I’d say it’s removing all the excess.

I think it can be applied in all contexts. For example, in social relationships, do not seek recognition, impress, or add something to fill the void. However, depending on what is required socially, I can also act “as if” to smooth out my interactions with people.

Simplicity is what you just said, but it comes first from simplicity with myself. So trimming the superfluous in myself means staying with what I am and what is there, and expressing from there without adding superfluous layers of desires, for example. From there, there may be a functional need to keep a social life or not, so simplicity is not to create it, not to generate something that is not necessary, not to generate things that do not exist, in my personal life.

I relate this to the concept of the three centers. When the three centers work independently, there is simplicity. When this is not the case, then all superfluous things emerge.

Yes!

For me simplicity is associated with vigilance. For example, with regard to speech, there is vigilance with regard to where the words come from.

It could be accepting me as I am with everything I know, with everything I don’t know, and not doing too much, not filling the void, not filling anything, accepting the questions, accepting that there is no answer. Listening to that sincerity sends me back to simplicity, and it is also linked to humility.

For me simplicity comes from humility: when one is in a state of humility, one is in simplicity. It seems unlikely to me to be in humility and to complicate things. And I’d say it generates very natural behavior and even thought. There is also a kind of innocence in simplicity, an almost childlike innocence.

I recently witnessed an exchange between my two grandchildren who are 7 and 5 years old, and it seemed very beautiful to me. Now I am realizing that it touched me because there was that simplicity. They were playing quietly, and at some point one says something to the other, and the little brother answers peacefully: “You say that because you don’t love me,” and the other thinks and says to him: “Sometimes I love you” and the little one answers: “Yes, but not very often,” and they continue to play with equal emotion. I was in the next room, I was very touched. Yes, they don’t like each other very much. It was said with equal simplicity on both sides. Both children were in contact with their reality, as it was, without comment. That’s what was beautiful.

It comes back to “not adding superfluous.” It’s really what for me is the heart of simplicity, and it refers to the unreal. We talked about real life versus false life. Real life is simple.

I was thinking about what A. said about humility: I have the impression that it is a statement we can make afterwards. As long as there is acceptance of what is and of this simplicity of life, even if the situation can be very complex, we can see after that acceptance that it is humility, eventually.

In children, I don’t know if humility can be present. It may only be present when you’re an adult. Somehow, we’re going to have to make the trip backwards. First there is a complexification process, and then the path is made backwards, towards simplicity. And that’s where humility comes in for me.

I agree with you, I think you have to have a sense of control first to realize that you don’t control, and then it’s really humility. While children don’t think they can run life, change things, until a certain age.

Yes, I see them as equivalent, for me it’s synonymous, it’s two ways of saying the same thing.

Yes, clearly.

I would like to come back to the fact of “talking too much.” How do we think we talk too much? Who can judge him, and against what?

At a certain period, we did the exercise of talking only in relation to the immediate functional.

That’s true, but we kind of forgot about her! I must say that I still find it important to exchange, to know where people are in their lives. For example, I can ask A. where she is in her job. There are exchanges which do not concern the functional, but which are not necessarily superfluous, they are rather in the consideration of the other. Is there a space for that, or do we want to forbid it here? And is that complexification?

No, I’m not going to ask to know, there’s no neurotic need to know.

I regularly think about this instruction, and I observed that it had changed a lot compared to a time. When I work with S. and H. it’s quite rare that we slip on personal things and when we do it, it doesn’t last very long. We give each other news because we have interesting situations to share, but I don’t have the impression that it interferes with work.

In cooking, I have observed that there is often a lot of complication for very simple things. For example, this morning, for hummus, I made all the quantity with garlic, and I was told that I should have put some aside without garlic. But it was done that way, for me it wasn’t a problem.

Because after that it creates a headache “we didn’t think about it, and then if, and then…” For me it’s very complex, anyway we can’t change it.

You can make a dish again because you missed it, while keeping it simple. Care must be taken not to mix everything up. If you miss the soup five times and repeat it five times, but it’s simple in itself, there’s no problem. If, on the other hand, it generates a mess in oneself, an emotional shit, that’s superfluous.

Yes, that’s right. For example, in my opinion, yesterday’s soup production did generate some superfluity.

Yes.

I think L. had the desire to satisfy everyone!

And remember what O. said earlier? To remove the superfluous, especially the desire.

It’s also important to take responsibility for what you’ve done, right to the end.

Point it at in each other.

What if that’s not enough?

On this subject, there is a definition that speaks to me well, which distinguishes between positive stress and negative stress. Stress is excess energy to do something. If I consume it, for example when a dog chases me, and I run away with the full power of my legs: I am consuming my stress. In this case there is no problem, and I am in simplicity. If on the other hand I stress about something, and it becomes mental: “why doesn’t he call me, something serious has surely happened to him.” In this case, it is a stress that does not consume energy, that makes thoughts loop, and we have lost simplicity. There, we added complexity.

Yes, in this case, we are in the superfluous. Actually, we’re not here, we’re not in real life. We’re in a fantasy.

Absolutely.

There is also a stress that one consumes on the spot, but which causes disorderly gestures, where one becomes very clumsy. This stress is not mental, however, and it is expressed in the moment.

In my opinion, it happens when different centers try to control at the same time.

And indeed, there may be a real need to do something, a certain urgency. Because of that urgency, we don’t work to restore equanimity in the centers, we just do whatever needs doing in an agitated state.

Yes. What happened with the soup is a typical example.

Simplicity is incompatible with internal consideration. In other words, if there is internal consideration, there cannot be simplicity.

Yes, but it’s a form of stress that I recognize less easily. It’s not the same kind of stress that we were talking about earlier. There is fear of error, among other things.

