A BEGINNERS MIND – Compassionate Exploration
I love that phrase: beginner’s mind.
It is one of my favourite ‘go to’ sayings in just about any conversation.
But, there is no true beginning in life. Right?
Everything has a residual effect. There’s no such thing as an actual beginning everything folds from one ending to the next beginning. I know, it sounds like I just contradicted myself, but hear me out.
A fascinating Zen proverb “always be a beginner”
We can argue that every breath is a beginning. Every step is a beginning.
The waves on a lake, each have a cresting beginning and a collapsing ending.
Likewise, every sentence has a beginning, right? But is it is it a true beginning? Doesn’t it contain little tendrils, these minute energetic attachments from what had just come before? The sentence is tentatively holding on to what came before it.
The wave is part of many waves, which are part of the body of water, which is part of the flow of all water….
Over the years, I was caught up in the beginnings of everything. I grew up moving so many times, starting over repeatedly, often with very little. It taught me the wrong view of ‘beginning’. Mistakenly, I perceived being ‘a beginner’ as starting from scratch and that is not the right view.
I left so much behind – always
The right view and the right understanding of ‘always be a beginner’ is to take on skills, knowledge, experience, strength, wisdom and apply it to every next level and stage in our life. At the same time, with this expansive and intelligent seeing, we are to remember to see like the child and embrace the newness of this particular experience.
Beginner’s mind is to see with fresh eyes, no matter how much experience we carry with us.
We are building on what has come before. See the beauty of that.
Always be a beginner within each evolved stage of who you are. See all that is possible.
Humans are the only beings under the illusion that there is an actual ending and beginning. We are under the impression that rocks are solid that our skin has an ending, a finite ‘outside’. And, we believe the outside of our skin is the environment. But, none of this is true. We perceive it as such but it’s not true perception.
Our skin is many layers and the layers change in density and volume, and the layers respond to the environment. Our skin is interacting and flowing with the environment. We are flowing and responding directly with the wind, the sun, the aromas in the air, the fabric, lotion and even chemicals in the air. Every second of time is an interaction, a communion with energy.
All of earth is flowing with energy.
Rocks have water flowing through them and energy moving through them, even though they appear dense and solid. Energy moves through them. So there must be a residual or a ‘marking’ to everything that exists in this world and maybe in the entire universe.
As I Garden, raking the spring debris into mulch bags, I look over at the trickling water cascading into the pond. It’s a circular system, but some of the water escapes. Some of the water evaporates into the air while most of the water circulates back into the pond.
Does water have beginners mind?
In this endless cycle of flow, where is the beginning of that? Is the beginning when you turn on the pump and add the water into the pond? Perhaps, the water that always existed in the pipes is the beginning? Or is it the water that was filtered from Lake Ontario, and then pumped into the pipes of your home and then the faucet turned on to run the hose into the pond?
As I turn this idea over and over in my mind, I move through the garden, beginning and ending different tasks. I realize it is simply a clever composition of Yin and Yang. They are both true: there is a beginning and there is not a beginning. The beginning is an ending and the ending is a beginning. There is a little bit of each one in each one…
As the world turns.
Everything has a beginning, every breath is a beginning. Beginners mind is universal.
Every season is a beginning and at the same time there is no beginning. Since everything is related to everything else and is also continually morphing and transforming from one element, one cascade one composition to another, there is no one true beginning. However, at any given time you are in a beginning or an ending of something. You choose.
You choose. It is you who decides.
Are you in the beginning or ending of something right now?
Looking through online sources, I came across PristineHearing5955 on Reddit, posting:
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by by SHUNRYU SUZUKI (learn more about him here: shunryusuzuki.com)
“When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn some thing. The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.”
Open your mind to beginner’s mind, so you can go and fill your day with compassion.
Your next read: letting go.