Simplicity
Photo by Tyler Lastovich
Simplicity and Zen are often evoked as one and the same, for good reason. Simplicity is a powerful virtue celebrated and cultivated by spiritual practitioners. It is experienced and expressed in a myriad of ways, and it points to reality just as it is. In this talk we look at simplicity through the lens of generosity: generosity of spirit, generosity of view, and generosity of action—all of which we express as we make our way through the world.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Today I want to talk about simplicity.
We recently finished watching the film series The Week about the climate crisis, and we talked about the work that we’re being asked to do to address it. The work the Earth is asking us to do, our lives are asking us to do, our vows. Last week we also did a study session on the 8th Grave Precept: Give generously, do not be withholding. Given this, I wanted to speak about simplicity as a quality of being, as a type of generosity: generosity of spirit, generosity of view, and generosity of action—all of which we express as we make our way through the world.
As part of our liturgy, together we regularly chant the Karaniya Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s teaching on Loving-kindness, and the beginning speaks very directly to this quality of simplicity:
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let me be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied…
Recently I’ve been reflecting that if we could just do that: be truly contented and satisfied, everything else would be taken care of. So what’s required, truly, to be contented, to be really satisfied with what we have and who we are? Let’s look at this together. But first, let me remind us all that the version of the Karaniya Metta Sutta that we chant in the Ocean Mind Sangha is a little different from the original. I changed the pronouns to make the liturgy more direct, more personal.
The original says:
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright…
Let them not do the slightest that the wise would later reprove
Let none deceive another, etc.
This chant is written as an instruction manual for loving-kindness, for peace and joy and contentment. It implicitly asks, do you want to be peaceful? Do you want to live your life well?
Then this is what you must do:
Be able and upright,
don’t deceive others,
don’t dislike them either.
Radiate kindness to everyone you meet.
Don’t do anything that the wise would find fault with.
When I started chanting this myself, I decided to place myself square in the middle of that work, of the practice that the chant requires. So I changed it to read, Let me be able and upright, straightforward and gentle. I won’t deceive another. Let me not do the slightest thing that I would later regret. Not because the opinion of the wise is not important but because more than the reproof of others I don’t want to cause my own regret. I don’t want to not be satisfied with my own actions, in the moment or in retrospect. I want to my life to be simple in the sense of being congruent: I want to live the way I say, the way I think, so that I’m not fragmented, but whole.
You could say that I turned the chant into a vow, because I needed it I needed that reminder and that guidance and that focus: This is what I will do because this is the person I want to be I did it, first and foremost, to help myself remember. But then I thought, why not share it? We can all use a reminder, so humbly, why not? Either way, the message is the same: Be simple and straightforward in your manner. Don’t be deceitful, don’t be conceited, don’t be constantly chasing after things,because none of it will lead to your own peace. And it certainly won’t lead to peace in the world, to the balance we need if we’re to take care of ourselves, each other, and our home, the Earth.
I speak often of the fact that what we see makes what we live. That our thoughts shape our actions and these in turn shape our experience of ourselves and the world. So, when we look out at that world from a place of lack, for example, what we see all around us is what we’re missing. If what we see in our minds is conflict, conflict is what we’ll see and create in the world.
There’s that famous passage in the Vimalakirti Sutra, which we’ll be studying this winter. At the beginning of the sutra, thousands upon thousands of arhats and bodhisattvas and gods and humans gather at Vaiśālī to hear the Buddha’s teaching, and before the Buddha starts speaking, five hundred young bodhisattavas lay down their parasols before the Buddha and he turns them into the net of Indra, covering the entire cosmos but reflecting everything in it: all the galaxies and planets and countries and cities and villages and in each of them, thousands upon thousands of buddhas all proclaiming the teachings.
Naturally, everyone present is just blown away, and they offer verses of praise to the Buddha and then they ask him, having seen what they just saw, what is the bodhisattvas’ purification of the buddha field? How do they do what you just did?
And the Buddha says: “The purity of this buddha field reflects the purity of living beings. It reflects their resolve, their virtue, their aspiration, their generosity, etc.”
