Beginners Mind

     Zen is full of paradoxical statements and other unlikely verbal bedfellows, many of which we find ourselves sitting with for long periods of time in utter confusion. In my case it would sometimes even be without enough understanding to be confused. Zen Master Hakuin spoke of a Great Ball of Doubt, Suzuki referred to Beginners Mind, and Philip Kapleau in his book “The Three Pillars of Zen,” simply referred to it as Doubt. I read the word Doubt many times and thinking I understood the authors use and meaning, it simply didn’t make any sense. How could doubting something increase your knowledge of it? Since I had learned by this point in my journey that my being confused was more about me than the author, I just let it go and continued to study and sit and listen.
     Several years later, having forgotten that I didn’t understand the doubting that others found instrumental to gaining enlightenment, I was listening to a Dharma talk twelve-hundred miles from home and “whack”, there it was. The speaker referenced doubting with the word "not-knowing." Whoa! It was as if the words kaleidoscopically came together and I almost cried. Out of nowhere I understood. I could see where I had for so long been completely blind - ignorant. It was obvious and quite simple. Doubt is not-knowing and furthermore, having an “open mind.”
     In her book, “Nothing Special: Living Zen,” Charlotte Joko Beck has written, “When nothing is special, everything can be.” The process of making something special (naming or judging) separates us from all aspects of that which is named which are thereby excluded. If we persist in this process we find ourselves hopelessly entrenched in the proverbial closed mind; closed to anything new and unable to be present to the moment as it is. Not-knowing and not making something special are two ways of saying the same thing.
     In the vernacular of Zen an Empty mind is the same as Beginner’s mind, Doubt, and Not-knowing. They all refer to having space within one’s view of the world to be open to really examining everything as though it were new and unfamiliar. An empty mind has much room for learning, whereas a mind that is full will have great difficulty absorbing anything that does not fit into the perspective to which it is attached. In other words all these terms - empty, beginner’s, not-knowing, and doubting - are referencing a particular posture of mind. It is a posture, or mental perspective, which allows for the introduction of something old or new, without preconceived opinions; without attachment to opinions.
     In the instance I have described about myself, my mind had a single definition for the word doubt and I was unable to adjust to a new one. I was unable to conceptualize a meaning different from the one I already had, and therefore my first reaction was to judge the new and confusing idea as wrong. That’s what we all do to one degree or another. The mind of a child, on the other hand, processes everything for the first time without prejudice. Not having prior experiences that pigeon-hole ideas, words, and feelings, she is learning for the first time what things mean. However once we learn something, our natural tendency is to resist having it questioned, confused, or reversed. Therefore, as we move further and further away from the malleable mind of childhood, we become increasingly entrenched in the illusion that what we know is the real and the only truth, and we are less able to learn.
     If my mind is not empty, in the sense of non-attachment - if it is filled with opinions or prejudices (recognized or otherwise) - I can do little but reinforce what I already think and this validation will be misinterpreted as proof of a truth beyond my personal vision. A mind that is empty on the other hand, is without preconceived definitions, explanations, and ideas about what is being observed. It is to see a thing “as it is”, not how I want it to be, or have been conditioned to see it.
     So how do we take an adult mind that is programmed to remain steadfast to its own perspective and make it empty, cause it to doubt, and render it not-knowing? Each of us has the ability to choose to be present to the world in this way and it is through meditation that we strengthen the muscles necessary to achieve this seemingly Herculean feat. We can begin by recognizing that posture is everything.