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Exercises Final Edit _______________________________________________________ THE SIMPLICITY EXERCISES A SOURCEBOOK FOR SIMPLICITY EDUCATORS Mark A Burch Simplicity Institute Report 12k, 2012 SPECIAL ISSUE ____________________ SIMPLICITY INSTITUTE PRAISE FOR THE SIMPLICITY EXERCISES: Mark Burch is the real deal—it’s evident from The Simplicity Exercises that he’s spent a lifetime integrating simple living principles into his own life, and luckily for the rest of us, has developed and honed exercises to help others do the same. Seasoned voluntary simplicity facilitators will appreciate how thorough and well-presented these activities are. In fact, the material is so well-thought out that informal educators new to simple living could use Mark’s book with confidence. If you’re ready to change your game plan or help others do so, this book ofers real transformative opportunities. C. Jones, M. Div., adult educator and simple living enthusiast The Simplicity Exercises, Mark A. Burch, 2012, ©. All rights reserved. Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 Approach to Learning…………………………………………………………………………………. 6 The Simplicity Exercises…………………………………………………………………………….… 10 Dialogue Introduction to Voluntary Simplicity………………………………………...……. 12 Mindfulness …………………………………………………………………………………………… 16 Tea and Oranges…………………………………………………………………………..….. 17 Best Things In Life…………………………………………………………………………….. 22 Gratitude Log………………………………………………………………………………….. 27 Inner Clearing (Fire Cleansing / Composting Ritual)…………………………………..…. 30 Silence and Solitude……………………………………………………………………..….. 35 Simplicity Examens (Advices and Queries)…………………………………………..……. 38 Consumer Culture ……………………………………………………………………………………. 41 Mother Culture’s Story—An Adult Fairy Tale………………..……………………….……. 42 Nominal Group on Consumerism…………………………………………………………… 45 Community / Relationships……………………………………………………………………….…. 49 Those Were the Days!………………………………………………………………………. 50 Action Planning for Families…………………………………………………………….….. 53 Fellowship Night…………………………………………………………………………...… 57 Skills / Knowledge Exchange…………………………………………………………….… 60 Uses of Nothing………………………………………………………………………...……. 64 Voluntary Simplicity Pop Quiz………………………………………………………...…… 69 Letter to Descendants………………………………………………………………...……. 71 Environment………………………………………………………………………………………….. 75 Consumer Culture’s Big Foot…………………………………………………………...….. 77 Apple Demonstration……………………………………………………………………….. 80 Re-Membering Nature……………………………………………………………...……… 82 Planet Jeopardy…………………………………………………………………………..…. 86 Personal Plan for Reducing My Ecological Footprint …………………………….…….. 88 1 Sufficiency……………………………………………………………..……………………….…….. 93 Dejunking - The Gentle Art of Self-liberation………………………………………..…… 94 Media Fast………………………………………………………………………………….. 99 Nominal Group on Enough……………………………………………………………….. 103 Nominal Group on Needs…………………………………………………………………. 110 My Planet for a Cup of Coffee……………………………………………………………. 114 How Little Technology Is Enough?…………………………………………………….… 118 Worldly Possessions Inventory………………………………………………………...… 123 Nonviolence …………………………………………………………………………...…………… 126 Nominal Group on Simplicity and Nonviolence………………………………………… 127 Voluntary Simplicity as Satyagraha……………………………………………………… 131 Simplicity Aikido!…………………………………………………………………………… 136 Time………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 138 Logging the Daily Round / Ideal Daily Round…………………………………………... 139 Whose Emergency Is This Anyway?…………………………………………………….. 145 The Full Cost of “Saving” Time…………………………………………………………… 149 Money………………………………………………………………………………………………... 154 Expense Tracking Exercise……………………………………………………………….. 156 Group Discussion on Expense Tracking…………………………………….…………... 166 Mindfulness of Money……………………………………………………………………... 171 Handy Money / Tricksy Money……………………………………………………………. 176 Alternatives to Money……………………………………………………………………… 181 Meanings of Wealth………………………………………………………………………... 189 Group Discussion on Work and “Works”………………………………………………… 193 Vision…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 196 Honoring Dreams…………………………………………………………………………... 197 Visioning Me Clear…………………………………………………………………………. 200 References…………………………………………………………………………………………... 205 2 Acknowledgements I would first of all and most of all like to thank my spouse Charlotte for her continuing gracious support to my writing endeavors. Writing is a solitary occupation and she has been most generous in protecting my solitude while I scribble. I also appreciate the encouragement and support offered by Dr. Samuel Alexander and The Simplicity Institute in Melbourne, Australia. 