Beginning Again with Beginner’s Mind
Beginner’s mind refers to the practice of having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. The complete involvement of the senses, heightened focus, excitement, revelation, attention and care are all part of what is considered beginner’s mind. In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Buddhist monk and influential teacher of Zen Buddhism in America Shunryu Suzuki advises us never to know what we are doing. This isn’t meant in an “ignorance is bliss” way, but rather in a way where you give your full attention to something, drinking in the nuances experienced by each of the senses in the present moment. Suzuki explains, “Suppose you recite the Prajna Paramita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation. But what would happen if you recited it twice, three times, four times, or more? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it” (1-2). The original attitude would be an awareness not only of the words, but of one’s self in relationship to the words—the feel of the words tangling or slipping from the tongue, the meaning of the words as taken at first glance rather than after deep interpretation and reflection, an awareness of the sound and timbre of one’s own voice alight, of a dry or scratchy throat, the size of the font, the glare or warm-casted shadow from the light in the room. After that first recitation, some of these elements would be lost or changed, one’s focus shifted to new things that the new level of familiarity enables.
Beginner's mind is able to recapture the mind-blowing nature of a first trip to the circus for a child (or the strip club for an adult)—with its colored lights and awesome sights, frights, heights and delights. It is able to bring back the firstness and newness of experience, even if you yourself are the clown (or the stripper). I ask you, reader, can you remember the first time you did something? Rode a bike? Went on an airplane? Finger-painted? You had no idea what you were doing, but you were intently focused on figuring it out. Your senses were picking up on everything around you—the wind against your face as you pedaled faster, all the buttons to push in the armrest of your window seat, the gooey swirls and streaks following your fingers’ every move. You were at once in the present moment.
In his essay entitled “Beginner’s Mind,” Darren Henson describes beginner’s mind as “developing a sense of awe, a feeling of excitement and wonder when approaching or re-approaching a subject of investigation… You can learn something new even if it is a subject you have already explored…. If you keep looking you’re bound to see something new, this in itself can be very exciting, wonderful, and awesome” (Iron Palm). Buddhist Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman says that “It is the mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgements [sic] and prejudices. Beginner's mind is just present to explore and observe and see ‘things as-it-is’” (Chapel Hill Zen Center). Gloria Karpinski calls beginner’s mind “The teachable mind, empty of opinions and sureties and therefore empty of limitations” (91). Karpinski's notion of a teachable mind is an important one. A teachable mind does not know the thing it is being taught and it is willing to learn it. It is what in Buddhism is sometimes called “don’t know mind.” This mind is open to any possibility because it does not know what to expect and, as such, has few or no expectations. Most of us want to have teachable minds. We want to continue to learn, continue to be taught, surprised, and awed by life and the world around us. We want to discover new things about ourselves, about our friends, family, and lovers, about our work and our passions, so we can add depth and richness of understanding to our lives. In the fast-paced whirlwind of contemporary American culture where people prefer sound-bites to meaningful conversation, it is valuable for us to learn to stop. Look. Listen.
Children, naturally, are full of beginner’s mind. They walk around, excited and curious, exploring their surroundings with their eyes, hands, tongues, endeavoring to experience everything around them. Spending time with children is said to give adults a “second childhood” because they are able to experience things from the child’s perspective. They are able to laugh at bubbles or smell and taste a blade of grass as if for the first time. This is because they are cultivating beginner’s mind simply by witnessing a child brimming with it. Abbess Hartman confirms this idea, saying that to practice beginner’s mind is to engage a childlike (though not childish) attitude toward the world around us. “I think of beginner's mind as the mind that faces life like a small child, full of curiosity and wonder and amazement. ‘I wonder what this is? I wonder what that is? I wonder what this means?’ Without approaching things with a fixed point of view or a prior judgement [sic], just asking ‘what is it?’” (Chapel Hill Zen Center).
Hartman gives an example that shows clearly what she means:
Earlier this week I was having lunch with Indigo, our small child at City Center. He saw an object on the table and got very interested in it. He picked it up and started fooling with it: looking at it, putting it in his mouth, and banging on the table with it—just engaging with it without any previous idea of what it was. For Indigo, it was just an interesting thing, and it was a delight to him to see what he could do with this thing. You and I would see it and say, "It's a spoon. It sits there and you use it for soup." It doesn't have all the possibilities that he finds in it (Chapel Hill Zen Center).
