Can you clear muddy water by stirring it? Alan Watts said muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, and that is the whole of this one.
I am learning Cornish and the history and I want more and more of it, so where is the line between interest and consuming? Controlling a little less makes everything easier. We already have what we need. I am enough, I have enough, I am at peace with myself and nature. Notice how fast you can go from consuming to that.
One thing to try: Leave one thing alone today that you would normally poke at. Watch it settle by itself.
In this episode
(0:01) Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone
(2:45) Changing it to virtual hugs, because I barely drink coffee
(4:37) Learning Cornish, and wanting more and more of it
(6:30) Being here now, without consuming or pushing back
(8:48) Controlling a little less makes things so much easier
(11:09) All my tapes in colour order, and my CDs numbered
(13:17) I am enough. I have enough. I am at peace
With gratitude to
Lucy, Carol, Dawn, Sarah and Senga.
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Can you clear muddy water by stirring it?
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
Alan Watts
One of my favourite lines, and the whole episode really sits inside it. This one is about consuming, which turns out to be the same thing as stirring.
The heart of it
Everything you need is already here. The wanting is what makes it feel otherwise.
Controlling a little less makes everything easier, and it is the only handle most of us have.
Real practice is not the quiet room. It is staying steady when the room is not quiet.
I am learning Cornish at the moment, and the history with it, and I want more and more of it. Books, videos, all of it. Which is lovely, and it is also me throwing things into the pond and then wondering why the water is not clear. Where is the line between being interested and consuming?
There is a Zen story about a professor who visits a master to talk about Zen. The master pours the tea, fills the cup, and keeps pouring until it runs over the table. The professor cannot help himself and says it is full, no more will go in. That was the answer.
The trouble now is that we are not even the ones filling it. Society does that for us, and it does it all day. I am doing it to you as I speak, telling you what you must understand and what you should do next. The irony is not lost on me.
And there is the Chinese farmer, which I go back to constantly. The horse runs away, and the neighbours say what bad luck. Maybe. It comes back with three wild horses, and they say what good luck. Maybe. The son breaks his leg falling off one, then the army comes recruiting and walks past him because of the leg. Maybe.
I do not know whether breaking my neck was a good or a bad thing.
That is not resignation. It is what lets you loosen your grip, because the certainty you were gripping with was never real.
One small thing to try
Leave one thing alone today that you would usually poke at.
Then, at any point, breathe out and say three things to yourself. I am enough. I have enough. I am at peace with myself and nature.
Notice how quickly you can get from wanting more to that. Seconds. Eyes open if you are doing something that needs you.
Questions people ask
Am I supposed to stop wanting things?
No, and you will not manage it anyway. Wanting to be happy is already a statement that you are not, which is the catch. This is about noticing you are full before you order more.
Where is the line between learning and consuming?
I do not have a clean answer and I say so. My test is whether it is settling me or stirring me, and the Cornish is honestly doing both.
Is meditation not supposed to be somewhere quiet?
That is the easy version, and it is a fine place to practise. The real thing is being the calm one at the end of the bar while the fight goes on, and you cannot rehearse that in a silent room.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
nature · zen · stress · letting-go
Read the transcript
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
One of my favourite quotes of all time, Alan Watts.
So on today's podcast, we're talking about embracing nature's wisdom, overcoming stress, anxiety, and
consuming less.
One of those things that I'm trying to learn to do, and I think the world as a whole needs
to do that.
However, before we get there the last like two weeks, I've been working really hard on sorting out my website,
sorting out the stillness in the Storms website, the Inner Peace Meditations website, and bringing them all together. So
all of my podcasts all of my things are more easily accessible, and I had to update the link in
every single one of my podcasts And I often think that I'm not delivering, I'm not doing a very good
job, and I miss weeks and things like that. And I think I'm doing a terrible, terrible job. And I
was going through them last night and I've done 92 of them, and I was going through and thinking Hey,
some of these aren't bad actually, some of these are pretty good.
