Simplicity Is The Ultimate Sophistication

Catherine quotes Leonardo da Vinci and examines the ways that simplicity fosters calm, efficiency, elegance, and consideration for earth’s resources. Simplicity is an aspect of inner quiet, disengaged from the noise of the exhausting “me project” whose demands are to be fed and promoted, but never satisfied.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is from a Zoom session broadcast from Australia on January 2nd,

2021.

It's called Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication,

A phrase that is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.

About 30 years ago,

I was in Japan and we went to the property of a 20th century quite well-known artist at the time.

His name is Isamu Noguchi,

Mostly just known as Noguchi.

And even though he was a multimedia artist,

He was most famous for his sculptures.

He was an incredible sculptor and worked a lot in stone as his element that he used mostly.

And I was just bedazzled by his place.

His studio in Japan,

He had a studio in other places.

I think he had a studio in New York and maybe Paris,

I'm not sure.

But in any case,

This was his Japanese studio and his home.

And he died in,

I think,

1988.

I went there just a few years later,

Two,

Three years later.

And his main studio was this 15th or 16th century sake barn that had been brought to the property.

And standing in that barn and seeing the sculptures in it and just the way that that barn was made was just a revelation of what high aesthetics are.

And then his home was very,

First of all,

It was very small.

I think it was really just two or three rooms.

It's been a while,

So I can't remember it perfectly.

But what I do remember was there was not much in it.

There was nothing much in it.

Just the essentials and everything,

All of the essentials that were there were so well-crafted.

There was just quality,

Although very,

Very minimalist.

And I,

Of course,

I've never forgotten that experience.

I think it did something in my psyche.

It induced a kind of understanding of the old cliche,

Less is more,

Because it felt grand in its beauty and in its simplicity.

It felt exalted in that.

And that kind of design has always appealed to me,

But not only in architecture or in interiors,

But also in being.

It also is so wonderful to consider that you don't have to keep stuffing yourself with experiences or details,

Many,

Many details.

We're just under an avalanche of details all the time or dreams of what's next and what might we be able to do this or that.

Now,

I'm aware as I sit here tonight that a number of you are in Europe and you're facing more lockdowns as many places in the world are,

Of course.

And I know that it's frustrating in many ways for many,

Many people.

It's very hard.

And perhaps some people have circumstances that make it especially hard.

But I really want to encourage you again to accept it and find the beauty in it.

Find the beauty in less is more.

Yes,

Lots of our plans are impossible to indulge our minds in.

We can't really make any plans.

We don't know what's around the corner next.

And we're planning creatures.

There's a way in which our minds just do that.

Some people more than others,

Some people fall into contentment in present circumstances more easily than others.

But as human animals,

We do a lot of planning in general.

We always did.

And we're now at a time that is stripped down.

It's stripped down.

We're contained quite a bit.

But still,

We can experience a great elegance in this life,

A great simple elegance in whatever your circumstance happens to be.

Be grateful for it.

Grateful for all the little things.

That's where the happiness lies.

And okay,

You can't run about the world.

All right.

Most people never could in their entire lives.

Most people in history never got to do that.

We're often tormented by what might have been or what could be or reliving something that happened that now this isn't as much fun or isn't as good and all these things we just torture ourselves needlessly.

But you could let your experience of your home be like that sake barn.

You have put the objects into your home that you like,

That you're grateful to have found and could procure.

So there's your nest.

There's your sanctuary.

You can be ever grateful that you wake up into that each day.

And that you can still move about,

Even if it's just going outside and walking around right where you live.

I assume everyone on this call still has food and water.

Keeping it simple.

Many,

Many people who have had big lives with lots of stuff and lots of experience and lots of objects and lots of everything.

Many people,

The wiser ones,

Start heading toward letting go often.

A lot of people who kind of hit the top when there's nowhere else to go.

They turn to Dharma and they start living more in Dharmic principle.

And one of the key elements of that is this utter simplicity,

Simplicity of spirit,

Of mind.

Simplicity in not being inclined to a lot of consumption because you see in consumption that every single object requires caretaking,

Even if it's just dusting it off.

Every single thing.

