The Simple and the Peaceful are two friends sitting barefoot on a clean floor, laughing.
It is all so very simple but this simplicity will not be seen via your familiar vision of looking at everything via the running commentary of your mind informancy. Awakening to the state of the natural man will only come about through you consciously choosing to move from this, that already is - and this you are very capable of.
Next time you are designing a process, a product, or a service, ask yourself, “What can I remove?” For most consumers, simplicity is more important than comprehensiveness (and complexity).
The concept of “taking away” is also a great time management technique. In addition to your “to do” list, be sure to create a “don’t do” list. Become masterful at killing products, eliminating non-value adding tasks, and removing old/pointless habits.
Have a PBS mind in an MTV world.
"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."
"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."
"Everything in moderation, kid. Everything in moderation."
The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competetive.
To be free of the discriminating is to manifest miraculous awareness--awareness that is miraculously simple, miraculously unadorned.
"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
Loss and Possession, Death and Life are one.
There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.
Consider the lilies of the field,
How they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin;
And yet I say unto you,
That even Solomon in all his glory
Was not arrayed like one of these
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these
Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with a few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing...You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish
Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with a few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing...You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish
Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with a few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing...You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish
Breathe Smile Be.
"The true bodhisattva spirit grows out of this personal sense of freedom. You discover that you don't feel so needy anymore. You don't crave another refueling - with shamatha or with other people's love and attention - because you know within yourself how to be free, how to be confident. With this sense of security and freedom, you begin to direct your attention to the needs of others. The compassion expands. This is my point about inner simplicity as the basis for living fearlessly in a complex world.
This principle of fearless simplicity involves training in the two accumulations as a unity and experiencing the fruition of such training. We have found a true, effective remedy for ego-clinging, negative emotions, the twofold ignorance, and adversity. We have persevered in the two accumulations, and we have grown confident in liberation. We are now open and spacious, and from within that sense of fearless simplicity, we can accomadate all phenomena. We can naturally care for others unpretentiously; no one is a threat any longer."
"Great art is simple. My universe is great art, for it is simple.
"Great art is balanced. My universe is consummate art, for it is balanced simplicity.
"My universe is one in which many things have majestic measure; and again another many have measure too fine for the sensing.
"Yet I have not one law for the majestic things, and another for law for things which are beyond the sensing.
"I have but one law for all My opposed pairs of creating things; and that law needs but one word to spell it out, so hear Me when I say that the one word of My one law is
BALANCE
"And if man needs two words to aid him in his knowing of the workings of that law, those two words are
BALANCED INTERCHANGE
"If man still needs more words to aid his knowing of My one law, give him another one, and let those three words be
RHYTHMIC BALANCED INTERCHANGE"
Complexity is not a cause of confusion. It is a result of it.
Life is simple - thinking is complicated.
A short time ago, one of my neighbors told me of a little church near my home where beautiful, spiritual things occurred, and he wanted me to go and experience it. So I said I'd love to, and we went there...There was a lot of singing and a lot of moving around and dancing -- a real celebration. But the high point came when the minister stood up and said, "Friends, Brother Jonathan is going to give the sermon today, and his subject is going to be faith." Little Brother Jonathan stood up. He was about five-foot-four. He stood before everybody for a minute, folded his hands and said, "Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith." Then he sat down! The minister stood up with a big smile on his face and said, "Thank you, Brother Jonathan, for that beautiful lecture on faith." I thought, someday I'm going to wise up and when I go to talk to people as I am tonight, about love, I'm going to fold my hands and I'm going to say, "Love, love, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, love, love," and then I'm gonna go home! It'll be the most beautiful evening we've had. But I'm not that secure yet, so I'm going to spend an hour telling you what this man said in a minute.
In this life play I have not been in quest of Guru,
God, Truth, Grace, Salvation, nirvana, or power lust.
I had no ambition to be different from what I am.
Blessedly, I had escaped headucation, and was
free of any imposed knowledge. I had no property.
I did not marry. I did not belong to any cliques
or creed. I was not attracted to their magnetism.
I felt all is within our Self.
I had nothing to assert or resent.
Nor had I anything to boast about or regret.
I was fully contented.
I had joy in that which is.
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
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.
It’s very simple; it’s not complicated. If you want to go home and complicate it with the mind and say, “Oh I can’t do this,” then you’ll never do it. But if you simply accept the truth and do, then it will come very quickly. Don’t let the mind complicate your life; always be simple. Start off by doing simple acts of love. To people and friends whom you haven’t said, “I love you,” to in a long time, send an email out tomorrow: “How are you? I’m just sending a loving thought to you.” You’ll see what happens. When you leave a shop, turn around and tell the person, “Have a nice day.” Then you’ll see how you change that person’s point of view and how happy they feel. Wear a smile on your face when you walk the street and see how many people will smile back at you. Have a wilful feeling that everybody should feel love today in a small way. It starts by you doing something in a small way to make someone very happy. If you know something is going to make someone happy, then go out of your way and make them happy. That is our duty as human beings. Can you imagine if everyone lived with this principle? Everyone you talk to would be trying to make you happy. How beautiful is this?
It’s very simple; it’s not complicated. If you want to go home and complicate it with the mind and say, “Oh I can’t do this,” then you’ll never do it. But if you simply accept the truth and do, then it will come very quickly. Don’t let the mind complicate your life; always be simple. Start off by doing simple acts of love. To people and friends whom you haven’t said, “I love you,” to in a long time, send an email out tomorrow: “How are you? I’m just sending a loving thought to you.” You’ll see what happens. When you leave a shop, turn around and tell the person, “Have a nice day.” Then you’ll see how you change that person’s point of view and how happy they feel. Wear a smile on your face when you walk the street and see how many people will smile back at you. Have a wilful feeling that everybody should feel love today in a small way. It starts by you doing something in a small way to make someone very happy. If you know something is going to make someone happy, then go out of your way and make them happy. That is our duty as human beings. Can you imagine if everyone lived with this principle? Everyone you talk to would be trying to make you happy. How beautiful is this?
Of course, any simplification runs the risk of mutilating reality; but it helps us establish perspectives.
For every human problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and
wrong.
A little bit of simplicity and a whole lot of creativity can cut right through those attention-deficit barriers.
