The Intersection Between Design and the Spiritual World
Reflections on designing for the people in the material world.
Recently one of our partners pointed out to me that he senses zen in my design and art creations. Up to that point, it seemed to me that design had nothing to do with being a monk. That was when I connected the dots and started to see the aspects of the spiritual world that align perfectly with one of the key lessons of design philosophy — simplicity. Removing all the unncessary elements and only keeping the essentials — the utmost minimalistic approach a designer could reach, the absolute state of simplicity.
Inner peace, or what some might call simplicity, is something people actively seek but rarely do they actually go out and attempt to obtain it. In my own journey to find inner peace, I was once an apprentice to be a lay brother in a Catholic church. Instead, I found something else, but that’s another story to be told another time. This post is about the opposite side of that journey — my time as a monk.
Throughout the journey of pursuing happiness, I was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the deep woods in rural Thailand for a little over two seasons which roughly equates to about eight months. A monk’s life is simple, perhaps too simple, and perhaps that’s why many teachings from ordained figures rarely are useful or practical for our daily lives. In the monsoon rainy season, there’s not much to do besides doing chants and prayers and a few daily chores. Simple tasks like washing clothes or sweeping the floors can take as long as a whole afternoon. It’d be very easy for anyone to stay disconnected from the outside world.
Simplicity is not only about functionality and utility but it’s also about finding the balance between opposites. It would be for mere robots and not for humans to use if we only seek design to fulfill the needs and forfeit all the joy in the interaction with the world. That’s just plain dull. It’s that balance, the middle path of nothing more and nothing less that leads to liberation — not the void of emptiness. And only then that beauty may happen.
Throughout my journey I learned a lot about empathizing with people and living from a place without ego. Sitting on the opposite side of the table helped me understand detachment from the material world and I developed a new appreciation for people who are different. A side task that I did while I was a monk was to teach art to the kids in the villages around the monastery — kids who spoke a completely different dialect than me and I had to find creative ways to communicate with them. I taught them mostly with pictograms, diagrams, and a bunch of basic hand signals. It was the same when I worked for the federal government and I saw brilliant people that wanted to be helpful (even the people at the notorious DMV), but didn’t have the resources to do their jobs effectively.
Designing for simplicity is not easy and neither is life. Although simplicity is key, it’s only one of the many keys. As an ex-monk designer, it’s my calling to dive into the complexities of life, to find balance, to improve people’s lives, and to create beautiful and joyful things that will help transform billions of lives.
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