"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."
There's good reason why this line from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi's teachings in the book, 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind', is so famous and often quoted. It contains a world of richness and the sense is immediately clear.
Hence it is profound because it is basic. It's arresting because it's simple. And so it calls us back to the liberating potential that is always available if we can drop our egotistical, socialised and in a sense, neurologically wired instinct for needing to know or categorise or conceptualise everything because we imagine it will secure our future, and instead, just allow for what is.
Not what we think or want things to be, not what we imagine they should or could be, nor what we fear they will or won't be. But just facing and feeling (rather than thinking about) what is.
Caring less and getting free
I'm currently in the process of moving house, relocating some distance from the city to the English countryside with my partner and our cohabiting cat. All bar a handful of my beloved books and notebooks are in boxes. The shelves are empty. The kitchen is packed, leaving me and my partner with one plate, one bowl, one cup, one glass and one set of cutlery each.
The impatience that sometimes besets domestic chores of tidying and cleaning has been replaced with the relief of having to care a little less. The lack of access to my books, after an initial sense of lack due to being left with only my own thoughts and words and no recourse to check that what I know is right or true, has similarly relieved me of compulsive habits that tend to have me reaching, grasping, wanting, thinking I need more and something else.
Everything has been put away, in preparation for a fresh start. The blank slate of half an acre of land awaits that we intend to cultivate in our aspiration to continue living more seasonally, mindfully and peacefully, with a closer connection to the Earth, away from the noise and the din of city living that has been our environment in Bristol (and which we gladly enjoyed) for a long while.
It’s time to move on. Open up to new possibilities.
In the face of change
Contemplating what awaits, as the mind leaps to the prospect of all the unknown, has brought on episodes of mild panic as much as excitement during this transitional phase. Change awakens habitual impulses of the mind "needing" to know - what next, what will happen if, what about, x y z, how will we deal with all the things we don't yet know?
Writing that sentence makes me laugh with tenderness at myself for the ridiculousness of the mind that wants to cling to something, anything, because of the veiled reassurance that comes from having a semblance of control.
The practice of watching my mind, a practice shaped by studying Zen alongside other core Dharma and Yoga practices over the years, has enabled me to pause and step back and do this, to observe what's going on rather than get sucked into the tidal waves of hope and fear. To be aware of and catch this instinct to leap into the future, to befriend my habits and detach a little more each time when they rise up to the surface and threaten to drag me under. I say occasionally because very often, I will follow the tides in and out in a restless chasing and releasing of the spiralling thoughts.
This is the imperfection and the compassion that is the practice, as Taosim, the Dharma and Zen so beautifully teaches; the mind is neither good nor bad, the flaws and the tremors in the mindscape that we see in meditation (and life, for they are one and the same, tools and mirrors you could say) are just the mind being mind - we can see and let it be with practice, rather than get swept away. And when we do get swept away, we have the capacity, the agency, the consciousness that allows us to take a sense and sanity check and return to the fundamental simplicity and the basic awareness of what is here and now - not what is and what if.
All of which is to say, I have, of course, gotten swept away A LOT lately, my mental monkey has been bouncing around and keeping me awake in the very literal and insomniac rather than enlightened sense, planning and packing in my mind, preparing for the future, both the day ahead and the weeks to follow.
It's normal, though not necessary or helpful, for the mind to want the answers that it decidedly and desperately believes will stave off uncertainty and provide some solid ground. It's when I've noticed then gotten off the spinning wheel, that I've returned to joy in the better moments, less anxiety in the more heightened moments, and simple ease in the steady ones.
Because I don’t really need to know, I cannot know, there are no absolute answers and it doesn’t really matter as much as my mind thinks it should or does. It’s all a trap, a false veneer of security, to keep me, us, spinning. If there is an answer to any of it, it’s to stop.
Shifting perspective beyond hope and fear
My job as a writer when supporting other people to get to the heart of what they mean and wish to say, when guiding them towards clarity and out of cliche and confusion, is to wonder why and what, and help them question their thoughts and ideas.
We can all get hung up on words and rightly so, to a degree, because they matter, in terms of how we use and deliver them, and the context within which we apply them. There is both intention and impact to consider, and the responsibility of helping rather than harming, facilitating understanding rather than discord, in so far as we have the power to do so.
One recent conversation led to a debate around some words relating to a project where the intention is to convey the potential of journeys and the idea of motion. One word that inspired debate was "departures". There was a visceral retraction and grimace among some people that after digging deeper, revealed a concern over the suggestion of finality, the dread of an ending, the fear of nowhere else to go.
I countered this - both because that's my role and because I believe there's far more to departures (as with most words) than what we might have been led to think by personal experience, by history, by public discourse or by intellectualised notions of what words mean and we then believe can only mean.
Yes it's true that to depart denotes an ending, a sense of moving away. It's equally true that within that is contained the possibility of moving on, not of finality but of transition - and therein lies the potential for either hope or fear, or a third and middle way, which is simply opening up and allowing for something else, for possibility rather than finality, in word or sentiment. A departure can be an opening. As with so much in life, and particularly the unexpected and the unknown, it's a matter of shifting perspective, getting curious and letting go of the need for anything to be so particular.
Care for the words, yes, care a little less for the constrictions that bind us to them and check if those constrictions are about a meaning that isn't or doesn't have to be a definitive or limiting narrative.
The heart of the matter
One of the few books I've kept close by, always, and especially now when I put all the others away to rest awhile, is the Tao Te Ching. Because it offers and returns me to the serenity of simplicity.
Right now, it gives a place from which the mind can leap away from the consuming worldly tasks and ground itself in a deeper contemplation of what truly matters.
On the penultimate night in the current house, after a busy day of packing, loving goodbyes, challenging transitions, heated exchanges, and finalising work projects, the book fell open to chapter 8. Reading these words from Lao Tzu, I felt a wave of relief begin to dissolve a heap of accumulated tension, as I remembered what’s real, thanks to the reassuringly simple answers reflected back at me from the questions of what and why we're doing this, how we can skillfully embrace change, and the real benefits of doing so when we keep it simple:
"In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family, be completely present."
What else really needs to be said, other than ahhh, yes, yes yes!
May all beings find a way to settle and dissolve the ripples that stir the waters, allowing for a greater sense of peace and ease in body, heart, and mind. Onwards!
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