ExerciseAttested · Diogenes
Throwing away the cup
Before acquiring, ask whether a child already does without it.
Seeing a child drink from his cupped hands, threw away his cup, the last thing he owned: a child had just outdone him in simplicity. The exercise is to spot, now and then, a possession or convenience you assume you need, and to do without it for a while in order to discover how little is truly necessary. It is training in , which loosens our dependence on things and leaves us freer.
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- Relation to desire · Extinction and detachment
- Scope of action · What is up to us
Source: Diogenes
Appears in
- The desire that destroys us — A desire we know to be harmful returns despite every decision against it: should we affirm it as part of ourselves, dismiss it as a stray impulse, or admit that we do not really govern our desires at all?