Hartman concludes that “When he spoke of ‘beginner's mind,’ I think Suzuki Roshi[1] was pointing to that kind of mind that's not already made up. The mind that's just investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking, but not with expectation or grasping. Just being there and observing and seeing what occurs. Being ready for whatever experience arises in this moment” (Chapel Hill Zen Center). This type of open mind bespeaks an engagement with the present moment, rather than the neurotic past or the wistful future. The objective of beginner's mind is to draw oneself back into the present moment.
Krishnamurti describes awareness, which is seen by him and by Stephen Levine as synonymous to beginner’s mind:
Being aware does not mean learning and accumulating lessons from life; on the contrary, to be aware is to be without the scars of accumulated experience. After all, when the mind merely gathers experience according to its own wishes, it remains very shallow, superficial. A mind which is deeply observant does not get caught up in self-centered activities, and the mind is not observant if there is any action of condemnation or comparison. Comparison and condemnation do not bring understanding, rather they block understanding. To be aware is to observe—just to observe—without any self-identifying process. Such a mind is free of that hard core which is formed by self-centered activities. (125)
Suzuki’s reasoning for the importance of beginner’s mind is that “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few” (1). By having a beginner’s mind, one does not close off possibilities, nor judge one choice better than others, because one is aware that one does not know what on earth is going on. Or if one does, it is with the awareness that it is simply a shot in the dark, trial and error. Beginner’s mind helps create a space in which to experience, to be, promising that life is not a nihilistic existence without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. The experience itself is the value.
This runs counter to our drive—perhaps instinctual, perhaps culturally learned—to know-it-all. Abbess Hartman explains that even children start to want to be know-it-alls. She writes, “Children begin to lose that innocent quality after a while, and soon they want to be ‘the one who knows’” (Chapel Hill Zen Center). She feels this drive is understandable, but very limiting. Part of the problem with being “one who knows” that Hartman conveys is that it leads to expectations and potentially to suffering.
We all want to be the one who knows. But if we decide we "know" something, we are not open to other possibilities anymore. And that's a shame. We lose something very vital in our life when it's more important to us to be "one who knows" than it is to be awake to what's happening. We get disappointed because we expect one thing, and it doesn't happen quite like that. Or we think something ought to be like this, and it turns out different. Instead of saying, "Oh, isn't that interesting," we say, "Yuck, not what I thought it would be." Pity. The very nature of beginner's mind is not knowing in a certain way, not being an expert… As an expert, you've already got it figured out, so you don't need to pay attention to what's happening. Pity (Chapel Hill Zen Center).
Mindfulness & Meditation
Beginner’s mind is engendered through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is described by Vietnamese Zen luminary Thich Nhat Hanh as knowing “how to observe and recognize the presence of every feeling and thought which arises in you” (37). This is done by bringing all of one’s attention to the present moment, observing without judgment what one is doing, feeling, and thinking. It is through being uniquely in the present moment that one can ascertain beginner’s mind, for one can grasp that this moment is truly unlike any other. Mindfulness, Hanh reveals, confirming Levine and Krishnamurti, “is the life of awareness: the presence of mindfulness means the presence of life, and therefore mindfulness is also the fruit. Mindfulness frees us of forgetfulness and dispersion and makes it possible to live fully each minute of life. Mindfulness enables us to live” (15).
Mindfulness can be practiced while walking or doing simple repetitive tasks. Walking meditation helps to break down habitual automatic mental categories, "thus regaining the primary nature of perceptions and events, focusing attention on the process while disregarding its purpose or final outcome." Similarly, performing a simple task such as washing the dishes can become an exercise in mindfulness. Hanh describes this process in The Miracle of Mindfulness. He writes,
While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions… If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not… alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash our dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking our cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life (5).
