Simplifying your life through meditation
(Notes on Vipassana sitting Monday 7th May)
Simplicity and Renunciation. Challenging words. Difficult, in a world where upsized is good, more is better.
Simplification I can deal with - to incorporate simplicity into my daily life is not too difficult. Shedding a few things here and there is not a problem. Give away, let go... I do it. But the word 'renunciation' doesn't feel quite so comfortable. It brings vivid images to mind of leaving life as we know it, becoming a hermit, living in a cave. I can't imagine it. It seems an unattainable state of being.
After reading more about and contemplating on the idea of renunciation for a while, I've come to the (personal) conclusion that renunciation perhaps does not always (or not immediately anyway) have to mean giving everything away and living in sack cloth.
In the meditation sense of the word, I think we can begin by linking renunciation to simplicity. We can begin by simplifying our mind.
Simplification of our minds means that we let go of things to make things less complicated. We move away from ingrained habits which cause us problems. We let go of customary and outdated patterns of wanting, not wanting, thinking, reactions, as they arise. By letting go of those complex and unproductive patterns of behaviour, we move away from struggling to maintain fixed conditions as we envisage them.
Its not always so easy to renounce or simplify because we identify so strongly with our roles, who we think we are, families, and our job. We live with our minds in a state of "knowing", whereas, actually, "it's not always so" (Shunryu Suzuki) And because those identities or roles are so concrete in our minds, when we're in our role as mother, friend, teacher, student, whatever, it's very difficult to see clearly.
We can understand the concept of simplicity through our meditation practice. We are familiar with the concept of simplicity because we understand that, during our meditation practice, we don’t have to perform. When we sit on that cushion, we don’t have to be "anyone important". In fact, who you are when you're 'off the mat' is largely irrelevant when we sit in meditation.
During meditation, we’re able to look at thoughts, feelings, memories, ideas—without having to react. We just let them be. We let them go.
In this morning's practice, we sat with the concept of letting go of “knowing” with our mind . In this meditation we practice awareness of the moment and whats happening, without judment or labels, without expectations of what should or shouldn’t be.
Just sitting and breathing, we allow ourselves to surrender all our beliefs about what we think we know, who we think we are. Our roles, our fixed ideas. We let go of the the thinking process, not knowing – not judging. Clinging to nothing. Certain of nothing
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I can't remember now exactly where I read this, but in one of the articles I read while researching the Buddhist concept of renunciation, I came across a paragraph of questions which I thought were really profound and 'food for thought', and then found I added some of my own - largely because the more I think I know, the more I realise I don't know the answers.
Questions:
What is the relationship between renunciation and simplicity?
What changes occur for us individually as we go from greed to need?
Or as we transition from indulgence to sustenance?
What is the value of simplicity?
While living a simple lifestyle, how do we handle the complexity of the world?
Of our minds?
Of living in community with others?
