Observing with a Beginner Mind
Tell me what you feel when you see this picture:
just feel the impression it leaves you.
If you gaze at it for a while something will emerge, and hopefully is not just the chat in the mind.
I am searching for an impression.
Many times we all have a very loud mind that distracts us from the beauty around us. I personally found in meditation as a way to learn how to follow the brain only when needed.
So back to the picture…with a quiet mind, what is the impression it leaves you ?
A very nice exercise to quiet the mind can be simply to try to observe what you are experiencing with a beginner mind. This is a mindfullness term, and describes perfectly the simplicity of observing what is around you, with all your senses, with a fresh eyes/ears/senses.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” — Suzuki Roshi
Having such an attitude can lead to rediscovering the magic in your life.
With that said, let’s look at another picture:
Be a beginner — observe.
See the beauty of light interacting with the water, the elongated shapes, or all the small crests.
The light coming through the leaves and almost kissing them and the grass, to then sink in the center of the lake.
Did you spot a small light coming through in the upper left part of the picture in the leaves ?
By observing we can not only find back the magic, but actually we can have personal interpretations and impressions of what is going on.
It is easier to do it in the moment than through a picture, but hopefully I gave you the idea!
Observing with a beginner mind is the first step to create a personal interpretation of reality around us — magic, simple, tragic, complex, but ultimately ours.
You can apply observing through your senses to everything else around you, not only nature.
When is the last time you looked your loved one in the eyes ? Did you notice the amazing color of his/her eyes ?
When is the last time you hugged someone for some seconds ? Feeling the body of the other — simply being close to you ?
Observation with a beginner mind can be applied also to reading and learning.
An experiment I am doing is to read a book about a new subject and trying just to notice my impressions when I read, and take notes about those.
What is your interpretation of that phrase? What do you like about that ? What moved you when reading those words ?
“The habit of reading with a great attention; of not being satisfied by understanding a little, of giving my consensus too early to what happens around me.” — Marcus Aurelius, Reflections I.7
All this can lead to another side effect: knowing yourself more.
Know Thyself — and your energies.
By observing what you are experiencing (and of course experience it) and by noticing what happens into yourself you are entering into your inner kingdom.
In ancient Greek there was the famous “γνῶθι σαυτόν” — know thyself that was part of a bigger “framework” known as “ ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ” — self care (as it is translated now).
Socrates was the originator of this “framework”, considered at the time more a collection of behaviors including the know thyself, but also many different ethical, philosophical, spiritual and political (as in ancient Greece definition) studies and knowledge.
As a personal view on the subject, I interpret “self care” (a term that I don’t like because of the current meaning) not as a way of justifying being selfish but instead as an exploration of our inner world to find a balance with what is outside of us, how to follow more ourselves, how to not give our power to situations that we don’t have controls and so on (I’ll come back in another post about Stoicism to talk about that).
At the end, it is all a matter of energy.
How do you spend your energies ?
Where do you spend your energies ?
With who ?
Living a better life is a constant balancing process between knowing ourselves, that like fire constantly change but its core is the same, and how we use our energies on a day-to-day basis.
It is not an esoteric/spiritual process at all, it is really simple and practical way of looking at things.
It is proven that meditation changes the way the brain works (link , link2), and that where you put your attention you spend energies, so knowing where and how you spend your energies (brain, physical…) is paramount.
I encourage you to be curious about being more aware of what is going on in your brain and body.
With gentleness and no judgement.
I covered many topics that were spinning in my head while writing this, I’ll leave you some links to observe and get your impression of what I am saying.
I don’t claim this is right, because it is just my simple opinion.
