This is utterly simple. This is infinitely complex.

The simplicity is you reading this article, residing and resting precisely in the experience of your body and mind, balanced elegantly at the intersection of here and now. You are “being” effortlessly, regardless of your circumstances. You may be confused by this sentence, curious, already debating it and me, or nodding your head in affirmation. You may be bathed by slanting rays of the setting sun filtering through the window. You may be having a bit of indigestion from that extra taco you consumed quickly during lunch. You may be bemused. You may be bored. Nevertheless, no matter what the obvious and subtle ingredients of this experience are, you remain inescapably present and aware without needing to do anything about it. Be it ecstatic or horrifying, happy or sad, clear or confused, you are perpetually at the center of this moment. Simple enough.

The complexity is the intricate and multilayered interconnectivity underlying the very same experience. You have endless ways of seeing and narrating it, while your being and being intimate with yourself always remain singular and unified. Your capacity to think, feel, find your place within your family dynamics, appreciate your relevance within the 13.7 billion year history which is this universe, on this amazing planet, at this amazing stretch of history, with these amazing fellow beings, sentient and insentient, and make meaning of all of this with all of your neurological circuitry firing smoothly across all of your 100 billion brain neurons is mind boggling. Complex enough.

I am a Zen Buddhist, sometimes a student, sometimes a teacher, which to me means that I am dedicated to learning how to live this life as completely, authentically, clearly, kindly, and skillfully as I can, and to share this investigative project with others. Investigation is the key word, here applied to the search into the fundamental nature of simplicity and complexity, and their relationship. I suggest that this relationship is one of identity. Simplicity is complexity; complexity is simplicity.

Zen Buddhists are, notoriously, not philosophers. If anything, they are fanatical realists and pragmatists. They are technicians with a mystical twist, tinkerers and surfers of the fabric of reality. If they carried business cards, their operational title would read: provocateurs of exhaustive exploration into personal awakening. This short essay is not a hard sell. It is an invitation. The purpose of this offering is not abstract or metaphysical. It is not even spiritual. It is about sharing with you how it is that we can navigate this world honoring both the infinity of its differences and its irreducible simplicity, celebrating the places where our paths diverge and the common ground on which we stand and tread. There is a still point that is always at the center of this swirling life, and that point is nothing but your awakened mind and caring heart.

Consider these verses by T.S. Eliot from Four Quartets:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

There is only the dance, the kaleidoscopic dance of impermanence that is at times exquisite and at times terrifying, that includes our births, deaths and everything in between. And that dance of ultimate affirmation rests on that simple still point that is always accessible. When we verify that simplicity, we find that it is not frozen or static. It is as simple and responsive as the stillness that a river feels as its waters cascade down the rapids or meander across the plains, being one body that reaches from its source to the ocean, neither in the past nor the future, but only in this ungraspable now.

How do you stop a river in its incessant flow? How do you stop suffering in this world? More modestly, how do you stop the sound of a frog jumping into a pond? Something about that mystery points towards the nature of true simplicity, simplicity that has nothing to do with isolating ourselves from the bustle of the world or superimposing convenient simplifications upon the world in hope of gaining some control. What would it mean to stop the simplicity that is the dance, that is the end of suffering, that is the magnificent river, that is that green and yellow, glistening frog breaking the surface of that pond?

Japanese poet Basho suggests this in his very famous haiku:

Silent, old pond
frog leaping
Splash!

There is a folk tale from the early years of Zen tradition. Sometime in seventh century southern China, there lived a 17-year-old youth named Hui-neng. He was illiterate and hard working, collecting firewood in local forests and selling it in order to supplement his family’s meager earnings. There was a keen spirit about him, and he applied himself to his tasks with joyful fervor and wholehearted effort. One day, while returning from his work afield loaded with sticks and dry branches, he heard a monk chanting an ancient sutra, a Buddhist teaching. At first, the distance and the wind made it impossible for him to make out the words, but when he got close enough he heard this passage, “Abiding nowhere, manifest your heart/mind.” Simply hearing these words he had a profound enlightenment experience. He saw into the nature of reality and the nature of his being. He clearly realized the radical truth of the equation: simplicity is complexity and complexity is simplicity. He also recognized that he only glimpsed a spark of light, and that he needed to study and practice further in order to be able to bring his insights to life. He began a spiritual path centered on meditation.

“Heart/mind” in Chinese is xin — less an anatomical organ and more a human sensibility and faculty, a point of singularity and point of connectivity, our capacity to know and our capacity to feel. The line that jarred Hui-neng can be seen in the most streamlined way as instructions in true meditation, meditation that we can do in isolated mountain retreats and meditation that we can do right in the midst of our bustling life. Abiding nowhere is most challenging. To abide is to remain, to stand fast, to be the still point. Fair enough. But we are exhorted to do that while nowhere, to do that without any fixity of references, triangulations, postures. Without maps or props, inner and outer. Abide in that presence, stillness, and freedom.

Abide nowhere — now and here, as that is the only place you can abide anyway. So start and stop there. This is not some verbal trick or sophistry. Reflect deeply on what is now and what is here. What is the duration of a moment? What are the boundaries of here? If you cannot take hold of it and grasp it, how complex can it be? I love a quote from a modern physicist speaking on quantum gravity who said that the shortest distance between two points, in space and in time, is here and now. Lucky for all of us, inescapably lucky, that this is so.

Now, manifest your heart/mind resting nowhere. Let yourself fly while retaining that resting space, that simplicity. Be like an experienced surfer finding total poise and solidity right on the edge of a colossal breaking wave that you will be riding your whole life. Right on that edge where the speed of chaos is at its maximum, where the crash of impermanence in its sundry manifestations is almost overwhelming, your simplicity is unabated. You are still. You are the still point of the turning, crashing world.

Although simplicity is complexity and vice versa, we are much more familiar with, captured in, and frequently spit out by complexity. In the end, when we match our wits with Hui-neng, when we can stop the sound of that frog splashing about, we will be able to be still while moving, speak while remaining silent, share ourselves with the whole universe while being alone. But to get there we have to verify for ourselves the presence of that inherent simplicity and stillness. We have to take a backward step into the innermost facets of our experience, finding intimacy and comfort with who we are. Not reach for some ideal, but relax into our current perfection. Simplicity is already there, already here, waiting for us.

In Buddhist traditions, meditation is the entry point into stillness, silence, and simplicity. It is an entry point into spaciousness. Meditation is not disconnection and withdrawal. When we meditate we are not escaping from the complexity of our lives. We are discovering the quality of mind that is available to us all the time smack in the middle of that complexity. We are claiming the still point of our heart/mind so we can be kind, then kinder, and do some good in this crazy, beautiful, complicated, turbulent world we share.