Thirty years ago when I still drove around getting to know the country I stopped by Lancaster County in Pennsylvania to see how the Old Order Amish lived. Solid-color buggies with the color-glow orange caution symbol in the back, men, women, girls and boys all dressed alike in solid blue, gray and purple clothes, small, tidy farms and the lack of modern-day rush and clutter: there was a simplicity that bespoke bygone times of unadulterated joy.
Last night, reading Bob Brooke's The Amish Country for American Traveler ($1 at Half Price Books) reminded me why I was interested in the Amish. I probably would not have survived in an Anabaptist community where one size fit all. That's not what drew me to the Amish. Maybe it's what I've salvaged from growing up in the Philippines. By American standards we were poor in material goods but when I take away the subjective feelings of not fitting in (I didn't fit in back then either) the childhood memories shine with what today I perceive as lost down-to-earth simplicity.
In the 80s I drove around studying the alternative spiritualities that the American tenet of freedom allowed to sprout in tiny, unobtrusive pockets around the country. I discovered yoga and Buddhist meditation. On a trip to Yellow Springs in Ohio to attend a weekend vipassana retreat I met several people who influenced the lifestyle I was shaping. Paul, a psychologist at the Dayton VA, introduced me to the Buddhist center in Barre, Massachusetts where Buddhist practice became established. Buddhism drew me for being an Asian tradition of spirituality but like my attraction to the Amish and the early Christian desert hermits a more powerful draw was the aesthetics of simplicity and of "fewness of desires."
When I undertook a protracted sabbatical last year I was motivated by several factors. Among others I wanted to simplify my life in both its material and process aspects. Instead of chasing after material aggrandizement I wanted to deepen my inner life. How well have I succeeded? Not as well as I wanted. But I am recognizing that life is not so much about reaching the other shore as living each day as it comes. Goals provide us with set patterns when fate does not provide the surprises that energize and renew our spirits. Goals are default behaviors. More vital to a life of inner richness is the openness to what lies beyond goals and desires. To walk through life minimally encumbered with expectations: this is a more genuine simplicity.
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