Shoshin: The Beginner’s Mind

Oconomowoc Lake, WI October 2018

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

~Marcel Proust

Shoshin: The Way Forward

It is very healing to begin each day, each moment like a novice. The strategy of letting go of preconceptions, allowing room for Wonder and the unknown is a road map to freedom for the brain injured. It can guide us past the pain and anxiety, past the wanting our old life back. It gives us a path to see our circumstances with new eyes and allows us to move forward. Shoshin is a word from Zen Buddhism that means “beginner’s mind.” I was first introduced to this concept while reading one of my favorite daily meditation books, The Buddhist Path to Simplicity: Spiritual Practice for Everyday Life by Christina Feldman. I had read and re-read this same book for over a decade. But it wasn’t until I was recovering from my brain injury that I truly began to understand that a beginner's mind was the way forward.

Part of the Dance

Recovering from any sort of brain injury is daunting at best. It is so easy to get stuck in the past - in the reaching back. We must find a way to let go and start each day, each moment anew. In the concluding chapter of her book, Christina Feldman writes:

“Tragedy and amnesia are not recommended ways to cultivate a beginner’s mind. Yet the beginner’s mind is a pivotal key to unlocking the peace of simplicity. It is the simple clarity of the beginner’s mind that enables us to enter each moment…free of prejudice and history. The cultivation of the beginner’s mind is what frees us to greet every moment in our life with an openhearted welcome, to see ourselves, other people, and all of life anew; to be able to make new beginnings.” i have discovered that moving forward with a beginner's mind is not as easy as it sounds. It requires us to let go and surrender to the unknown. Something I struggled against and still do. But that's OK - its all part of the dance.

New Eyes

January, the beginning of a new year, is a most appropriate time to think about Shoshin. This is a new year. Today is a new day. This moment is a new moment. We cannot afford to keep placing our life on hold, to keep waiting to be symptom free or whatever it is we are waiting for. Let’s enter this moment, this day, this year with new eyes and open hearts. Stay open to the Wonder!

Peace,

Sharon