Mindfulness, Key 3: Beginner's Mind

[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Mindfulness for Health: Health Psychology ?2023]

When was the last time you truly had a beginner’s mind?

Or perhaps this isn’t uncommon for you – if you’re an artist, say, or maintain a close relationship with the natural world – or with children. Perhaps you’re often filled with awe and wonder, delight and glee, curiosity and openness to new ideas and experiences, and accepting of change.

Are you?

This isn’t a typical state for adults, no matter what our cultural background; we like to feel that we’re mature, perhaps sophisticated, and maybe even a little jaded – we’ve seen and done plenty, and little can surprise us. ‘Beginner’s mind’ doesn’t mean a return to childhood, however, nor that we should become childish – or even, childlike. (Not really.)

Of course, in one sense, being a beginner is uncomfortable. We may be well capable, with a strong sense of self-efficacy and empowerment, and then take a language course for example, and find ourselves helpless once more. No one particularly likes this feeling.

Travel can also give us this experience; even as we can plan well and circumvent much of that helplessness, we are still beginners in the new environment. We may experience plenty of joy and wonder as we visit new lands, while nature is another such source. Creativity, too, as we pursue the creation of something new, whether object or idea, and are open to alternatives, curious about possibility. Living abroad – something I’ve done for these past two decades in a series of countries and continents, is another such challenge, often bringing a sense of helplessness yet also with many moments of awe. Too many times, when things in the new country are done in a way remarkably different from what I know, and I haven’t sufficient local contacts or support, or simply can’t function in the local language, I’ve said (often in frustration): It’s like having to learn, all over again, how to tie your own shoes.

And why is this beginner’s mind so important to mindfulness?

The state of mind we seek is one of new experience – openness, flexibility, and an absence of preconceived ideas. If we come to mindfulness already thinking we know all about it, no matter how many books we’ve read or other forms of self-exploration we’ve undertaken, we’re likely to miss half of the experience. We’ve come with a mind half-closed because we think we already know ourselves, and/or the process of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is mental training, yes, and self-exploration even as Buddhists belief the self to be an illusion (and not only Buddhists – the existence of the self as a distinct structure is debated in psychology, too). We explore our mental-emotional terrain in order to know it fully, to understand reality, and ultimately, to experience interconnectedness with all sentient beings and transcend the self entirely, or to the degree possible. All of this requires a ‘willing suspension of disbelief,’ as is said in the performing arts; in mindfulness meditation, for example, we must be open to whatever may come, no matter what, looking at our own thoughts, emotions, mental phenomena openly and objectively, with compassion, before sending them on their way.

And this doesn’t only apply to those who truly are beginners in mindfulness (yet who may think they know themselves quite well already); it’s also true for experienced practitioners. Almost despite my near-4 decades of mindfulness practice, not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new about myself, and about mindfulness itself, and that pleases me enormously. At times I even finding myself laughing out loud, that at this stage of life and of mind exploration, I so frequently discover new aspects – and I realize anew how very little I truly know. (I suspect multiple lives are indeed required.) Too, there’s a pure joy to be found in being a beginner, in admitting freely that there’s far more you don’t know than you do, and in embracing an experience as fully as possible.

These qualities also relate to peak experience, as described by Maslow, founder of humanistic and transpersonal fields of psychology and theorist of the now widely known hierarchy of human needs. Peak or transcendent experience is that which lifts the top of your head just a bit, as your mind is expanded with awe, and bliss. Birth of a baby, wonders of nature, sudden insight: these are all peak experiences, and meditation can bring the same. Mindfulness in everyday life, too: as we pay attention to our lives, our chance of peak experience and of awe, in many factors previously taken for granted, is exponentially increased.

Imagine walking somewhere in a natural setting. You can rush through, eager to reach the mountain’s peak or to finish the trek; or, you can meander, notice everything, take joy in a vast parade of ants as they go about their complex colony business. (That last bit happened to me only yesterday.) Clearly, taking that walk as a form of moving meditation, mindfully and with an openness of heart, will make for a far richer experience.

Oishi and Westgate (2022) have proposed just that. While we typically think of life goals in terms of happiness and/or presence of meaning, both of which are surely significant, they suggest that there’s a third approach: the psychologically rich life, filled with new experiences, wonder and awe, changes in perspective, transcendence – and, that curiosity and openness provide the way.

