The following reflection originally appeared in the newsletter I sent out on January 17th, 2025.

Feel free to read just the bold words and skip the rest.

 

Introduction

January is often a time people take on new habits, new goals, new undertakings, and new intentions.  There is a sense of adding something.

However, this January, a quote from the Buddha keeps rolling through my mind: “[one is wise who] is contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.”

In turn, I’ve been reflecting a lot on simplifying; or, on subtracting.

Personally, I enjoy a healthy dose of complexity.  I like to have several projects going.  I like to wrestle with deep thoughts that branch out in many directions.  I like to learn difficult things.  I like to sit with conflicting perspectives.

And yet, I also enjoy simplicity.

When I reflect deeply on what it actually means to simplify, what’s evoked is a quality of going to essence.  As in, when I think about how to schedule a day or month, even though I have many interests, which small few are the most essential?  Can I make sure I put my energies there.  If other things happen to fit in the periphery, great; if not, equally great.

However, in a culture infatuated with busyness, excess, and novelty, going to essence usually involves minimizing, letting go, or simplifying.

Consider each of these four areas of life we tend to fill with excess:

• Scheduling.  Do you often have the feeling there is more you want to do than you have time/energy for?
• Relationships.  Do you often feel like there you have more relationships to manage than you have time/energy for?
• Possessions.  Do you often accumulate possessions that you don’t use much, or that consume your resources even though the “happiness” they provide is minimal?
• Hobbies.  Do you often feel as if your time is spread too thin among your interests to get very far in any of them?

Pick one of the above questions where you answered yes.  I challenge you to find something in there to let go of, so that you move more towards simplicity and what’s essential.  The more specific you can be, the better.

 

Why?

On some level, we simplify because we understand fulfillment comes not so much through doing a hundred things halfway, but through doing a few things all the way.  Cut through the fluff.  Go to what we actually care most about.  Make sure that is the priority and let the rest fill in the gaps.

Practically speaking, in my life, the more I’ve done this, it’s meant I have less friendships that I tend, but the ones I have are very fulfilling.  It’s meant I don’t have as many hobbies and undertakings, but the ones I do have I really enjoy.  It’s meant I don’t get to as many home projects, I don’t read as many books, I don’t travel as much, I don’t have as many possessions…. but, as the punchline goes, I seem to enjoy what I do have even more fully, particularly as it’s where my higher priorities lie.

However, on a deeper level, simplifying isn’t so much about what happens “out there” as it is what happens “in here,” in our own minds.

It’s to say that the most essential thing is a simple mind.  It’s entirely possible to have a lot of complexity in one’s life, but have a simple inner experience.  However, it’s easy to deceive ourselves that we’re doing it when we’re not.  It’s also just hard to do, which is why “out there” white space can be so supportive.

In any case, the modern citizen is likely turned off by the notion of a “simple mind.”  We culturally believe that well-being comes from doing all the activities, going all the places, having all the stuff, and being all the things.

However, the more we embrace simplicity, we intimately learn that well-being, happiness, fulfillment, or whatever we want to call it, is actually much more about the quality of care and attention we bring to this moment. 

And, for the punchline, when our mind is simple, we are by default right here with boundless care.

 

What Exactly Is A Simple Mind?

Sometimes, during my workday it’s important for me to think critically and with great focus.  However, after the workday, it’s usually not very necessary to indulge random thoughts about the future, relationships, fantasy, or whatever else is running through my brain.  When my mind is more simple, I don’t indulge that track of thoughts that keeps knocking on the door of the mind.  When my mind is more complicated, I do more unnecessary thinking.

I’ve been in some community living situations that were sweet, but where I did a lot of internal managing of relationships, personalities, conflicting interests, and my own emotions.  It seemed that in idle moments, the emotional-relational processing would happen all on it’s own.

Recently, we got a backyard sauna at our house.  However, the part of me that isn’t “contented and easily satisfied” keep focusing on the things that I could improve, like softer lighter, buying various accessories, getting a cold plunge, creating a more beautiful scenery around the sauna and a nice pathway to it.  All these desires were creating a more complicated mind. I ended up making a few easy updates, but mostly have leaned into its perfect imperfection, not acting on every last desire, and being more simple minded about it all — how relieving!

In other words, what I’ve seen is that busying my mind with concepts, emotions, and desires is neither essential nor actually leads to genuine well-being.

Importantly, simplifying the mind doesn’t mean we don’t think, have emotions, or desire things.  Rather, it means we don’t get involved with them so much.  When they are important, we pick them up and spend time with them.  When they aren’t, we don’t pick them up.  As a general disposition, we maintain a more relaxed, simple, present moment orientation.

Similarly, simplifying the mind doesn’t mean we don’t do complex work/hobbies, have relationships, or sit in saunas, among other things!  Rather, it means we don’t let them dominate our mind.  In idle moments, we let ourselves actually be idle.  We lean into the Buddha’s teaching on the wisdom of being “contented and easily satisfied.”

To put it simply, simplifying our mind is about being relaxedly aware, right now.  If that doesn’t make any sense to you, then meditate a lot, and it will likely become clear!

 

How to Simplify (apart from meditating a lot!)

In 2011, when I was an Ashtanga Yoga student, before every class, all the students would chant a one-minute invocation in Sanskrit.  I went for about six months and never learned it.  One day, I asked the teacher, “how does everyone seem to know this chant?”  He thought for a moment, and said, “you have to just want to learn it.”  As the story goes, before the next class, I had learned the chant.

In other words, simplifying is not very hard.  You just have to want to simplify.  If you really truly want it, you’ll figure out the way.

 

Conclusion

I know I probably made an essay on simplicity more complicated than it needs to be; sorry!

Mostly, I wish to express that you don’t have to do what everyone else does, running around so busy, internally and externally.

A simpler route is both possible and worth it.

Go to what’s most essential.

Simplify your mind!

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