What Do you Wish You REALLY Understood?
“You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” ― Barbara Sher What do YOU wish you really understood? It is easy to get stuck in our routines and forget to explore. When we stop exploring we stop being a beginner. Being a beginner can be a good practice. When we are a beginner we have to be willing to make mistakes or even look foolish. Beginning something is filled with promise, possibility, and fear. It’s a risk to begin anything new. Beginning is a practice that invites us to humility, listening, courage and hope. Shoshin is a zen word that means having a beginner mind. I stumbled upon the concept of shoshin thinking about this question. It’s new to me, but I love the concept. When we have a beginner’s mind we let go of all our preconceptions about a topic and learn without bias. Think of the last time you set out to learn something new. It was all fresh, you were aware of your fragility and limited knowledge. You were probably willing to listen closely and carefully to the expert who was guiding you. Your brain was literally making new connections. ShoShin is an invitation to adopt the posture of a beginner, even in the things that we know that we know that we know. There is always a new angle, an unexamined bias, or a blind spot that we can explore. Shoshin is a humble practice. To approach something new or something old that we want to see with new eyes takes humility and courage. What if we examine our long-held political, theological, relational, or philosophical ideas with the posture of a beginner? What would we find? “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” -Shunryo Suzuki The past year was a lot of different things. As I’ve been pondering being a beginner I’ve realized that 2020-2021 was a divine invitation into being a beginner. None of us had lived in a worldwide pandemic. We had to feel our way through so many new things: masks, health orders, grocery stores without groceries, mainstays of our culture closing. (schools, I’m looking at you.) Whether we wanted to or not we have all experienced being a beginner. What do you wish you understood? Where do you need to become a beginner? Do you want to understand poetry, physics, baking bread, weaving, improv, math? The possibilities and potential for understanding are endless. Maybe intentionally becoming a beginner would be a good practice? Can you take 5 minutes today to start to learn just one thing about that topic? Then imagine if you took 5 minutes tomorrow, and the next day and the next. Within a short time, you will know way more than you know today! You don’t have to become an expert, but you can start. You can be a beginner! Speaking of being a beginner. . I started a newsletter! It’s called Smaller & Deeper. It can arrive in your inbox every Sunday evening. It’s an invitation to explore what it means to live smaller and deeper. (Click on the link below to explore and maybe join me?!) “Go wide, explore, and learn new things. Something will surely have a kick for you” ― Mustafa Saifuddin “Every time you have to make a choice about anything, think “Does this go toward or away from what I want?” Always choose what goes toward what you want.” ― Barbara Sher If you like these questions, please consider SUBSCRIBING to The Art of Powering Down; Questions to Recharge Your Soul… Every week there is a question that will gently challenge you, encourage you, or help you live your life with more intention, grace, and purpose. (Sharing these reflections and questions with friends is the greatest compliment!)
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