What is needed for you to be able to let go, to find a new beginning, to find peace? Is it forgiveness, compassion for yourself or another, tolerance, or understanding? How could you find simplicity in this moment?

Reflect upon the times of greatest happiness in your life—found in intimacy with another, moments of true appreciation and sensitivity in nature, times alone, a moment when you have felt that this moment is complete.

Be aware of what it is that opens the doors of appreciation, connection, and calm; that makes the expectation, fear, wanting, and distractedness fall away. Take some time to hold in your heart the question,

“What in this moment is lacking?”

CHAPTER 3 Integrity (#ulink_db9e9f01-9a14-517c-9fa1-8e41cbdaf5f1)

Upon goodness of heart is built wise attention;upon wise attention is built liberating wisdom. THE BUDDHA

IN the midst of some of the darkest moments and most tormented events in human history there have emerged individuals who stun us with profound but simple acts of goodness. A homophobic inmate on death row reaches out to hold the hand of a prisoner dying of AIDS. A teenage monk, his body broken by torture, meditates to extend compassion to his torturer. A young girl, her body devastated by napalm burns, finds the generosity of heart to offer forgiveness to the pilot who dropped the bomb. In a single gesture, through a few words or simple acts of kindness, someone’s world is transformed. Integrity is the gift of a wise and loving heart. There is no one whose life is not enriched by the kindness, respect, and compassion that finds its source in integrity. James Russell Lowell succinctly expressed it saying, “All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”

We may not find ourselves in desperate situations that ask for heroic actions. Integrity finds expression in the countless moments in our lives that invite us to interact with the world from a deep inner place of honesty, respect, and compassion. It is easier to be motivated by the wish for personal advantage, comfort, and gratification than to be guided by ethics and wisdom. Yet the healing of our planet, our communities, and our families asks us to find within ourselves the goodness of heart that seeks to protect and enrich, rather than to exploit or harm.