3 Introduction It probably sounds strange that anyone would need to learn how to live simply. The phrases “voluntary simplicity” or “simple living”, given our history of consumer culture indoctrination, imply that there’s nothing to it. Anyone can do this. What’s to learn? I have practiced voluntary simplicity to one degree or another since the 1960s. In the 1970s, for five years I repeated Henry David Thoreau’s (Krutch 1989) experiment in simple living—only it was in the wilderness 50 kilometers north of Thunder Bay, Ontario (Canada), a good deal farther off the map than Walden Pond was from Concord, Massachusetts (U.S.A.). By the 1990s, I was offering presentations and workshops about simple living to thousands of people across North America. Since 1998, I have taught an undergraduate university course on the subject. Over the years I’ve met many creative, resourceful, and deeply insightful people who have walked this path. I’ve also been challenged by many bright students who have posed excellent questions. All of this has taught me, first of all, that simple living isn’t simple. Second, while many aspects of simple living come naturally to us, we usually forget them almost entirely by the time we reach adulthood. Third, I have had a wonderful opportunity to develop a suite of learning tools and activities that help adults access the spirit and culture of simple living in very powerful ways. It may surprise some readers to learn that most of these have nothing to do with learning to can your own jam or operate a wood stove. At the end of the day, it turns out, the choice to live more simply implies inner change (Kasser and Brown 2009), not just emptying closets or adopting a 19th-century rural lifestyle. It’s the inner change as much as new life habits that we need to learn about. This book is intended to bring some of these learning tools together in one place so that educators who want to share the rewards and potentials of simple living with others may have some grist for their own creative mills. I don’t offer a definitive curriculum for simple living. Rather, these are examples of activities, exercises, and resources that in my experience have proven track records of releasing tremendous energy, insight, and communion, both within groups and individuals. Happily, the values, principles, and sensibilities that make up a simple living perspective on life are enriched and strengthened through sharing. Given the alternatives we have for the future of humanity, I mean to make me some allies. For a litany of reasons already thoroughly explored by others,1 I have also come to the view that continuing the consumer culture delusion of the good life will soon extinguish our species and many others as well. For me, this premise is completely beyond rational dispute. As an educator, as a human being, as someone who has happily practiced simple living for five decades and survives to tell the tale, I think humanity’s main challenge is not teaching people to excel in the general scramble for more. Rather it entails learning to arrange our affairs so we enjoy ever-increasing well-being on a lower and lower consumption of materials, energy, and labor. I also believe that whether we choose this path voluntarily or not, the future we have 1 Ever since Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring in 1962, there has been a continuous stream of warnings from many quarters respecting the environmental and social impacts of consumer culture. These sources are too numerous to canvass in this citation, but I would mention the series of State of the World Reports from the World Resources Institute; several global ecosphere assessments issued by the United Nations Environment Program; the Brundtland Commission’s (1987) Our Common Future, the report of World Commission on the Environment and the Economy; the series of reports issuing from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations on the progress of climate change worldwide; Ronald Wright’s (2004) A Short History of Progress; George Monbiot’s (2007) Heat; and Jared Diamond’s (2006) Collapse, to name but a few. 4 prepared for ourselves is one marked by economic contraction, environmental calamity, and social conflict. It is therefore skillful and wise to cultivate within ourselves the practical knowledge of how to keep our heads and to make a good life on slender means. That having been said, I hasten to add that I don’t think fear, guilt, or greed—the preferred bludgeons of those promoting social change—are any of them good reasons for teaching or learning about simple living. We certainly have things to fear, and to feel guilty about, and to lust after, if we wish; but none of these motivations springs from wholesome emotions or clear insight into the nature of things, and none provides a positive foundation for a good life. Remembering the stories of all those people who, both past and present, have adopted simple living, I’m impressed by the luminous,
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