Religious Scholar

Being simple is no easy thing.

We know it’s important to simplify our lives, our thinking, but we’re not sure why.

Everything in Western culture cries out for complexity. We judge a person by the complexity level of their education and career responsibilities, the extent of their expert knowledge. We may reward single-minded entertainers and athletes with fortunes and celebrity, but the greatest status is achieved by those who have mastered the bewildering complications of science, technology, communications and business. Degrees from elite universities are the crown jewels of our society.

And yet simplicity cries out to us from every side. The folk hymn, “Simple Gifts,” Thoreau’s cry to “Simplify, simplify,” the title of a popular magazine, Real Simple, the satirical reality TV series, “The Simple Life”:  all these point to the enduring significance of simplicity, while not providing a clue as to what it is and why it is important.

To find out what it is and why it matters, we can state some of the things simplicity is not. Words and phrases that come to mind include:

• Simple-minded
• Simpleton
• Superficial
• Taking short-cuts
• Dumbing down

Positive images associated with simplicity include:

• Radiant clarity
• Seeing the obvious
• Grasping core concepts
• Streamlining
• Living holistically, in touch with the natural world

Ron Olson, author of American Zen, has a trademark concept called “simple sense.” He believes we miss the boat by burying the truth under big words and elaborate theories, that truth can be encountered and expressed directly.

Obviously, there is a place for complexity. Mapping the human genome was no simple matter. Would you want to have brain surgery performed by someone who didn’t know the complexities of neuroscience? At the same time, science and technology is most effective when it is governed by simple concepts:  the scientific method, for example.

And not only scientific matters benefit from a simple approach. Good home cooking is based on simple ingredients and processes. Two- and three-dimensional design relate to the same simple shapes:  square and cube, circle and sphere. Complexities spin off from these essential elements, but are rooted in timeless consistencies.

Think of music.  A work as infinitely complex as Beethoven’s Ninth fundamentally rises from simple principles of balance, harmony and structure. What tune could be more simple than the theme of the final movement?

The antithesis of simplicity is not so much complexity as confusion and clutter. This accounts for the surprising success of feng shui in recent years in the West. The emphasis on natural circulation of air and energy, the abandonment or giving up of confusion and clutter in design, in fact, the whole way we think about our surroundings, leads to an organic simplicity out of which our creativity can flow. In photography and video, clutter is called noise; in electronics, static. We have this annoying chatter, this raspy twitching in our own brains, sometimes when we can’t sleep at 3 in the morning, other times during the day when we lose our focus and can’t concentrate on a problem or concern.

Simplicity is not rushing, not hurrying. It is stepping outside of time. The TV network Turner Classic Movies has a weekly program titled, “The Essentials,” about motion pictures that are basic to our understanding of film. The essence is what we seek. We crave to know the essentials of life. Complexity is adornment, explication, development. Simplicity is the original design.

Simplicity is the ability to see the principles of the whole system without being lost in the particles, whether the distant galaxies of space or the infinitely deep recesses of molecules and atoms.

Some are attracted by the complexities of religious teaching.  Some are repelled.  Dogma, ritual, elaborate commentaries are all expressions of spiritual understanding. But not essentials.  Each faith tradition has its spin on basic truth, and the core truths, revealed in all their simplicity, are often surprisingly in sync with those of other pathways. The Ten Commandments, Five Pillars, Four Noble Truths, Great Commandments, Eightfold Path, Eight Limbs of Yoga, and other formulas for living the good life, have more in common than we would have imagined when we strip away the complexity and get to the core.

Beyond this, through stilling the mind, cultivating the ability to think and to see unrestricted by distractions, confusion and clutter, we meditate on the Good and in simplicity come to an experience of the One.  It may sound goofy to some, but in reality, this level of deep simplicity can lead to a healing sense of unity and a safe pathway to the discovery of life’s richest and most essential treasure.