And just going through the titles and things like that. Boy, it took the, I was listening to one of
my favourite albums and I went through the whole album, which is a brilliant album, by the way. I'll put
the album title in the show notes. One of my favourite all-time albums It really is, it's one of those
albums that you just return to again and again and again. And I put on the album and it took
the whole album for me to just go and copy and paste I was really hating the job at the
beginning, but by the end I was loving doing it. It's one of those things that you just don't want
to do and I thought, I'll tell you what, I'll be really productive and I'll just do 10 each day
for the next 10 days or so. But I got into it after about doing 40. I was like, I'm
really not liking this. And then 50 it's like okay, I'll keep going 60, I'll keep going. And by the
end I was like, this is really giving me some clarity. And it made me, it was almost like I
needed to see what I had achieved. And I think how often do we really go back and look at
what we've achieved? I might do a podcast on that well That'd be a good idea, but I want to
say thank you to many of you that have bought me a coffee, although I've changed it slightly always changing
things. Us humans are always doing that, aren't we? So I've changed it to virtual hugs. I don't really drink
a lot of coffee, so it didn't make sense to me. Buy me a coffee, buy me a coffee and
treat me to a coffee. So I've virtual hugs. So I want to say thank you to Lucy and Carol,
and Dawn, Sarah sanga jinn and someone, someone, and v all
of you for treating me to a virtual hug. You guys, massive big hug. I
hope you can feed it. I'm like squeezing you tight right now. You can feel my arms around you. Thank
you guys. It really makes a difference. My podcast has just gone to another level, so it does cost a
lot more now to host it and all that, but that's good news. That's wonderful news because more and more
people are listening to it More and more people are getting benefits from it. And I get emails, people that
I really make sense and I'm not sure I make sense in my head, but I'm just getting my thoughts
out there and if it makes sense to you. Brilliant. That's awesome. So. I've sorted the website, so
I've told you about that. I've told you about my virtual hugs. I'm just going through some of my show
notes a minute, and now I'm going to get on with today's podcast. It's about consuming less and just
learning from nature really. So let's go through today's podcast. So
in our modern world, consumption is often seen as a necessity. We consume food, we consume
material, goods, information, even nature. We're consuming. And I'm I'm finding my
time now, literally when I'm reading and Youtube and I'm just like, I want it all I want more and
more and more. I want to learn more. I'm learning to speak Cornish at the moment. I'm learning. The Cornish
history, and I just want more and more of it. But where do we strike a balance? Am I becoming
more stressful because I'm trying to get more and more? and but this constant cycle of consumption, it brings about
so much stress and anxiety. And as the philosopher Alan watts once said, muddy water is best cleared by leaving
it alone. So too is our lives. Sometimes they become a little clearer. They become a little more peaceful
when we reduce the noise and just reducing that constant consumption. And
I love this analogy of the muddy water. The simple fact, you imagine a great big pond and you imagine
we're just throwing stuff in it all the time. How about we just let it settle what we know now,
the knowledge that we know, the wisdom of god the food that's in our belly. Everything and all just just
for a moment, just go, that's enough.
What if we have everything in this moment? What if it's just enough
What A wonderful thought.
And beneath the surface of this hectic consumption, below all our stresses and anxieties and fears,
there lies a deeper truth, a more profound, peaceful reality, often referred to in
Buddhism as buddha Nature This is our true self. And unclouded by worldly
distractions and illusions. It's a sense of being just enough just as we are
just in this moment.
Oh, what a relief
doesn't it just like, oh, I don't have to do anything. I can just be now here. I don't have
to consume anything. I don't have to push back on anything. Oh, you just want to take a deep breath
and just let it all out, don't you? That's just that huge sigh of relief. You
know, nature provides us with countless examples of living in harmony without need to constant consumption.
It's an ageless wisdom that we often forget.
You know, just look at the parable of the Chinese farmer. That's one of my favourite ones. I'm just going
to have to look it up a minute because I kind of know it, but I kind of often forget
it. The Chinese farmer, this is a famous Zen story often recounted. and a Chinese farmer had a horse
that ran away. And when his neighbours learned of it, they came to the farmer saying Such bad luck. The
farmer replied, maybe the next day the horse returned with three wild horses. How wonderful the neighbours explained.
Maybe the farmer replied the following day. The farmer's son tried to ride one of the
wild horses. He was thrown off and he broke his leg. The neighbours, once again came, came to offer their
sympathy for the farmer's. Misfortune maybe answered the farmer. A day after the military
officials came to the village and draft the young men into the army, seeing that the son's leg has been
broken, they passed him by. Neighbours congratulated the farmer and on his good luck this time. But the farmer
said maybe, and the lesson here is, you know, you don't know what is in store.
You know, I don't know whether breaking my neck was a good or a bad thing. I don't know whether,
you know stuck in that traffic jam is a good or a bad thing. It might save me from an
accident. It might make me late for my appointment. Who knows? And I think when we have a slightly more
balanced view on it, it's just like, oh, we can just relax a little stop rigidly trying to
control everything. Does
that make any sense? Just
just that controlling a little bit less makes things just so much easier. I have a genuine
belief that we do have everything inside of us that we need. Was it Marcus Aurelius? Very little is
needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself in a way of thinking in your way of
thinking. Very
little is needed to make people happy. It's all within yourself. Okay. I butchered that. You know what I mean
now this perspective coupled with consuming less leads to a simpler, more peaceful life. You
know, just another then story The empty cup and teaches the same lesson. We must empty ourselves of
preconceived notions and. And the story goes. A university professor went to visit a Zen Master
while the Zen Master quietly served his tea. The professor talked about zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to
the brim and then kept pouring. The professor watched him overflow in the cup until he could no longer restrain
himself, and he looks up and goes, the cup is full. No more will go in to professor blurted, you
are like this cup. The master replied, how can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.
And it's just a really good illustration of we, we go around with such a full cup, such a full
mind, such a full everything we need and we're just trying to consume more. I was watching the Tv program
last night on tv, and they went into this house and they emptied the house and they put it into
this huge hanger and they put it all in item order and colour order. Ah, it's an OCD person's dream.
This is, I love seeing it all laid out like this I just want my house laid out like that.
