Beginner's Mind.....

Life is a kaleidoscope of the unpredictable. It makes expectation a moot point because let’s face it moment by moment it is just what it is and not often what we envisage. The start to my 2011 New Year has been all that kaleidascopic chaos plus more and who knows where it is going? I think it has in its unexpected tossing’s into my world, offered me one consistent thing and that is plenty of scope to practice ‘beginner’s’ mind.

Beginner’s mind or Shoshin refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and a lack of preconceptions. I made this my New Year’s resolution...to practice Shoshin...yet this in itself seems a contradiction...I have to let go of expectation to practice the letting go of expectation....

We tend to think in progression. For example, when we go shopping, our mind is on what we need to buy and where to shop. We’re liable to skip over all the modest experiences on the way: experiences like locking the front door, rain splattering on the windscreen, the noise of traffic, the smell of fresh bread and so on. Beginners mind allows us to do the journey literally one step at a time.

With beginner’s mind we drop the baggage of past conditioning and we also drop the baggage of future expectation. We see the shop as if for the first time, we smell the bread as if it were our first experience of fresh bread; we try everything there is to try without fear of failure, without expectation to live up or down to. We unconditionally experience. This applies to relationships too…..we let go of judgment and fear based upon past actions and interactions with another individual, instead, we get to know them all over again. There is so much wonderful freedom in this!

With beginner’s mind we use 'Don’t Know' mind. In martial arts, a don’t know mind is the wisdom of the warrior. We can simply get it wrong by prejudging a situation. When faced with a large adversary or a big challenge, we might presume that we will lose. When faced with an opponent who appears slighter or weaker, or a challenge that seems surmountable, we might suppose that we will win. In both situations our judgment might be wrong. 'Don’t know' means keeping an open mind and responding according to the situation, not according to how we assume things will be. A don’t know mind leaves space for intuition. Again this talks about relationships…if we make assumptions of how an individual is, based upon what we think we know about them, then we do not allow for the changes that occur to an individual as they grow older and wiser and we deny ourselves the discovery of whom they have become.

Of course there is the argument that Beginner’s Mind is not so useful when attempting such things as crossing the road. You don’t desire to be compressed flat by a car in the process of learning anew that you need to get out of the way! It’s always excellent to use our knowledge and innate wisdom. Beginner’s Mind doesn’t mean being antithetical to experience; it means keeping an open mind on how to apply your experience to each fresh circumstance.

Beginner's Mind" is about developing a sense of awe, and wonder when approaching or re-approaching something or someone, even ourselves. It is leaving the moment to itself to unfold as a flower naturally unfolds and to close as a flower naturally closes.

Well, as I said life has had some up and down and all over the place energy these early days of 2011. There have been accidents in the family, relationship dramas in the family and disappointments in friendships…all things that were thrown at us and me in a moment…and yes I responded initially with the baggage of desire for something different, the baggage of past embedded fear and distress, the baggage of a deep wish to mould the future differently….but in the end the one thing that has proven itself in getting me and those others involved through the moments, is just that, a wholehearted allowing of the moments.

With innocence I try to accept what is and allow it to be, with no judgment born of desire or prior knowledge. And in each moment I try to see the small details and smell the small roses and if there are none then I try to digest the suffering and let it be…and from that I move to the next moment and the next….and just as my breath expands my lungs and diaphragm as I breathe in and contracts the same as I breathe out, I let my own inner flower open and close as it will. In these things we have no say…..in the mind with which we experience them we have utmost say.

So beginners mind…my 2011 resolution….