Mindfulness can be also cultivated through training in the practice of meditation. One can see mindfulness as a kind of meditation, or as “meditation off the mat,” bringing to everyday life and the outside world the attention and care that one brings into meditation itself. Meditation is a discipline of consciousness, beyond the conditioned, "thinking" mind. It is recognized as a component of almost all religions, and has been practiced for over 5,000 years, but it is also practiced outside religious traditions. Thomas Merton described it thus:
To meditate is to exercise the mind in serious reflection. This is the broadest possible sense of the word ‘meditation.’ The term in this sense is not confined to religious reflections, but it implies serious mental activity and a certain absorption or concentration which does not permit our faculties to wander off at random or to remain slack and undirected. From the start it must be made clear, however, that reflection here does not refer to a purely intellectual activity, and still less does it refer to mere reasoning. Reflection involves not only the mind but also the heart, and indeed our whole being (43).
Merton saw the intentions of the meditator as quite lofty. He writes:
In study we can be content with an idea or a concept that is true. We can be content to know about truth. Meditation is for those who are not satisfied with a merely objective and conceptual knowledge about life, about God—about ultimate realities. They want to enter into an intimate contact with truth itself, with God. They want to experience the deepest realities of life by living them. Meditation is a means to that end (43-44).
Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual and/or psychophysical practices and emphasize different goals – from achievement of a higher state of consciousness to greater focus, creativity or self-awareness, or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind (Wikipedia). Meditation has been defined as: "self regulation of attention, in the service of self-inquiry, in the here and now" (Wikipedia). Different techniques of meditation vary in their focus. In most forms of meditation, the meditator sits comfortably and silently, centering attention by focusing awareness on an object or process (usually the breath, but also a sound: a mantra, koan or riddle, a visualization, or an exercise). The meditator is usually encouraged to maintain an open focus. In their work "Meditation: Concepts, Effects and Uses in Therapy,” Alberto Perez-De-Albeniz and Jeremy Holmes describe this focus:
The meditator, with a 'no effort' attitude, is asked to remain in the here and now. Using the focus as an 'anchor'... brings the subject constantly back to the present, avoiding cognitive analysis or fantasy regarding the contents of awareness, and increasing tolerance and relaxation of secondary thought processes (Attracted Actions).
There are other ways to meditate as well. Concentration meditation is another form of meditation that is frequently used in varied religions and spiritual practices. Forms of meditation that use visualization, such as Chinese Qi Gong, concentrate on flows of energy (Qi) in the body. Other meditative traditions, such as yoga or tantra, are common to several religions, but can also occur outside of religious milieus (Wikipedia).
Zazen and Non-Duality
The practice of meditation aids in the development of beginner’s mind and the quality of mindfulness. Meditation can take place sitting, lying down, or walking. In Japanese Zen Buddhism, seated meditation is called zazen. The aim of zazen is just sitting. That is its sole goal. If you sit, you have done it. Suzuki says, “These forms are not the means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is itself to have the right state of mind. There is no need to obtain some special state of mind” (25).
The traditional posture of zazen is seated in lotus position, with folded legs and an erect but settled spine, but one may modify this position with a meditation bench or even sitting upright in a chair. Sitting in the full lotus position is done for a good reason, however. Suzuki explains:
When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh, and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they have become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular, it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent (25).
This idea of “the oneness of duality” is an important one, as it serves as a beginning to probing our linguistic and cultural dependence on binary or dichotomous thinking and understanding them for what they are—usually false and often destructive. Through zazen we begin to hold the contradiction of something being both two and one by embodying the contradiction, or “being a crossroads,” as Gloria Anzaldúa phrased it in Borderlands/La Frontera. This embodiment and experience of the oneness of duality makes it true. Others can disagree, but the experience of it makes it necessarily true for us. In zazen, it is the experience of non-duality that is embodied in the posture. One need not be able to get into lotus position to enjoy zazen, however. There are several other postures that can be effectively used.
Suzuki advises us of more details of the zazen posture:
The most important thing in taking the zazen posture is to keep your spine straight. Your ears and your shoulders should be on one line. Relax your shoulders, and push up towards the ceiling with the back of your head. And you should pull your chin in. When your chin is tilted up, you have no strength in your posture; you are probably dreaming. Also to gain strength in your posture, press your diaphragm down toward your hara, or lower abdomen. This will help you maintain your physical and mental balance. When you try to keep this posture, at first you may find some difficulty breathing naturally, but when you get accustomed to it you will be able to breathe naturally and deeply…. You should not be tilted sideways, backwards, or forwards. You should be sitting straight up as if you were supporting the sky with your head (26).
