There are days in the midst of winter when I recall spring and the promise of summer again and today was one such day…appropriate so soon after our new moon. The sun was warm and without that recent icy wind to snake up ones back and dilute its warmth being outdoors was a real pleasure! It was more than nice to sit on a park bench overlooking our Main beach with hubby and pooch by my side stretching our eyes out over the vast expanse of ocean looking for whales…alas we were not rewarded with a sighting today, but we have been many a time before and the looking is mighty pleasant!!
I guess the greatest thing about looking at the ocean is that each time you look you see something different. It’s the easiest thing to do with beginners mind. Generally beginners mind is a thing I struggle with, like a small child learning to walk…but the ocean has a mystical and wonderful way of putting everything in perspective again and it’s as if I am seeing it for the first time ever! It’s such an amazing thing, this flowing and undulating expanse of water, so unpredictable and yet so reassuring….
Throughout history, the oceans have been considered by man as a resource. Ocean resources include things such as food sources, transportation routes, energy sources and a place to dispose of waste. It all seems so vulgar and gross when this source of all life seethes and surges like a silken prayer flag in the wind…swelling and reclining back into itself with such grace….I may wax lyrical, but isn’t this element of nature animated in a most romantically expressive way?? Doesn’t it seem to you as it does to me that humans have a most inelegant way of un-romanticizing things at times, focusing so much upon functionality and usefulness that sheer beauty becomes lost to us ( often so much so that we damage this beauty in our efforts to dominate it and make it materially valuable…)?
Beginners mind is a new mind….a mind that beholds as if for the first time, that requires only to behold and experience a moment for the sake of that moment itself…Shoshin or "beginner's mind" refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and a lack of preconceptions…
It has been said that 'I don't know’ is the warrior's wisdom. I really like this concept! People don't allow themselves to ‘not know’ often enough. The majority of the time when people consider they know, they don't really know at all. All they know are their past impressions of things, the conclusions they came to on previous occasions, or impressions from similar events or circumstances that took place earlier. Living with "I know" is a great handicap that keeps us out of the now and living in the past. It doesn't permit us anything new, surprise, insight, new discoveries. It doesn't allow us to absorb any of the mystery of the present moment, to flow with the now; instead it keeps us fixed in the judgments of the past.
If I was to experience the ocean from the stance of ‘I know’ I might think it was always in storm, dangerous and best avoided. I would miss the light reflected on its still surface, the dolphins playing in its majestic waves…I might be too afraid to let it kiss my skin and play within it …
Contemplating the ocean is a great way to find the essence of beginners mind and I am grateful that is an easy and accessible thing for me to do…
But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. H. P. Lovecraft
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