I've spoken about this so many times and many of you would know this from direct experience,

But it's always very interesting to yet again see how happy we can become in our retreats that we do.

Now we're in a kind of forced stripping down of things.

That's the whole point of it.

We put people in a context in which all their usual distractions and entertainments are not on offer.

And then you're left with finding this great simple beauty,

Like tasting your food,

Right?

And noticing the particular colors in the changing of the day into the night and the particular colors of the night.

The night colors change as well.

And seeing ordinary so-called ordinary sites as if for the first time and they have a different kind of glow when your eyes and your mind have been refreshed and devoid of clutter.

There's a way in which you perceive,

You taste,

Even your thoughts.

There's a way in which in that kind of quiet your emotional response to your thoughts changes as well.

In that you start to notice that your crazy thoughts and your mean thoughts and your fearful thoughts are not ones that you are attracted to,

Even though they may arise,

They may arise,

But you don't have the emotional attraction in that kind of clarity in that kind of simplicity.

And instead,

The emotional attraction that comes with certain thoughts is more likely to be connected to those thoughts of insight and appreciation and kindness and generosity and thinking about your loved ones.

That's where you start to light up just organically.

When there's this opening into more space,

That's another way to say,

It's another way to say my experience in that place 30 years ago was a sense of great space.

Spaciousness inside,

Spaciousness in the buildings,

Even though one of those two buildings was quite small.

So even if you're locked down in a small apartment,

Be spacious inside of you.

Be simple.

You know,

I started my day reading a headline in The Guardian,

French snail farmers lament sluggish year.

That's a pretty good reflection on the state of things.

But it reminded me of how we can determine the way we shape our day.

And I'll tell you just what I mean by that.

I have a colleague,

And I was playing something for him.

And it's technically very difficult what I was playing.

And he said,

You know,

If you smile,

Physically smile,

Just before you play the passage,

It will be much easier to play.

So I was playing and then I was like,

So I made the big smile and played and sure enough,

Everything physically was much easier.

And then I started to realize that actually smiling releases something in us,

Maybe it's tension,

Maybe it's some happy chemical.

So that recently,

When I wake up in the morning in the COVID world,

It can either go this way or it can go that way.

And so if I just sort of begin my day with a smile,

Even if I don't feel it,

If I smile and act the smile,

Then I have a direction,

I've already started the direction at the beginning,

Whereas later,

It's much harder to change course,

If you've already established a negative flow.

And reflecting on the experience in Japan,

As you know,

I have a bit of experience with Japan.

Yes,

You do.

And the interesting thing about that society is because of the,

Perhaps the density of the population,

They have to learn a much higher degree of less personality,

Less identity seeking publicly.

But in an inner world,

They are incredible.

And I too have experienced this simplicity where you have just a blank room with one object in the room.

And that one object is so beautiful and so full of meaning that that's really all you need.

I had an Italian friend who unfortunately died not too long ago.

And she had a very large house.

And she said to me,

In my house,

I have only one painting,

Only one painting,

But it is a Botticelli.

I mean,

It's,

I agree,

It's,

It's best to concentrate on just maybe,

You know,

The smallest possible,

You know,

Simplicity,

Simplicity is another kind of godliness.

Yes,

Yes,

It is.

Yeah.

Leonardo da Vinci said,

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Yeah.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Anyway,

It's just absolutely wonderful to be here and to see all of you.

And I just love this space.

Thank you.

Beautiful.

Hi,

Everyone.

Hello.

Hello.

This is my first time coming to a Dharma dialogue.

Oh,

Welcome.

Thank you.

I'm really,

Can feel honored or something to be here.

I first came upon you,

When I saw your Dharma dialogues on offer in Dublin.

I live in Ireland,

I'm in rural Ireland,

Just about an hour and a half,

An hour and a half south of Dublin.

And I just really resonated with what you said about simplicity.

And there was a friend who was staying here about maybe five years ago.

And she's from Chennai in India.

And my partner had made me a little,

I call it a floor table.

It's almost like a big meditation bench,

But it's for like a little table.

So she saw this table and she's a great meditator.

