Are you a minimalist? Share your experience here.

[SarathW]

Are you a minimalist? Share your experience here.

[Dhammapardon]

Good video Sarath.
Having less means having less to keep in mind. Dividing attention among many things is more bothersome than fewer things. Donating helps others, frees up space, and brings joy.

[anagaarika]

I would say I do live a rather frugal life. I don´t know if it would qualify as minimalist - maybe yes, maybe not quite, who cares. I never really derived much pleasure from material things. When I wanted to indulge, I would indulge in mental objects or activities, or arts, rather than in eating in expensive restaurants or going for luxurious holidays.

The key to enjoying minimalist lifestyle is to cultivate your mind over the long term in such a way that it naturally enjoys resting in peace and quite. This cannot really be forced, it takes time. You can put in the causes, but you cannot force the results immediately. Also the thing is that the society will try to impose their materialistic value on you. Another thing is if you´re living with someone - unless you´re both on the same wavelength, there might be some dissonance.

Anyway, for me the ultimate and true minimalism is mental seclusion (citta-viveka). Just not establishing your mind on worldly values, letting it be as unestablished as realistically possibly for you. The external circumstances will click in due time.

[Dhammapardon]

It also helps to cultivate mudita. Then when observing people enjoying something you can't understand why or how, strong mudita helps to reveal what they enjoy about it, why it brings them joy, and maybe a sampling of what their joy might feel like if it was you experiencing it. Try observing mudita on various joyous people you see through the day. It's pleasantly eye-opening learning about different joys.

[Sam Vara]

It's a nice idea. I think, though, that it's better not to have a merely aesthetic ideal as a guiding purpose in life. I think that someone who practices dana and sila and meditation could still have a happy life, even if they were surrounded by clutter. And conversely, one could be a committed minimalist and be perpetually anxious that one has not decluttered enough.

Personally, although I try to live very simply, a minimalist lifestyle is not for me because of my domestic circumstances. Teenagers create a lot of clutter; they like to buy things, and get tired of them quickly, and are not good at putting things in their correct place. And our house has a lot of people turning up and visiting. So I live in the middle of what sometimes feels like chaos, and the task for me is to be OK with this.

[Radix]

It's too bad that there's such a stark difference between minimalism by choice and minimalism by force of circumstances.