Again there is a deeper meaning to this practice:
This is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way. These forms are not a means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take the posture itself is the purpose of our practice. When you have this posture, you have the right state of mind, so there is no need to try to attain some special state (26, my emphasis).
Suzuki’s words echo J. Krishanamurti’s contention that “Freedom is in the beginning, it is not something to be gained at the end.” Although one often thinks of enlightenment as the goal of meditation, Suzuki reminds us that the real goal of meditation is to be without a goal. The true objective of meditation is to sit in a certain way for a certain amount of time on a regular basis, giving the practice as much of our full attention as we can. He reminds us that we do not need to know Zen in depth, in fact we cannot if we want to cultivate beginner’s mind.
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.” This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very careful about this point (22).
Breathing takes on a more meaningful role during meditation, though the process of inhaling and exhaling does not really change. The breath becomes a conscious connection with and an understanding of the ways and workings of the universe. Without the breath, we cannot be. Our bodies would cease to function without breath. And yet the breath is a function largely independent of our will. We do not consciously regulate it. It simply, elegantly, is. We know that we are poised on the brink of a momentous possibility, but that is no better than this very moment.
The embodiment of this experience renders the practitioner not just an observer or a thinker but a participant in and an example of the beliefs. On breathing, Suzuki writes:
When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there is just one world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra. There is no you to say “I.” What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all (29).
Breathing too is a tool for fostering understanding and embodying the idea of non-duality. Suzuki explains this connection:
Our usual understanding of life is dualistic: you and I, this and that, good and bad. But actually these discriminations are themselves the awareness of the universal existence. “You” means to be aware of the universe in the form of you, and “I” means to be aware of it in the form of I. You and I are just swinging doors. This kind of understanding is necessary. This should not even be called understanding; it is actually the true experience of life through Zen practice (29).
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purely independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything. Without air, we cannot breathe. Each one of us is in the midst of myriads of worlds. We are in the center of the world always, moment after moment. So we are completely dependent and independent (31).
In Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh explains one pragmatic reason why the practice of conscious breathing is important.
While we practice conscious breathing, our thinking will slow down, and we can give ourselves a real rest. Most of the time, we think too much, and mindful breathing helps us to be calm, relaxed, and peaceful. It helps us stop thinking so much and stop being possessed by sorrows of the past and worries about the future. It enables us to be in touch with life, which is wonderful in the present moment (11).
What conscious breathing does (on one level) is train the mind. The mind is like a playful puppy that we must train through repetitive instruction of “not that, this” so that he can happily coexist with us. Left to its own devices, our minds, like a playful innocuous puppy, can destroy our happiness and peace, leaving mental piles of dog shit and shredded shoes of emotion. In training our mind through conscious breathing, we are better able to examine its contents.
Like training a puppy to go potty outside, meditation is intensive training in bringing our minds, whenever possible, gently back to the present moment. We are most often thinking about something in the past or future, very seldom focusing our attention and energy on what is actually going on right now. If we are arguing with our partner in this moment, also present are the unresolved issues of yesterday and worries about the future. Sometimes we are looking to the past for meaning, hoping our understanding in the present will help in the future. Other times we are looking at the present through the lens of the past, leaving little hope and limited options for the future. We are very rarely cognizant of what is actually going on in the present moment, of what actually is. Hanh promises that "If we keep breathing in and out this way for a few minutes, we become quite refreshed. We recover ourselves and we can encounter the beautiful things around us in the present moment. The past is gone; the future is not yet here. If we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life" (12).
Unwittingly, we have already begun a practice of embodying non-duality and non-attachment simply by sitting. To take the posture itself is the purpose of the practice. Even the crossing of the legs in the lotus position, we have seen, is construed as embodying non-duality. These concepts will be invaluable for us on our path, whether our goal is a spiritual one or simply a wish for better health and more fulfillment. Whether this awareness occurs while sitting, doing yoga, or walking, alone or in a group setting, the ultimate purpose of meditation is bringing its practitioner to the awareness of now. There is only one now, only one present moment, lived and experienced in myriad, perhaps infinite, ways throughout the universe.