I don't want to put it back in the house. I just want all my socks laid out in colour
and size that's a dream for me. I'm learning to not battle that because not all my carers and not
everybody I have look after me has the same ocd as me, so I'm learning to let that go. It's
taking a long time, but yeah, I, when I grew up, I used to have all my tapes in colour
order. I used to have all my Cds numbered in colored order, which was great till I bought a new
one and I had to take all the little stickers off and put them all in there. And yeah, if
you look at my house now, you would think, I don't have ocd but I think we all do. We
like order, don't we? Because order makes us feel comfortable
makes us feel that we're in control of things if we have some kind of order. And I think this
is where we like to, we choose what to consume, we choose what to put in the cup, but very
often we're at the point now where, Society's filling our cup for us. Society's bombarding us with everything. You must
learn this. You must consume this, you must try this, you must have this. And it's just I'm doing the
same again. I'm filling your cup again with my thoughts and my beliefs. And you know what you need to
do? You need to empty more. You need to do this. Oh, the irony.
The irony is not lost on me, and I hope it's not lost on you. Just, yeah. Turn off his
podcast and just be, but the problem is we won't, we don't do it you know
the the best thing is like meditation practices. Just taking out a little moment here and there. You
know, let's do a little meditation practice right now. I just warn you, if you're driving along in the car
and all that, do it, but don't close your eyes or anything like that and just, just take a breather.
Let's connect with the buddha nature to
feel a sense of being enough.
And as you breathe in, just settle your mind when I say settle your mind. I mean, allow your mind
to settle.
And as you breathe out, let go of anything you need to consume, any
stress or anxiety, and you could repeat the mantra in your head. I am enough. I
have enough I
am at peace with myself and nature. And see how quickly we can go from consuming to I am enough.
I have enough. I
am at peace with myself and nature.
What a wonderful calmness. And we could do that anywhere. We could do at any time. Just keep your eyes
open if you're doing something that needs your attention. I'm not suggesting that, you know, you go into a meditation
state, and that's a really important point actually, because we often see meditation as you know, chilling out, finding a
nice quiet area where you won't be disturbed. That's not real Meditation. Real meditation is when you're amongst people, when,
when you've got negative people around you, when the world is going to pots, how can you stay in that
meditative state at that point? How can you stay just above the true self? And
this is the point just above. If you are the true self, nothing's gonna phase you,
but you want to be just above just where the compassion and the wisdom is. Where the material wisdom of
the self starts to form an ego, but before the ego starts to consume more and want more,
and have that ego egoicness about it. Before that, you want to stay at that point where you're
just a wise self. We've all seen that zen master sat at the end of the bar when there's a
big bar fight going on, and they're probably not Zen masters. They're they're part of the movies, aren't they? They're
told to act like this, but you've got that wise wisdom at the end of the bar and he's out
drinking and everybody else is fighting. And right at the end he just stands up, gives the barman a tip,
and walks out. You want to be that calm person. Didn't get involved. He had enough. He
enjoyed his drink. So
yeah, that's today's podcast. Just, you know, enough's enough. Stop consuming for a moment. Stop doing,
just take a breather. Just have this moment.
And I started this podcast by telling you all the stuff I've been doing because we feel like we've got
to get somewhere. My mind's just reminding me you've got your new seat. It arrived today. It's been three months
in the making. They lost it once. It come from Germany got to get that put on at the weekend
got to do this doesn't the mind just, okay. I know. Thank you for the reminder. I've got
this, so I'm going to leave you with the thought. You know, you are enough. You have enough.
Then fine, we're going to consume more. But just in each given moment, just take a step
back and enjoy what we have in each moment. And the more we do that, the more we go back
to that moment, the more you'll find the happiness that you're searching for, the joy, the genuine nourishment, the
genuine fulfillment that you'll find is already there. It's already right here. You cannot want to be
happy and be happy. The fact that you go, I want to be happy means you're already unhappy. You've already
missed the mark. You cannot have two ways. We already are in a state of happiness.
We're already in a state of enough. We already have everything in this moment. And
just take a deep breath on that thought. You know, this is a pretty deep journey. You know, if you've
come along in this podcast with me a little bit, exploring the idea of reducing consumption to find
our true selves,
that'll help us to overcome stress and anxiety, and
you can always head over to Inner Peace Meditations my other podcast
that'll help you to reduce some of the stress and anxiety,
always plugging. Always more always is. That's why. That's what life is, isn't it?
It's a real difficult thing, but I'm going to leave you with Zen Master banki not sure
if I pronounced that right. Abiding with the unperturbed mind is the same as the peace and bliss of the
Buddhas.
Let's all strive to live with this unperturbed mind consuming less, embracing our own buddha
nature
Thank you for joining me today, and thank you for the virtual hugs. You guys are absolutely awesome. Hope you
can feel some my love for you and love for all of you. I hope you apply some of these
insights and I hope you find some stillness. That's all we need to do. Find those little bits and moments
of stillness. Remember, you are enough,
And in there there's a deep wisdom waiting to be embraced. Until next time you can head over
to. thankyousteven.com to download the five simple practices and join my Inner Peace newsletter that I'm
organizing myself to actually start sending every week rather than about every three weeks. Take care. Love you
