I wrote previously in this space about the notion of practicing imperfection, which, in turn, got me thinking about the idea of “beginner’s mind.”
Beginner’s mind is one of those paradoxical concepts that’s both easy to grasp and difficult to understand at the same time. Putting it into practice can also be a challenge, especially in a fast-paced culture that celebrates expertise and competence, one in which most of us would prefer to look like we know what we’re doing most of the time. Even in situations where we’re obviously out of our depth – for me, it might be when talking with an auto mechanic about some complicated issue with the inner workings of my car – we still have a tendency to put our game face on and try our best to convince those around us that we’re no fools, and that we know what’s going on.
It’s worth saying that there are times in life when jumping right in – or setting out on the journey before we have a fully formed plan – is the best thing to do. And sometimes you really do have to “fake it till you make it,” as people like to say. Approaching new endeavors with confidence (and maybe even a certain degree of chutzpah) is often an effective way to get started. It certainly beats crippling fear and self-doubt.
But beginner’s mind is something a little different. In a way, it almost flips the old “fake it till you make it” formula on its head, encouraging us instead to approach what we’re doing with the openness, curiosity, and receptiveness of an absolute beginner – and to keep doing so long after the work has begun, long after we’ve overcome some of those early hurdles that we usually associate with being a beginner. We’re often impatient to get past the beginner phase of whatever it is we’re doing, to learn the ropes and all the basic moves, then move on to developing skill and excellence. But maybe there’s another way to wrap our heads around it, or to get our heads – and our non-stop thinking minds – out of our way.
We tend to think of being a beginner as being a kind of necessary evil, perhaps as an obstacle to perfection, or as a phase to get to and get through as quickly as possible so that we can move on to the more interesting – and, we imagine, more important – stuff of proficiency, accomplishment, and mastery. In other words, we’re willing to put up with being beginners for a little while, but we’re not particularly interested in hanging out there. To do so, we imagine, would be an embarrassment to our pride.
The concept of beginner’s mind, however, invites us to challenge this deeply ingrained mindset and to look again – with fresh eyes – at the benefits and the pleasures of being a beginner.
Although the concept has roots across different cultures, the idea of beginner’s mind is formulated and discussed extensively in the Zen Buddhist tradition, and the phrase plays a key role in the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese priest in the Soto Zen lineage who came to America in the mid-20th century, founded the San Francisco Zen Center, and taught in the U.S. until his death in 1971. He’s an important figure in the history of the modern westward expansion of eastern thought, and his “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” – compiled and edited by several of his students after his death, from transcripts of talks that Suzuki had given – is often one of the first books about Zen that readers find their way to.
In the Prologue, Suzuki introduces the term, together with its Japanese variant.
“In Japan we have the phrase ‘shoshin,’ which means ‘beginner’s mind.’ The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.”
This is already a bit of a paradox for the reader to wrestle with. We usually like to think that “practice makes perfect,” but Suzuki is offering something different, asking readers and Zen practitioners to make one of the primary aims of their practice the preservation of a certain kind of unknowing, a certain kind of innocence. After we’ve done something for a while, our minds tend to fill up with thoughts, memories, ideas, and concepts about what we’ve done. It’s easy to perceive value in all this accrued mental “stuff,” but there’s a risk in it, too.
As Suzuki reminds us, the beginner has a special quality that has a tendency to fade or get lost over time. He argues that this fundamental quality is worth preserving, and that it really must be preserved.
“For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This doesn’t mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.”
Like the teacup in the old Zen parable, preserving a certain kind of emptiness in ourselves and in our practice, far from limiting us, actually enables us, paradoxically, to keep on growing and learning and progressing. “If your mind is empty…it is open to everything.” Suzuki goes on to construct a simple articulation of this idea, one that is perfectly pithy and often quoted:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”
We tend, in our lives, to fixate on our achievements and failings – tracking our progress by what we accomplish, what we fail to accomplish, and what we seem to have to show for it. But this kind of thinking can be a trap. It can get us hopelessly caught up in the rat race, chasing after success and recognition, and – as Suzuki warns his students – it can end up narrowing our horizons until we’re lost in the regressive spiral of self-centeredness and self-absorption.
The beginner, on the other hand, precisely because of his or her openness and receptive quality, has a special advantage.
“In the beginner’s mind there is no thought ‘I have attained something.’ All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.”
It’s worth noting that liberation from self-centered thought is what, ultimately, might free us to exist in full relationship with others, to move further towards love and compassion. But we still have to wrestle with the paradox of maintaining the mind of the beginner even after our practice is established.
“So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner’s mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of Zen. Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, ‘I know what Zen is,’ or ‘I have attained enlightenment.’”
Here he goes on to make a statement that I absolutely love, one that really resonates with me as a writer, musician, and artist.
“This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.”
This might seem like simple advice, but it’s profound, too. Just as “expert” practitioners of Zen can lose track of the rich realms of possibility – hemmed in too much by their own personal history and experience with the practice – so too can artists lose their own sense of the possible after they’ve been at it for a while. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of some sort or another, to stop looking at things the way we sometimes look at them when we see them for the very first time.
I suppose I want to maintain some element of this beginner’s mind in my own work and practice – in my writing, to be sure, but also in how I approach everyday life and the people around me, and, in turn, how I approach each passing moment. I want to be ready to be surprised by beauty, or joy, or sorrow, or happiness – ready to be surprised by the newness of whatever arises, no matter how familiar it may seem at first glance.
Even the rising and setting of the sun, that most ordinary of ordinary occurrences, is ever happening anew. If we can learn to find the freshness and newness in that humdrum daily occurrence – if we can bring a little bit of beginner’s mind to bear on the witnessing of a sunrise or a sunset – who knows what wonders we might behold in other areas of our life?
As Thoreau says in “Walden,” “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
So, wake up, and feel free to remain a beginner, whatever that might mean for you. I’ll try to do the same – to grown and learn without losing that quality of beginner’s mind, to live and move and have my being in a world made new each morning, each moment.