And she said,

Wow,

I'd love a little floor table like that.

And so I have it in front of me and I can pop up a book or I can write something on it.

And it's just a very handy thing.

So John said,

Oh yeah,

That's fine.

I'll make you one.

And so he made the table.

It was a bit of a rush.

He was only there here for a few days.

And I said,

Look,

I've got a yoke,

A machine that I can write on wood.

And I do inscriptions on wood.

It's called a pyrographer.

So I said,

I'd be happy to write a verse or something on your table for you.

So she pondered for a while and she just said,

Yeah,

I just want this one sentence.

May I live simply so others may simply live.

And I'm quite sure everybody's heard that before,

But it just from,

That little echo came whenever I heard you speak about the man in Japan and the knock on effect of simplicity that maybe it will free up resources or calm things down a little bit somewhere for someone else as well.

Thank you.

It's also in addition to all of its benefits in terms of freeing your own self up from basically caretaking a bunch of objects that are just going to turn to dust.

You might find yourself on your deathbed thinking about how much time you spent taking care of all that stuff.

But you know,

To sort of get a good look at that along the way so that you're not a slave to a bunch of what my teacher used to say,

Like being a beast of burden driven by a madman,

You know,

That you're constantly out going to get stuff driven by something inside,

Right?

So it's not only that you are relieved of this,

But it's actually an incredible ecological and political statement to live more simply and to not take more than is needed for your own,

Your own elegant,

Simple life,

Right?

I mean,

I do think,

Okay,

One is allowed.

It's that's fair that you can live and have your basic needs.

That would be great if everyone just did that.

But since they don't,

And that's not how a lot of humans are made,

They don't just live with their own simple needs.

You can your life can be a statement for another way,

Whether or not it catches on with others,

But at least it's that you,

You know,

It's that your life becomes your message,

As Gandhi said,

So you're showing with your own way of living,

Just as Noguchi did,

Right?

That there's an awareness of the whole,

There's an inherent understanding about choosing simplicity for,

Like I said,

The personal,

The personal delight,

But also because it just feels right in the context of,

Of everyone else.

We're in a time when ecology has become trendy,

Like people are kind of into using the concepts of deep ecology,

Because it's cool,

And it's hip,

And it's,

And it's good advertising for certain types of people in their companies.

When we hear that we have an innate aversion,

Don't we?

Because it offends our senses.

It's hypocrisy,

Right?

And it offends our senses.

So it doesn't inspire.

But when we see someone who is talking about those very important values,

And they're living it,

It inspires us and it gives us permission to live more simply.

So,

Yes,

It's twofold.

It's for it's for your own sake,

And for your own delight and for your own,

Instead of tormenting yourself with what's missing,

You reverse it and celebrate what's here.

That's all very lovely,

A great way to live.

And it's inspiring to others.

As many of you know,

I was very close friends with Leonard Cohen.

And,

You know,

Leonard Leonard could have lived in a palace if he wanted to.

And probably someone would have just given him one if he wanted one.

Because people just adored him everywhere.

But Leonard lived really humbly and simply.

He spent a whole lot of time at this very,

Very stripped down Zen monastery in California,

But even in his own home,

His home was very small.

It was a duplex and he lived in the upper apartment upstairs and his daughter lived in the downstairs apartment.

But it was not at all flashy.

It was extremely spartan.

But everything in it was beautiful.

He was very inspired by the Japanese.

So whatever he was using there,

It was highly functional and often of Japanese design.

And yet,

There too,

You know,

When I think about being in that space,

It just we could have just as well been in a palace.

It was just incredibly spacious and lovely.

So those kinds of things are incredibly inspiring.

You know,

When you have an experience like that,

And you see how your friend lives or someone who you admire,

You see that they're living,

They're walking their talk.

So that's one other piece of this is that it's for your own sake,

It's for your own understanding of the deep ecology in which we find ourselves.

And it's for your offering as an example to others.

Because these Zoom sessions were reduced to once a month,

I really missed,

Last month I wasn't here.

So it's lovely to be here and to see everyone.

I have an ambivalent relationship to the New Year concept,

In particular about this year.

