Early Reflections on Simplicity

There are four white candles glowing on top of the cabinet and for tonight their golden sways wash the room in romance.  We lit 

them because one half of our house goes without electricity.  It is one of the many challenges that have come with moving into our charming 1920’s white and cream colored home.  When Damon stumbled into his morning shower he did not realize that the hot and cold pipes were opposite of what the red and blue label suggested and so he bathed in a numbing mountain glacier stream.  While sudsing along its maiden voyage, the dishwater began to overflow with bubbles that ran steadily across the kitchen floor.  It was more comical than anything.  We have just come to accept the fact that we are living with imperfections, some of which may be fixed (like the electricity) and some that we must simply accommodate.

The whole house has electricity now, which means we no longer have to chase light around the house.  Yet, I light the four candles anyway and turn off the lights.  It’s not that I intend to conserve much electricity, though that would be very JVC of me, but I find that the exuding warmth of candle light does have its own message to bear.  Because the flickering flame can only throw the light so far, it naturally tapers off certain corners of the room, and therefore draws a soft curtain around our world.  In this way, I am reminded of a certain kind of simplicity of heart that I am very much attempting to cultivate here.  Do not mistake the metaphor these candles cast.  Simple living does not mean that I get to exclude different parts of the world from my purview.  I am not here to block out corners of reality.  Instead my meditation around dim, flickering light helps to center me around what the kung fu master might call “serene awareness.” 

The world is charged with stimuli.  Around every corner there is a person, event or message acting out and if you are in this world as an alive, perceiving, social being then you cannot help but be affected by these things.  The advertising campaigns on BART are constantly reaching out to me, as are the restaurants that line Shattuck Ave.  They prey upon my desires for a soothing Chai latte, or palate-tickling curry, or something I never knew I wanted until it was displayed so seductively in front of me. The small circle of light from the candles calls me to respond in an intentional way to all that commotion.  It urges me to focus all of my mind on the here and now, to be attentive to what is actually before me, to notice things without being tossed about by the swarming array of messages.  If I were to accept every message or every desire, I would soon find myself internally besought with division.  Why?  Because these messages are not actually in agreement with one another, such that following each of them would induce a kind of schizophrenia.  A person who wants to achieve serenity in their life, must carefully discern then, which invitations she will accept and allow to make a claim upon her.

Serene awareness notices all things and allows them to enter the gentle light of human consciousness.  It is not closed off to any experience, but it does adopt a fundamental preference for the inner light itself.  In other words, I prize my integrity, my own cohesive being before the many things acting upon me.  If I fail to pay attention to this foundational self, which one might call the soul, then I can become as scattered as the messages around me.  And if one of the strongest claims upon my life has been love in the service of others, I must acknowledge that the effectiveness of my service is only as real as the integrity I hold for myself.  A psychologically divided person does not possess the stability or cohesion of life that allows her to give to others.  This is clearly recognized when someone is physically ill.  We say that if you don’t take care of yourself, you cannot possibly take care of others.  It is important, for me at least, to see that this principle extends to my spiritual health as well.  Disharmony of the mind only incapacitates me from being fully present to the needs of other people. 

Candle light returns me to this insight.  It asks that I stop chasing every single appetite, be it for food, comfort, fashion, relationships, entertainment, accomplishments, so that I may favor what is actually present before me.  The very givenness of this moment and the scene dawning here.   I can enjoy plenty of what the world has to offer, without being recklessly tossed around by my own desires and the things that most excite them. 

There is a book that rests beside my four candles called “Voluntary Simplicity.”  I have yet to read it.  But there is a caption on the back cover that articulates the point of simplicity and this whole romantic scene very well.  It says, in brief, that simplicity is about choosing not to indulge certain parts of your life so that you may channel that energy for other more important parts. 

-Maggi Van Dorn, Sept 08