In short, Buddha is as Buddha does; their actions and their being reflect—and create—their environment.
And Shariputra’s listening to all this and he looks around and thinks to himself, “What Buddha field? This… this mess?! If this is a buddha field, then the Buddha’s mind must be have been impure when he created it, because…geeez, c’mmon!”
The Buddha, of course, reads Shariputra’s mind—a great skill to have when you’re teaching—and he says, “What do you think, Shariputra, is it because the sun and moon are impure that those who are blind from birth can’t see them?”
“No, of course not,” says Shariputra. “It’s simply that they’re not able to see the sun and moon. It’s not the fault of the sun and moon! If anything, it’s the fault of those who’re blind.”
(It’s not the fault of the oceans that they’re being choked with plastic. It’s not the fault of those same oceans to turn into deserts, forests into bare fields scattered with stumps.)
And the Buddha says, “Just so, Shariputra. In the same way, it’s not this buddha field’s fault that you don’t see it as pure. This buddha field is pure, you just don’t see it.”
But it’s worth stopping here and reflecting for a moment: what’s the difference between the mind of Shariputra and the mind of the bodhisattvas? Why do they see what he can’t see? Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object? Or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object? (M. Dogen’s Mountains and Rivers Sutra) Are there buddha fields and not buddha fields? Or are there different ways of seeing the same thing? How does this apply to Gaza and Ukraine? How does it apply to wildfires and hurricanes and tornadoes? Will they just go away if we adjust our seeing? These are not philosophical questions.
“This buddha field is pure, you just don’t see it,” says the Buddha.
And still Shariputra doesn’t get it. It’s like he doesn’t believe what the Buddha is saying. Because when a Brahmin says, “To me, this buddha field is like heaven,” Shariputra’s like, “Really? When I look at this earth with all its highs and lows, its peaks and abysses, it’s as if it were completely covered in shit.”
Shariputra just calls it like he sees it, fulfilling the role he often plays in the sutras, which is to ask the question you know others are thinking but are afraid to ask I believe, though, that he really wants to know. I look out at the world and it just seems so… sad, so hard, so relentless. Please tell me how it’s a buddha field because I just don’t see it.
And again the Brahmin says, “The fact that you see this buddhafield as so impure, my dear Shariputra, is a sure sign that there are highs and lows in your mind.”
But he’s not blaming him! He’s not saying, you pure deluded thing, you’re j blind. He too is calling it as he sees it He’s saying Those highs and lows in your mind? They’re the highs and lows in the world—that really is how it is. Why? Because there is nothing outside of mind, which means you can’t separate what happens inside from what happens outside.
This is Meister Eckhart, and his original verse refers to God, but given how things are, this still works:
Apprehend who you are in all things,
for you are in all things.
Every single creature is full of you
and is a book about you.
Every creature is a word of your life.
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature— even a caterpillar—I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of me is all of creation. Remember this line: If I spent enough time, because we’ll return to it.
Shariputra, being in all things, since his mind reflected in them. He sees the highs and lows, the peaks and abysses. He sees the shit piled high and stinking. But then the Buddha touches the ground with his big toe and immediately the buddha field is covered with jewels.
And he says, “Shariputra, do you see it now?”
“I see it! I see it!” says Shariputra. “I’ve never seen a buddha field such as this!”
It has to look a certain way for him to recognize it. Like Deshan having a dharma encounter with the old tea seller by the side of the road and at the end asking her, can you point me to a teacher? We miss what’s right in front of our eyes because we think it doesn’t look as it should.
Shariputra gets it, and the interesting thing is that, after all that, the Buddha says, “You know, I make this buddha field look as if it were covered in shit. And you know why? To bring about the maturity of living beings.”
He’s teaching: What you see right now are the highs and lows. What you see are the peaks and abysses. You see all the horror and the ugliness and the conflict and the sorrow. Train your mind, however, and what you’ll see will be quite different It’s not that there is no trouble in the world, but who is it that creates it? How?