Well,

Generally any year that I seem to have,

I suppose it's something to do with the idea of hope.

So Samuel Beckett,

The famous Irish dramatist and writer said about one particular year in 1994,

I think resolution's zero,

Hope's zero,

You know.

So I have that as my ideal,

But I don't think that I really in my heart can really live without hope.

This is something that I wanted to talk to you about.

But on the one hand,

I think there is something illusory in it and it can be a bit tyrannical.

But on the other hand,

In terms of what we're talking about,

About simplicity and quietness,

I do have a tendency to enjoy complex concepts and that's something that gives me joy,

I suppose.

So it's my own tendency.

I live quite simply,

But I also intellectually,

It seems to give my mind peace to think about complex concepts,

Even though I know it's probably not going to leave me anywhere,

You know.

Well,

I understand that and I feel the same.

I'd say that a life of the mind can also be imbued with this kind of spaciousness.

In fact,

One could even make the case that it's the spaciousness that allows that kind of delight in the life of the mind.

Interesting.

And that you have enough space to think about bigger things than just grinding away on neurotic nonsense or being a beast of burden,

Having to go out and constantly get stuff.

Yeah.

It could be a piece of burden to a crazy person inside.

So I think that,

Take for instance Thoreau,

You know,

Henry David Thoreau,

The great American naturalist and philosopher,

You know,

Simplicity was the basis of his philosophical complexity,

Right?

It was life of simplicity that gave him the space to think big thoughts.

Absolutely.

That's fascinating.

And to think in all kinds of interesting abstractions even,

You know.

So,

You know,

I love that idea.

Yeah,

I think that that's exactly how it works.

And that we especially yet again talking about the retreats,

I find that the retreats after people have gotten very quiet inside,

What they start speaking is,

Well,

Like the most beautiful,

Pure philosophy you could ever hope for,

You know,

And it's basically they're just sort of reporting from the field of their own awareness,

But they're because it's become so expansive.

Yeah,

It's just it's just much more dynamic and colorful and multi layered.

And yeah,

You know,

So it's the simplicity.

I mean,

That's the whole thing with the way that Zen practitioners are living within a structure of the day.

So everything is,

Everything is very prescribed throughout the day.

They know exactly where they're going to be at exactly what time and they better be on time in Zen practice.

And that's in order to free up the mind.

Yeah,

That's the whole point of it.

Right.

That's a fantastic way of describing it.

I was watching a documentary about Nichi and,

You know,

Solitude and going into the mountains.

I mean,

Unfortunately,

He went mad.

But who's to say why,

You know,

I mean,

Some might say it's because he couldn't handle the questions he was asking,

But his father went mad.

So we don't really know.

But yeah,

That a lot of the philosophers weren't married,

You know,

That they delight the life of the mind and the need for tremendous quiet and solitude,

I suppose.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah,

I don't think it's a very uplifting way of thinking about it,

Because to really think,

I think one of the reasons that maybe it's difficult to do is because it does require quiet and quietening down maybe.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

That's also a choice that you can choose quiet a lot.

Instead of being attracted to filling up space with activity or more things to think about or do or whatever,

You can actually choose to go the other direction and release things so that you do create space in your life.

I like to think of it as allowing,

Sometimes I say it this way,

You know,

Allowing a space for the magic to arise.

In other words,

There might be some spontaneous thing when you have no plans for the day,

Let's say,

And,

You know,

Some spontaneous thing arises,

Whether it's some creative thing that you decide to do,

Or you even as simple as clearing out a drawer and things like that.

Yeah.

Or just or somehow you go for a walk and you something happens or you have an insight,

You just just sort of making a ground for the magic.

And that what I mean by that simply is this spontaneous serendipities that can happen in that way,

Instead of being chained to some constant motion of either actual motion or mental motion.

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

A picture of the way it should be.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Let's talk also about hope.

Yeah.

There's a narrative at the moment that 2021 will bring us everything that 2020 owes us.

And I find myself resisting that.

It's like,

Come on,

Just get over it.

One of my resistances is even just the numbers.

Like,

I mean,

This is just made up,

Right?

