For subscribers
How to resist consumerism with a smile
Nine days in a hermitage helped me taste the freedom of seclusion and see how happiness is reached by letting go.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Physical seclusion is the simplest way to slip out of the clutches of consumer culture.
PHOTO: BT FILE
Marissa Lee
Once there was a hermit named Ryokan who bowed in respect to a falling maple leaf as it turned in the sun – showing front, showing back, falling down.
“We try to put up a nice front; that is why we have problems,” explains the writer Gyomay Kubose. “There is really no front and back in true life... If we were able to live life as the maple leaves, showing the front as front and back as back, there would be no falseness, no pretence, no secrets to hide.”
