Less is Enough

Lose Your Consumerism.

I was having trouble meditating, so I watched a video by Shozen Jack Haubner (Zen Confidential YT) on how he deals with the struggle to meditate. He suggested walking meditation, indoors in your own house if necessary. I tried this method and it definitely worked, especially for people like me who spend too much time sitting in front of a computer. The last thing you want is to sit for another half hour. It’s great for the winter months when it’s too cold and snowy to walk outside.

But what really struck me about Jack’s talk was what he said about meditation in general: “Less is enough.”* That was a radical idea with regard to meditation, where gurus are always pushing you to sit for longer and longer. But it was an even more revolutionary idea with regard to our whole way of living in the developed world. “Less is enough” is a powerful idea for drastically reducing the amount of stuff we buy, the amount of electronic media we consume, the amount of food we eat—in short, every kind of over-consumption. Capitalism will throw everything at you to get you to want more, buy more, consume more than you have any real use for.

Can you imagine what kind of world we would have if the majority of people got the idea that “less is enough?” We never have a sense that anything is “enough”; there’s always the sense that we’re lacking something. FOMO. (Fear of Missing Out.) Go on a long-distance vacation every year. Buy a second car. Revamp your spring wardrobe. Eat another donut. Add another pair of shoes to the 10 you have already.

We need a meme that tells us, in simple terms, what is “enough.” With a meme like “less is enough”, we might be able to do something serious about climate change and the degradation of the environment.

*Jack’s complete statement was “maybe less is not more, but less is enough.”