The Mental Workings of Meditation
The first thing you might notice in meditation is that—like a rocket—your mind takes off in about a thousand different directions, each taking you further and further away from the present moment. It seems almost impossible to quiet the incessant chatter in your head. Although Suzuki tells us “If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come, and let them go” (32), it’s a heck of a lot more difficult than one might imagine. His counsel is based on his assertion that concentrating on something is not true Zen. “The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.” (33). His reasoning is also practical. “When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything” (34).
In Zen Training, by Katsuki Sekida, he equates the meditating mind to boiling water:
When you sit down to practice you will almost certainly find that your mind is in a condition like boiling water: restless impulses push up inside you, and wandering thoughts jostle at the door of consciousness, trying to effect an entrance on the stage of the mind (66).
In A Gradual Awakening, meditation teacher Stephen Levine describes the restless internal dialogue by describing its preoccupations:
The internal dialogue is always commenting and judging and planning. It contains a lot of thoughts of self, a lot of self-consciousness. It blocks the light of our natural wisdom; it limits our seeing who we are; it makes a lot of noise and attracts our attention to a fraction of the reality in which we exist (2).
One might say that the thoughts of the “self” obscure the light of the Self. The noise of internal dialogue brings our attention to the different activities of the conditioned mind, or the mind attached to its beliefs about what is and what should be. This mind is unable to pull itself out of its attachments and suffers because of it.
Krishnamurti similarly describes the restless mind in meditation.
So our problem is that our thoughts wander all over the place, and naturally we want to bring about order. But how is order to be brought about? Now, to understand a fast revolving machine, you must slow it down, must you not? If you want to understand a dynamo, it must be slowed down and studied, but if you stop it, it is a dead thing, and a dead thing can never be understood. Only a living thing can be understood. So a mind that has killed thoughts by exclusion, by isolation, can have no understanding, but the mind can understand thought if the thought process is slowed down (4).
This slowing down that Krishnamurti describes affords us a moment in which to engage with our thoughts. We do not have to have nor examine our thoughts in “real time.” Instead, we can examine our thoughts, turn them over, trace their history, and ponder their future. We can create a space between stimulus and action in which we are not as deeply indentified with our thoughts.
Levine explains the basic concept at the root of all thoughts of this conditioned mind:
At the base of the conditioned mind is a wanting. This wanting takes many forms. It wants to be secure. It wants to be happy. It wants to survive. It wants to be loved. It also has specific wants: objects of desire, friendships, food, this color or that color, this kind of surrounding or some other kind. There’s wanting not to have pain. There’s wanting to be enlightened. There’s wanting things to be as we wish they were… Therefore, much thought has at its root dissatisfaction with what is (13).
This dissatisfaction renders the present moment imperfect, filled with lack and dissatisfaction. At the root of this satisfaction is desire for things outside of the present moment, and often outside the self. Levine explains:
We discover there are many ways that desire causes this dissatisfaction. There are, for instance, things we want that may never come our way, or things we only get once in a while, or which don’t stay for long. There are also things we get, and, after we get them, we don’t want—which is really disconcerting. Sometimes I see this with my children. They will want something so badly that we’ll go from store to store until we find it. Then, we get it and an hour later they’re saying, “I wish I hadn’t gotten this… I wanted the blue one.” That’s really a heartbreaker. And, that’s in all of us. We want and we want… and nothing can permanently satisfy us because not only does the thing we want change, but our wants change too. Everything is changing all the time (15).
Equally disappointing is the realization that because everything is changing, there is no such thing as lasting satisfaction stemming from things outside of us. Levine remarks on this as well, noting:
The next thing we discover is that nothing we want can give us lasting satisfaction because everything is in flux and nothing stays forever. Whatever it may be—the finest food, the most gratifying sex, the greatest sense pleasure—nothing in the universe can give us lasting satisfaction, it will all come and go. It is this condition which gives us that subtle, queasy dissatisfaction we carry about with us most of the time, even when we get what we want, because deep down we know eventually it will change…. We don’t see reality. We see only the shadows that it casts and those shadows are our concepts, our definitions, our ideas of the world (10).
