MW #2 | The Beginner’s Mind
A Lifelong Learning Perspective from Zen Buddhism
Welcome to Mind Whoosh! A newsletter bread-crumb trail of thoughts, learnings, and speculations following my spelunking journey through minds, metaverse, and this messy human meat-space we call “reality”.
No matter what discipline or domain you find yourself in, a fundamental predicament always emerges when trying to tackle new problems. As we spend time in any environment, we start green and naive. Everything is new, ideas are plentiful, but so are mistakes and missteps. After enough time, we grow our expertise and hone in on a more opinionated way of looking at things. These perspectives become intuitions, built upon countless foundational insights.
We optimize ourselves for each specific set of challenges; In doing so, we lose our innate flexibility as beginners. Given enough time, this happens in groups as well. Creative sparks fizzle out as our collective group-mind gets stuck on conventions for the “right” way of doing things. Eventually, you have to break this up to continue progress. It’s often why companies find it so valuable to bring in consultants because they can bring a fresh mind to the problem. We become blinded by what we think we know.
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” -Confucius
It’s often helpful to have a phrase to use when making a mental shift. There is a concept in Zen Buddhism that I’ve been exploring lately, called ‘Shoshin’, translated as ‘The Beginner’s Mind’. It suggests that many of the issues and problems that stunt us in life can do so because we rely too heavily on our expertise to approach them. The idea is to remove the ego(all of your current assumptions and beliefs) from the predicament. It is difficult by nature because it means willfully swimming in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty. Assume you know nothing at all, and approach the situation with the eyes of a novice. Listen with fresh ears, a clear mind, without judgment.
This is a useful way of finding solutions to complicated problems. Getting ourselves unstuck, past mental blocks, navigating a conflict, or anything novel often benefits from taking a step back, clearing the slate, and approaching from a different angle. I’ve seen this sort of advice from countless sources over the years, but having a concise way of packaging the mental shift in your brain helps to utilize it more effectively when frustrations run deep and tensions are high.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki
For a deeper dive, here is more reading on Shoshin or ‘Beginners’ Mind’: https://www.dailyzen.com/journal/zen-mind-beginners-mind