I was at a New Year's gathering the other day,

The day of New Year's Day,

And friends were talking about 2020 good riddance.

And I was sort of just thinking,

What?

Exactly,

Exactly.

Just another,

We're just still here floating in the now.

Exactly.

It's not like that much is going to change.

No,

That's exactly how I feel about it.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I can't get excited that this is now this new.

Right,

We have a new number.

Yeah,

Exactly.

I got into kind of trouble at a dinner party once because we were to sum up our year and it kind of as a,

I think,

As some sort of valuation and I wouldn't.

I said,

No,

I mean,

I don't see it as something to evaluate in that sense.

Yeah.

Right,

Exactly.

It's always been a kind of a,

Especially since this is a very timeless situation we're in.

Yeah.

I mean,

We are live started.

Sorry.

Oh,

Go ahead.

Our lockdown has started the day after New Year's Day.

So,

It's,

There's this idea that it's,

Oh,

We haven't had a great new year already because it's,

I mean,

It's just,

We should never have really opened up for Christmas anyway.

That was the part of the problem,

I think.

And yet I do enjoy the festivities.

I enjoy the dishes,

But it's the idea that there's something is good riddance.

I don't feel that way actually about the year.

It's quite a,

It's tragic for so many people and yet it's absolutely incredible to be living through it as well.

Yes,

Yes,

I know.

What a time.

I mean,

I was talking to someone the other day.

I was at somebody else's house.

We're not really locked down here as you probably surmise.

There's now some outbreaks in Sydney,

But in my region,

We just haven't really had hardly any lockdown all this time.

But I've still been living very simply and quietly and carefully actually when I,

When I'm out and about with people.

And also because of our weather,

We can be outside a lot when we need.

Yeah.

But where was I going with that?

You were going to talk about hope.

Oh,

I now remember what I was going to say.

I sometimes quote T.

S.

Eliot on this,

Be still and wait without hope for hope,

Maybe hope for the wrong thing.

Okay.

And now I even revise it and say,

Be still and wait without hope.

Just be still.

And because hope is a whole,

Hope is very connected to fear.

It's it's causing.

Right.

So it's,

It's not the surrender to what is it's basically saying I want to tweak this.

So I was having this conversation at this gathering and someone from Melbourne and because there was some talk about the Sydney outbreak,

There was some talk then about maybe our state would get locked down to other nearby states,

Which actually has now happened.

Okay.

So she needed to get back to Melbourne,

Her other,

The other state.

And you have to get these permissions.

You have to do this whole application online.

And I said,

I was joking and saying,

It's like the letters of transit in Casablanca.

Did you see the movie?

I can't remember that.

Yeah,

It's been so long.

A fabulous movie.

And the letters of transit play a big part in the movie.

But what I was reflecting on is that it's almost like we're living in our own version of wartime where,

You know,

That we're all in this shared experience of,

Well,

In many cases,

It's a shared experience of stress for many,

Many people.

And those of us who are not in the direct stress,

We're watching the stress from afar.

And so,

As this might relate to the question of hope,

That it's fair to have feelings of,

Of course,

It would be nice if we don't have to live like this indefinitely.

That would be great.

Yeah,

It would be beautiful.

And we would all celebrate.

But if you're spending your days in a kind of feeling that you're not really living,

You're just waiting to start living again.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I wouldn't recommend that.

Yeah,

That's where that's where the hope becomes problematic is.

And that's why I say just be still.

You don't even have to be have a sense of waiting.

You know,

You're just just yeah.

And watch it,

Watch what's happening.

And in the meantime,

Just enjoy your days.

You know,

So many people have now died.

Suddenly,

We're watching the numbers.

These we've got big death tolls around the world.

And a lot of those people were healthy just a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Now are dead.

Yeah.

And,

And one is getting this constant teaching as to how precious the days how anything can happen.

Right,

How those people were all just going about their lives,

Even if they were aware that COVID was floating around,

And they were being careful somehow,

Even if that was the case,

In some cases,

That wouldn't be the case.

Some cases,

They weren't being careful at all.

They didn't believe in it.

But yeah,

But whichever way,

Death comes and yeah,

Suddenly you realize,

Wow.