He offers a filmic panorama of our internal landscape.
If we watch the mind as though it were a film projected on a screen, as concentration deepens, it may go into a kind of slow motion and allow us to see more of what is happening. This then deepens our awareness and further allows us to observe the film almost frame by frame, to discover how one thought leads imperceptively to the next. We see how thoughts we took to be “me” or “mine” are just an ongoing process. This perspective helps break our deep identification with the seeming solid reality of the movie of the mind. As we become less engrossed in the melodrama, we see it’s just flow, and can watch it all as it passes. We are not even drawn into the action by the passing of a judgmental comment or an agitated moment of impatience” (2).
The purpose of meditation is to change and monitor this relationship between ourselves and our desires and wantings.
When the wanting becomes the object of observation, we watch with a clear attention that isn’t colored by judgment or choice; it is simply bare attention with nothing added: an openness to receive things as they are. We see that wanting is an automatic, conditioned urge in the mind. And we watch without judging ourselves for wanting. We don’t impatiently want to be rid of wanting. We simply observe it (15).
Levine’s proposed strategy—to become an observer of the wanting rather than the wanter—divorces the person from their identification with the wanting (as the “wanter”) and places them in the more powerful position of “observer” of an emotion called “wanting.” As “wanter” they can choose only “wanting,” but as “observer” they might choose to observe something else, such as “satisfaction” or “happiness.” By not associating with the identity of “wanter,” the person is able to see beyond the wanting.
Krishnamurti, as I mentioned, also asserts that the process of slowing down one’s thoughts brings order to one’s mind. It enables the mind to be something called “understood,” which I think is perhaps closer to “perceived” and “observed without judgment” than to the intellectual exercise we currently associate with “understanding.” Krishnamurti offers an analogy that is similar to Levine’s to explain what he means by “understanding:”
If you have seen a slow motion picture, you will understand the marvelous movement of a horse’s muscles as it jumps. There is beauty in that slow movement of the muscles, but as the horse jumps hurriedly, as the movement is quickly over, that beauty is lost. Similarly, when the mind moves slowly because it wants to understand each thought as it arises, then there is freedom from thinking, freedom from controlled, disciplined thought (4-5).
Zen teacher and author Katsuki Sekida also notes the importance of deepening our awareness of our inner landscape. In Zen Training, he explains the relationship between meditation’s slowing of the mind and self-knowledge. He writes:
Man thinks unconsciously. Man thinks and acts without noticing. When he thinks, “It is fine today,” he is aware of the weather but not of his own thought. It is the reflecting action of consciousness that comes immediately after the thought that makes him aware of his own thinking. The act of thinking of the weather is an outward-looking one and is absorbed in the object of its thought. On the other hand, the reflecting action of consciousness looks inward and notes the preceding action that has just gone by, wrapped up in thinking of the weather—still leaving its trace behind as the direct past. By this reflecting action of consciousness, man comes to know what is going on in his mind, and that he has a mind; and he recognizes his own being (108).
This “watching of mind” divorces us from our usual attachment to thoughts and emotions in the present moment. We are able to practice non-attachment as we realize that what we are seeing is not really “self” at all, but rather our subscription and adherence to the melodramas of life. The objective of this watching is simply to see what is, rather than participate in the drama. Levine explains:
When we simply see—moment to moment—what’s occurring, observing without judgment or preference, we don’t get lost thinking, “I prefer this moment to that moment, I prefer this pleasant thought to that pain in my knee.” As we begin developing this choiceless awareness, what starts coming within the field of awareness is quite remarkable: we start seeing the root from which thought arises. We see intention, out of which action comes. We observe the natural process of mind and discover how much of what we so treasured to be ourselves is essentially impersonal phenomena passing by (3).
The non-action of seeing and watching gives us access to the roots and complex processes that underlie our beliefs and actions. We are able to simply regard what is, without an attachment to a certain way of thinking or doing. We can watch the internal dialogue rather than participating in it.
Levine stresses the importance of observing without judgment, or practicing acceptance:
The more we accept of ourselves, the more fully we experience the world. The more we accept our anger, our loneliness, our desire systems, the more we can hear others and the more we can hear ourselves (53).
