I student once told me that she liked the exercises she saw in a book, but had decided not to do them because they were too easy. If “it” was that easy, everyone would have done it. And it can’t be that easy. I challenged her on that. Were the exercises easy? Or were the simple – as in not complex.  It turns out that the very simple is not always easy. It often requires effort and provides fewer structures to hide behind.

I asked her why simple was a turn off for her? She couldn’t give me an answer. I think though that the answer might be the same for all of us. For one thing, we’ve been sold the myth of complexity. Complexity = value. If we do something complex, we’ve accomplished something. If we do something simple, well, anyone can do that and so we begin to devalue it.  Of course, that’s a lie on every level. Simple doesn’t mean easy and accessibility doesn’t diminish importance. Most of us breathe fairly easily. However, it’s still critically important. And on a subtler level, the mysteries of breath have a lot to teach us.

Complexity has its place.  Sometimes we need to put our conscious mind into the right state to do the simple work and some complex structures keep the noisy, talking brain busy and out of the way. But sometimes we use complexity as a distraction.  And worse, as a tool to devalue the simple. Sometimes it’s the simple lessons that hold the most power to teach.