The Beginner’s Mind

As 2023 ends and I reflect on 2024, I am once again seeking to release the old and start fresh.  As I engage in this process, I find myself considering questions such as: How committed am I to that fresh start?  Am I willing to go deep? 

My intentions may be sincere, but this annual exercise can easily become a simple recycling of my habitual ways of doing things.  There is nothing wrong with this.  This recycling has served me in the past and has opened me up to new things.  But this year, I feel called to something more. 

This year my heart’s desire is to engage life with what the Buddhists refer to as the beginner’s mind.  The beginner’s mind is an approach to life that is free from preconceived ideas and expectations.  It entails cultivating a mind with the innocence and curiosity of a child.  It entails a spacious, open awareness to life as it is without all our accumulated filters.

Thich Nacht Hahn reminds us that “The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.”  The beginner’s mind allows us to be fully here, thereby allowing us to receive each moment fully and freely, and fosters and eagerness to learn, and to creatively explore new possibilities.

There has been a lot of turmoil in our world over the past several years, and there are many complex challenges facing our species.  I believe these challenges require us to approach things differently, to step outside of what we think we know, and to unleash the latent creativity of each moment – thereby opening the doors to future moments filled with opportunities for a world filled with peace, harmony, and love for all.

As we begin this new year, I choose to see the potential in each situation and each person, and to seek to unleash that potential so as to create that world with each of you.

Happy New Year!