Then the question is,

How are you spending these precious days?

Yeah,

When you're getting this message that this can happen so easily.

Yeah.

Not that we didn't already know that we did.

But,

But we're now large.

We were seeing so much and it's,

It's,

Yeah.

So it is a version of wartime,

As you say,

That's what it's Yeah,

That's what it's like.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

We're not we're not at each other's throats,

But we're watching a world event that is taking down a lot of people.

Yeah.

So like in the in the US,

We're having a 9-11 every day now.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Every day,

About 3000 dead.

That's absolute carnage there.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And it's also having a knock on effect with a lot of social unrest and all kinds of things that are going on.

Yeah.

So,

Again,

All of this by way of seeing and seeing,

We can't,

You can't,

From my way of seeing,

We actually can't afford to be in any kind of whining or just hoping that fill in the blank.

Who knows how this is going to play out?

We just have to surrendering to the reality of this.

This is how it is.

And for us so far,

All of us on this call,

We're okay.

We're the lucky ones.

We're okay.

So yeah,

Just just yeah,

Carry on.

And after all that,

Happy New Year.

Thank you.

Lovely to see you.

Thanks.

I actually would like to hear you speak more about surrendering to what is because I am in the US.

And it's just a lot right now.

It's really hard to accept what's happening.

It's really painful,

Because a lot of it is just really frustrating when so much is out of ignorance and kind of toxic individualism.

And on top of all that,

Politically,

It's been,

It's the damage that's happening right now and the kind of chaos and selfishness,

You know,

With hope and,

You know,

I have trouble with with hope right now.

But then I also don't want to get lost in the despair of what's happening.

And so I've been I've been trying to just accept and to say yes,

Like you say,

Like,

Yes,

This is the time that I'm living in.

But it's just it's really hard to watch people hurting each other.

Yeah,

Yeah,

It is.

It is very frustrating.

I agree to watch the suffering,

Born of ignorance.

It's very frustrating.

And yet,

One is left with the question,

Well,

Does ignorance exist?

The answer is definitely yes,

You know,

Ignorance is is rife.

And then also the behavior often connected with ignorance is born of fear.

And so it's these combinations of ignorance and fear and greed and,

And it is it's painful to watch,

I completely agree.

And yet,

Wasn't it always so it's just historically the case,

We've had brief spells where things were okay enough when you could,

You were in such privilege as you know,

A person born in our societies,

To be able to keep a kind of buffer for most of it,

And you watch it on the news or hear about incidents that with people you know,

But,

But when you see it,

As we're watching it now on the world stage and seeing the real consequences where people are literally dying,

And you know,

And many more are sickened.

And we're watching all of the crazy scramble for the transfer of wealth,

Frankly,

That's happening at a huge scale,

Just a shocking scale,

The biggest transfer of wealth from essentially the poor in the middle class to the extreme elite ever in history.

And all of this we're having to stomach.

It's hard it is,

I agree.

And yet,

As I was just saying before,

Part of this lesson here,

This historical lesson that we're watching unfold,

And a Dharma lesson,

Very powerfully embedded in it is how quickly one can just be exited from this earth.

We're seeing that very clearly now.

So you have to take yourself in hand and say,

Okay,

I don't have to like this that I'm seeing.

And I can notice it's not it's not being undarmic to notice that ignorance is causing a lot of suffering.

That's actually a dharmic view.

So you don't have to like seeing the suffering,

You don't have to like the fact of so much ignorance in power,

And making all the decisions and also usurping the resources.

But you can put it in its proper place.

In your awareness,

It doesn't have to have center stage.

It can have an appearance on center stage now and in your day,

But like when you read the news or you hear about it,

But you don't have to keep chewing on it the whole rest of the day and having that be the main show that you're watching in your mind.

You know,

You have to really take yourself in hand and ask yourself what if this was my last day?

Or my last good day?

What if I did come down with COVID tomorrow and ended up in the hospital?

Do I want to spend it ringing my hands about how awful people are?

And also,

It's helpful.

I find it's very helpful when I get frustrated about certain people's behavior.

