The wise person is the one who doesn’t lose the child’s heart and mind. – Mencius
How to have a “beginner’s mind” that is empty and ready for new things:
- Assume you are an idiot.
- Stop talking and start asking.
- Don’t feel compelled to contribute to the conversation. Just observe. Don’t look for opportunities to agree or disagree.
How can you develop a Beginner’s Mind, a mind open to many possibilities, a mind ready to ask questions?
Here are a few practices from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen:
- Take one step at a time.
- Fall down seven times, get up eight times.
- Use Don’t Know mind. Don’t pre-judge.
- Live without shoulds.
- Make use of experience. Don’t negate experience, but keep an open mind on how to apply it to each new circumstance.
- Let go of being an expert.
- Experience the moment fully.
- Disregard common sense.
- Discard fear of failure.
- Use the spirit of enquiry.
- Focus on questions, not answers.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. – Shunryu Suzuki
