Our life is frittered away by detail ......simplify, simplify, wrote the american Moralist Henry David Thoreau. Renunciation involves simplifying our acts, our speech, and our thoughts to rid ourselves of the superfluous. Simplifying our activities does not mean sinking into laziness, on the contrary, it means acquiring a growing freedom and counter acting the most subtle aspect of inertia - the impulse that, even when we know what really counts in life, prompts us instead to pursue a thousand trivial activities one after the other, like ripples in the water.
To simplify our speech is to curtail the stream of the pointless talk that continuously flows from our mouths. It is, above all, to abstain from directing hurtful remarks at others. Ordinary conversations, rued the hermit Patrual Rinpoche, are echoes of echoes. You need only turn on the TV or go to any social gathering to be engulfed in a torrent of words that not only are often useless, but also aggravate covetousness, hostility, and vanity. YOu don't have to rap yourself aloof silence but simply be aware of what is appropriate speech and of the value of time. Appropriate speech avoids self serving lies, cruel words, and the gossip whose only effect is to distract us and sow discord. It is always adapted to circumstance, gentle or firm as required and the product of an altruistic and controlled mind.
Having a simple mind is not the same as being simply minded. On the contrary simplicity of mind is reflected in clarity of thought. Like clear water that lets us see all the way to the lake bottom, simplicity reveals the nature of the mind behind the wheel of restless thoughts
The simple person lives the way he breathes, with no more effort or glory, with no more affection and without shame......simplicity is freedom, buoyancy, transperancy. As simple as the air, as free as the air......the simple person does not take himself too seriously or too tragically. He goes on his merry way, his heart light, his soul at peace,without a goal, without nostalgia, without impatience. The world is his kingdom and suffices him. The present is his eternity and delights him. He has nothing to prove , since he has no appearances to keep up, and nothing to seek, since everything is before him. What is more simple than simplicity? what lighter? it is the virtue of wise men and the wisdom of saints.