I counter the thoughts sometimes,

As needed,

With how many wonderful people there actually are and how many people are really merciful and kind and generous.

And how many of those I've known in my life,

You know,

Been lucky to know a lot of those types.

And also seeing how people do step up and help.

So instead of a strong focus,

Just rebalance your attention through the day.

It's not to deny anything and you don't have to put any kind of happy spin on it about how these people are behaving.

You don't have to like it or accept it or approve of it or anything.

But you don't actually need to have it take away the moments of your precious life any more than it would need to just by dint of the fact that when you see it,

You can't help but have a moment of,

You know,

And I do struggle with that as well.

I mean,

Those moments arise for me.

I often say to one of my friends,

I'll end a certain type of conversation like this,

What you've just put forth about how people are behaving.

I'll just say,

Humans.

I like that.

I say people are going to people.

Yeah,

I actually see it as a species problem,

Honestly.

And I see it,

I see all kinds of things that are embedded in the species that we are,

That made us very successful in getting a big population going.

It made us very successful.

But now those same qualities are becoming contraindicated to our health.

Those very same qualities.

It used to be,

You know,

Like the whole thing of go forth and multiply the whole edict in the Bible.

But actually,

I think even without it being the Bible,

That's what everyone was up to all along.

And that worked nicely when we were just a band of a few hundred thousand on earth.

But now we're pushing at 8 billion.

And the kinds of qualities that were embedded in us,

Greed and lust and hunger for power and all those kinds of things that a lot of people have very much as a big driving force in themselves.

Those things,

While they may have worked at one point in history,

It's not looking so good now with what it's doing on the planet.

So I sometimes,

Not just about this thing that we're in,

However long it's going to be this COVID pandemic,

But I'm also watching it from another scale having to do with climate chaos and the pollution of air,

Land and sea and,

You know,

Depletion of our resources and food baskets and all of those things.

So sometimes when I'm looking at ignorance from that point of view,

And the ultimate destruction that it represents,

I do get a heavy heartedness about humans.

It's one of the things I work on a lot.

Because I have to remind myself,

It's pointless to sort of shake my fist to the sky about this particular species,

Especially as I am one of them.

But sometimes I do have that,

Metaphorically speaking,

Inside of me.

And I have all these ways of countering it,

Reminding myself that,

First of all,

This is just what evolution has been doing.

It's an evolutionary process.

And humans,

You know,

A lot of the most beautiful things about us are not the things that you hear about in the news.

There's so many kindnesses that those don't get reported,

Really.

And there are lots of beautiful,

Beautiful qualities that we all have.

And sometimes they get damaged,

They get beaten down by circumstance,

Conditioning,

Hard luck,

And so on.

But yours doesn't have to be.

Yours doesn't have to be beaten down.

You can move your attention in a different way.

And give yourself permission.

This is how I do it.

Anytime I notice my mind is starting to fall off into a ditch.

I have little counters,

Little tricks that I do.

You can have your own,

But some of mine are reminding myself of the sweetie pies that I know,

Legions.

And then many that I don't know that I know about,

Or that I've known about through history,

People who've inspired over time.

And moving my attention into a yes,

Acceptance,

This is what evolution did.

Who's going to argue with evolution?

It's just it's going to win.

Right.

And then also,

Doubling down on appreciation for the time that I've had and the time that I'm having.

And I hope I don't scare everybody with this.

I don't think I'm going to I'm planning to die anytime soon.

But but I also feel a certain readying to die.

I'm of an age where that would arise as a possibility in one's mind in the best of times,

But also just something else beyond just the acceptance of the fact but also a way of thinking,

Okay,

I've I've had a good life and I'm happy to keep myself healthy and I enjoy life and I'm not trying to get out of here at all.

But but just something there's some kind of movement in me that's perhaps as a result of watching how fast everything has changed this year,

In terms of this this pandemic,

Some some way in which I'm saying okay,

That too has to be allowed.

And it's a way that it has something to do with courage.

So that's one last piece I'll say to you about this.

It takes courage to look at horrible things,

Right?

It takes courage to go deeper and have understanding and some level of being able to process the information.

It takes courage.

Thank you.

You're welcome.