He explains the deeper significance of this acceptance.
When we can surrender into the moment without any attachment anywhere, so that anything that arises is seen as a soft, non-judging mind, we experience completeness. We can be with our loneliness, or our fear, or even our self-consciousness in a very complete way. We see that those are just passing states of mind, and, though they may be painful to acknowledge, the recognition of their presence is the truth and the truth is beautiful. It means really accepting all of what we are (53).
As Levine explains, removing judgment ultimately enables the emotion to move out of the shadow of our self and be observed and understood for what it is: simply, what is. The objective is not to create more pleasing sensations and moments, but to realize the impermanence inherent in both the pleasing and the displeasing moments, and ultimately accepting them both gratefully and gracefully.
Beginner’s Mind: How do you get it?
At this point, perhaps beginner’s mind sounds pretty good, a possible solution to some of the ills of the world. You are ready to sign up, whip out your credit card, call now, or whatever it takes to “get” this thing called beginner’s mind. After so many infomercials, so many advertisements promising you that to be what you wish you need only to buy their product, you are used to being able to purchase pills, books, DVDs, or what have you. You are not used to being asked to do something. “There is no time to do something!” you exclaim, pointing at the unopened workout DVD, the unread “must read” book, the untested recipes in the healthy living cookbook.
Yet I argue that there is time to do something. Let’s create more meaningful practices in our lives! At first glance, our lives may feel too chaotic and too busy to add anything else to them. We so often forget that we do the things we do because we choose to do them. Deepak Chopra writes that “You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. But the best way to understand and maximize the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of the choices we make in every moment” (40). Each item on our “to do” list is chosen by us, even though it seems at times like we have no choice. But it is easier to think that we have no choice than to see ourselves as powerfully controlling our lives. From household chores to social engagements to work or family obligations, we don’t have to do anything! We can be confronted with the same circumstances and make very different choices.
It is in the choices we engender that transformation occurs, and it is in understanding that we are always free to choose differently that we find power. Chopra asserts that our present day situation is the result of our past choices, and that our future will be the result of today’s choices. This is easy to see when talking about something like race or politics, but harder to acknowledge on an individual level. He writes, “Whether you like it or not, everything that is happening at this moment is a result of the choices you’ve made in the past. Unfortunately, a lot of us make choices unconsciously, and therefore we don’t think they are choices—and yet, they are” (40).
He offers some examples and explanation to illustrate:
If I were to insult you, you would most likely make the choice of being offended. If I were to pay you a compliment, you would most likely make the choice of being pleased or flattered. But think about it: it’s still a choice. I could offend you and I could insult you, and you could make the choice of not being offended. I could pay you a compliment and you could make the choice of not letting that flatter you either.
In other words, most of us—even though we are infinite choice-makes—have become bundles of conditioned reflexes that are constantly being triggered by people and circumstances into predictable outcomes of behavior. These conditioned reflexes are like Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlov is famous for demonstrating that if you give a dog something to eat every time you ring a bell, soon the dog starts to salivate when you just ring the bell, because it has associated one stimulus with the other.
Most of us, as a result of conditioning, have repetitious and predictable responses to the stimuli in our environment. Our reactions seem to be automatically triggered by people and circumstances, and we forget that these are still choices that we are making in every moment of our existence. We are simply making these choices unconsciously (40-1).
Similar to Hanh, Levine, and Krishnamurti, the course of action that Deepak prescribes is simply to step back. “If you step back for a moment and witness the choices you are making as you make those choices, then in just this act of witnessing, you take the whole process from the unconscious realm into the conscious realm. This procedure of conscious choice making and witnessing is very empowering” (41-2). This witnessing is something we can bring with us into our everyday interactions by cultivating it in meditation. It helps create and maintain a space between our thoughts and feelings and how we choose to respond to them, between the stimulus and the action. This mental space gives us more of a chance to intentionally choose our reactions. When we are able to divest our thoughts of their immediacy, we are able to exercise greater choice in how we will respond.
[1] Roshi is a word meaning “teacher” in the Japanese Buddhist tradition. She is referring to Shunryu Suzuki
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