For me they are two very different feelings of stress. There is one that is very physiological, very palpable, and the other that is actually much more in the mental energies.

You mean the tendency not to go through with things? Am I missing some kind of relentlessness?

I remember the context, but I find it hard to associate that with the notion of stress.

I had never made the difference between useful and useless stress. But I’ve been under a lot of useful stress lately, and that’s when I really realized it. Yesterday, at the last minute, we decided to eat outside: we had to quickly move all the dishes and the food. My movements had the qualities of a safety and orderliness, and the mind did not interfere; for me it was clearly a good stress. And that’s when I really distinguished between this useful stress and the unnecessary stress.

Sometimes I get lost in the details and get stuck, so I have to stop and do something else. I stop, and then I come back.

When I prepared for the trip, I experienced a useful stress that allowed me to be very efficient in terms of organization, getting my tools down and loading the car. There was acute vigilance, both in detail and overall. I had also made a checklist for the preparation.

Yes, unless we over-anticipate. Because you can also get stressed in anticipation and want to settle details too far in advance. We have to find the right measure.

Absolutely. Over-organization for me is clearly a response to an identity mechanism of fear.

This morning in the kitchen i realized at a certain moment (when I saw that it was necessary in order to not be late) to hurry up. And then my movements became much faster.

Speaking of organization, what can help is setting milestones. By estimating the overall duration of the task, we put milestones: “in an hour I should be at about this stage, in two hours at this stage,” it allows us to see its progress and possibly do speed up to reach the milestones. Rather than have all the stress that can become unmanageable in the last half hour.

Yes.

It’s true, when things aren’t going well, I complicate things! And it’s all about non-humility, pride, wanting to be perfect, the whole package that goes with it!

Yes, of course!

Yes! But the situation was hyper-complicated!

Yeah, but I’m having a little trouble figuring that out. I will be watching this phenomenon closely.

Another example came to me. When I’m at work, sometimes I have rather complicated tasks, I don’t really know how to proceed and I’m a little confused. Maybe there is also an emotion, I have to hurry, I find it a stupid task, and I feel this discomfort in my body: this is not simplicity. But if I become aware of this situation, I see that it is indeed a complicated task, but if I am vigilant, it can remain really simple in me.

Yes.

There is a big difference between complexity and complexification. We just talked about complicating things. It’s adding to the mess. Similarly, “being simple” does not mean being simplistic. I’ve been using Ockham’s principle a lot lately, and I realize you only find when you’re simple. It can be something complex, but in any case the simplest solution comes when we ourselves are simple.

The principle of what?

Ockham’s razor. It was a Franciscan monk who said that the simplest solution that works is the best. I will summarize very quickly: it is pruning, pruning, pruning.

And we find what was said earlier: “to remove the superfluous.”

Yes, and I think it’s emotional for me. It can paralyze me completely. There may be emotions such as fear and doubt, which create unnecessary stress.

If I am aware of it right away, I come back into my breathing, and I observe what is behind it as necessary suffering. Usually it settles pretty quickly. I have a recent example, but it’s not really stress. My daughter and her children have gone abroad for two months to work. I haven’t heard from them at all because it’s not our family style to call each other every day. They came home recently and spent the weekend at my house with the kids. I was so happy to see them, we went to the beach the night before, and the next morning when I woke up there was nobody left in the house. They left without even leaving a note. And I found it a little bitter, because until the day before we had hardly seen each other. Then, I felt this emotion, and that was really interesting, because if there is this emotion, it must be coming from some attachment. So, I looked for the attachment that was behind it, and so I was grateful for this situation, because I could see the necessary suffering apparently due to the fact that my daughter no longer had anything emotional with me. And I had just become aware of all this, and she called me and said: “You know I didn’t want to wake you, but come on, we’re at the river!” I brought a picnic basket and we spent the day together. It was great. It was very clear to me how emotion can get out of hand.

And it’s a key that we can also pass on to those who want it and are open to it, I’m not talking about people who are hooked on their suffering.

Sometimes I feel people are open, and I find that the distinction between useful suffering and useless suffering can be transmitted.

It reminds me of an interview with François Roustang, in which he explains that one day he received a patient who had undergone psychotherapy and who was really in deep suffering. He makes him sit down and hypnotize him and when the guy comes back, he says, “Oh yes, I know now what to do to stop suffering, but I won’t do it! Maybe I am suffering, but at least I have my bearings, and what you are offering me is the unknown, and I don’t want to go there.

I would like to add something about people’s resistance to change. The affirmation of the true is something much more subtle and less striking than denouncing the false. It’s like recognizing the silence behind the noise. It is much more difficult to recognize silence than to recognize noise. Well, it’s the same, it’s relatively easy to recognize emotions, but it’s much harder to recognize that something has changed, when it’s subtle, because it’s gone and therefore it’s something that’s no longer there.

Here is a short text on identity, written by François Roustang, which can be found in his book “La fin de la plainte.” This text concerns precisely the identity which complicates: “Identity is composed of all the items that an individual can pride himself on. Its origin, its country, its history, its symptoms. The definition he gives himself in them makes it rigid because they are the place of his control and sufficiency. Singularity, on the other hand, appears each time identity is neglected. She’s like style, obvious and elusive. It involves the risk of irremediable loneliness, of what is estimated as a death threat, and although given once and for all, it is apprehended only by others, and never by oneself. The loss, for the patient, of his identity, which he does not want to change, is necessary so that the usual reference points that constituted his unmodified relationship to himself, to others and to the environment are abandoned, and so that he allows a new configuration of his world to happen, through what is given to him and that he cannot change.” He speaks of singularity as a basic value, as our individual specificity, which we never see ourselves. I thought it was beautiful. And that’s really the big simplification.

It was clear he was free. But he didn’t want to teach.