So what does this have to do with simplicity? It’s not that we make do with less. It’s not that we have to sacrifice the things we like, not enjoy the many wonderful things that the world offers us, but that we recognize how much we have, how much life overflows with life, and therefore, we don’t need to keep taking or making things that don’t actually add but strip away the buddha field’s beauty.
A few weeks ago I mentioned Yvonne Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, who wrote that there’s no such thing as a sustainable company, because we always take from the earth much more and much faster than what we can put back. Actually, he said it a bit more colorfully than that. He said:
Every piece of crap, because it was manufactured, contains within it something of the priceless: applied human intelligence, for one, natural capital for another—something taken from the forest or a river or the soil that cannot be replaced faster than we deplete it. We’re wasting our brains and our only world on the design, production, and consumption of things we don’t need and aren’t good for us.
This is from his book, the Responsible Company, which I read when I became Director of Operations of Dharma Communications, Zen Mountain Monastery’s outreach arm, and a big part of my job was to oversee the catalog for our physical and online stores. And we sold good things: cushions and statues and malas and incense—all the many things we’d use to maintain a meditation practice. But, it’s all stuff—stuff that gets made and used and eventually thrown out—and I wanted to see if we could make sure we were not selling crap but things that, as much as possible, used our resources responsibly.
It wasn’t perfect, but we did reasonably well. We knew most of our suppliers—many of whom were local or at least based in the US, which meant not having to ship the materials or products and the oil and other resources that takes—and some of them worked hard to not be wasteful in their production process. It wasn’t perfect, but we were trying to be responsible. So let me offer that responsibility and awareness go hand in hand with the practice of simplicity, the practice of holding what we have, carefully, tenderly.
I’ve told some of you about the incredible teacher Dipa Ma She was Joseph Goldstein’s teacher, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein—they all travelled to India to study with her. And they all spoke of how incredibly humble and kind she was, how simple her life, how piercing her concentration and insight (Whenever I feel I need a little fire in my practice, I read her.). Her main teaching was, “The whole path of mindfulness is this: whatever you’re doing, be aware of it.”
That’s it? That’s it—really be aware of it.
When she came in the room, one student said, she picked up a little plastic toy duck that must have belonged to her grandchild and took it over to a plastic basin on the windowsill. In the soft afternoon light coming through the window, she began bathing the duck. It was like a baptism. She took a small, dirty plastic toy and turned it into a sacred object, simply with her presence, her care, her relationship to this object she held in her hands It sounds so simple—and it is, but not in the way we think.
To Jack Kornfield she said: “How’s you practice? Do you have any thoughts?’
“What do you mean any thoughts? Millions of thoughts.”
“Stop them,” she’d say.
“Well, I can,” he’d answer. “But it takes tremendous effort, an enormous amount of samadhi.”
“No,” she’d say. “You sit down and you just do it.” (No, the point is not to stop thinking. The point is to pay attention, and this is what she was saying. Make the effort to be fully there—so fully that it’s the entire cosmos bathing that rubber duck.)
Another way of saying it is to ask ourselves whether we’re in relationship, in responsible relationship, with the thing or the person or the place before us? Do we know the nature of the thing in front of us and the nature of the one who’s looking? Because ultimately, that’s what it all boils down to:
What is this? And how do I relate to that?
With awareness, responsibility, and simplicity.
If we wonder how to be contented and satisfied, how to be gentle and straightforward, we can take guidance from Dipa Ma, and make her teaching questions our own: “Can you live so that everything you do is blessed—every joy, every sorrow, every person? And, Have you let yourself look into what is true?”
Not—are you looking, do you see, have you studied, but Have you let yourself? What does that mean? That it’s already here. It’s always fully present—ee just have to let ourselves see it. So let go of all you know or think you know, and give yourself permission to see it.
Explore further
01 : Vimalakirti Sutra with commentary by Dsongzar Khyentse Rinpoche
02 : Dharma Encounter: What is Buddha led by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
03 : On Loving Kindness with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
04 : The Week: Organize a Session with The Week