Simplicity Is Profound

The more experience a person has, the more simplicity is profound.
       - Keith Jarrett, pianist. Jarrett’s album, The Melody At Night, With You offers an interesting and beautiful example of minimalist music.

To what extent is your life simple?  The tendency is to sacrifice our lives for unnecessary comfort.

Simplicity contributes to financial independence -- allows you the freedom to say no to activities and projects whose sole contribution to your life would be to cover overhead. Simplicity contributes to independence from the dominant culture, its preoccupation with the trivial, its rush to get places of superficial importance. Simplicity enhances your ability to create work of beauty, to deal in truth. 

The spiritual life has always been the simple life, the reflective life. Simplicity enhances your relationship with yourself. The fewer the distractions in your life, the more profound your relationship with yourself.  Simplicity contributes to the courage of conviction. Reducing clutter and focusing on the essential is an important aspect of slowing down.

The soul is simple; it doesn’t relate to complicated. It needs simple pleasures. Wisdom asks for simplicity -- the elimination of unnecessary distraction, detail. A concentration on the essential. Art asks for that too: What is the essence here? What about this subject resonates on a deeper level?

Simplicity of speech, of thought. Simplicity in what I say to those I love, those I encounter day-to-day. Simplicity in the way I live. Taking time to relax, to reflect. To walk in green, sweet-smelling places. Downtime. Words written not to impress, but (rather) clarity, integrity, beauty. Simple food, simple friendships, simple work done with integrity and grace.

Readings On Simplicity 

Our lives are, to a large extent, spent in avoiding confrontation with ourselves.  Only when you understand that can you begin to make sense of the enormous amount of our culture's daily activities, which attempt to distract us from ourselves, from deep reflection, from deep thinking, from existential confrontation.  There's a wonderful phrase by the philosopher Kierkegaard, "tranquilization by the trivial."  And I think our culture has mastered this better than any culture in history, simply because we have the wealth and means to do so.
       - Roy Walsh, psychiatry professor as quoted in The Search For Meaning by Phillip L. Berman

The greatest thing a human soul
Ever does in this world
Is to see something
And tell what he saw
In a plain way.

Hundreds of people can talk
For one who can think
But thousands can think
For one who can see

To see clearly
Is poetry
Prophecy
And religion
All in one.
       - John Ruskin

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.
Patience with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
-   Lao-Tzu, The Tao Te Ching

Time: If not aware of its inestimable value, sell it to the highest bidder for cash, and always be cheated. No one
but a fool ever sold more of his time than he had to.
-   Thoreau, in his journal. Thoreau And The Art of Life

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
- John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendril

The Taoist way teaches to remain in harmony and to see things in simplicity by comparing or even being in one with nature — the truest simplicity in life. By today’s standard of living this goal seems to be near impossible. Yet, the Tao simply says to “be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
- Stephen Mitchell, The Tao Te Ching

There is great freedom in simplicity of living, and after I began to feel this, I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being.
      - Peace Pilgrim, Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

The concept of the value of simple pleasure runs through the entire tradition of thinking about soul. 
- Thomas Moore, Care Of The Soul

Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons.  It is what we leave behind that is important.  I think the matter of simplicity goes further than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of thoughts and objectives as well.  When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost.  Never indulge in arguments or bitter recriminations; never criticize, but be of good cheer. . . Thoreau, I know, would have agreed. . . I can imagine him moving around the old Wilderness Outfitters warehouse with his strange and almost enigmatic smile, patting the guides on the shoulder and whispering, "Simplify -- simplify -- simplify."
     - Reflections From The North Country by Sigurd F. Olson