In a review of 41 experimental studies, totaling 4,496 participants, Schutte and Malouff (2022) demonstrated the power of curiosity-enhancing interventions – ways that curiosity can be increased, as it brings many benefits such as creativity, problem-solving, memory, cognitive enhancement, and more. They found that activities involving mystery or game-playing were the most likely to stimulate curiosity, regardless of age or other factors.

It may seem easier to cultivate this ‘beginner’s mind’ when things are going well, and that hardship or suffering would cause one to become more closed to experience. While there is some truth to this, Forgeard et al. (2022) found that openness to experience remains stable following difficulty; we may fall off the horse, and even break a bone or two, but we’re still likely to get back up on the horse at the next opportunity. Humans are resilient, after all – and mindfulness enhances resilience too, so this becomes a feedback loop: we cultivate a beginner’s mind in order to engage in mindfulness, which increases our resilience; when adversity comes, rather than shut down, we remain open because of that increased resilience – and thus, remain capable of mindfulness.

Even in the face of moral injury, the wounding that strikes at the core of who we think ourselves to be (e.g., the profound compromise in one’s religious belief or other source of meaning following war or natural disaster), if we have psychological flexibility we’re better able to recover (Borges et al., 2022); equally, cultivating that flexibility even in the midst of attempting to heal from such injury will help us to do so. We can equate mental flexibility to beginner’s mind.

For the health psychologist, helping the person facing physical and/or mental health concerns to adopt a beginner’s mind, of openness, curiosity, and acceptance, is a very useful therapeutic starting point. Rather than thinking we already know how to handle the situation, being openminded in this way helps us to learn new methods and approaches, to benefit from the experience of others.

So, how do we cultivate a beginner’s mind?

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Exercises:

Grow your curiosity. What are you curious about? And what more? And what’s beneath or tangential to that? Treat life like you would a Wikipedia entry; let everything that sparks your initial curiosity lead you to something else, and another, and another until you find yourself increasingly curious about, well, everything.

Engage in a perspective-broadening exercise. On a piece of paper, write a controversial topic at the top – and 3-4 points supporting the side of the issue opposite to how you really feel. Think deeply, try not to judge, and simply support that opposing side, in order to develop your ability to think more objectively.

Simple brainstorming is a good exercise for opening one’s mind. Again, on paper, write a single word in the center – anything you choose – and then, as rapidly as possible, fill the page with as many related words and ideas as possible, and see where it takes you. (Speed is important; keep your creative thinking a step ahead of your inner critic, filtering nothing.) Do this regularly, on a range of topics. Engage also in mind-mapping, similar to the above but also drawing lines between words to indicate relationships; look for connections.

If you’re inclined toward language study, begin learning a new one – in a class with other beginners, or by app alternating among several languages. Language is fundamental to how we know ourselves; learning a new one not only throws us back into beginner’s mind, but also opens up our view of ourselves at the same time.

Taking a course in anything for the first time surely cultivates beginner’s mind, especially if the course topic is unrelated to anything we’ve studied previously. We all like to feel skilled and capable, but learning something new reminds us, largely on an unconscious level, what being a beginner actually feels like.

Similarly, travel – solo – to a destination very different from your usual type. Even as you engage in preparation, as one must, allow for a change of plans at any moment, and be open to new experience as much as possible.

Ask questions. Incessantly, if only in your own mind (or your journal). Pretend to yourself that you’re an investigative journalist – or a toddler – and keep asking questions. (About yourself, too.)

Invite the opinions of others whom you trust, and genuinely listen to and consider them. Again, we generally like to feel that we know what we’re doing and not to seem hesitant or unsure in front of others. But in asking for someone’s input or feedback, you’re allowing the other person a moment to feel helpful, and allowing yourself a moment or two of being humble – or, of experiencing beginner’s mind.

Experiment. Take risks. As you’re trying new things, also try doing your regular activities in a way different than you normally do. Embrace variety, diversity, exploration. Get lost once in a while. See the world anew.

9 Keys to Mindfulness for Health, by Anne Hilty, ?2023

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References:

Borges LM, Barnes SM, Farnsworth JK et al. (2022). Cultivating psychological flexibility to address religious and spiritual suffering in moral injury. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy 28:S1, S32-S41. https://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2022.2031467

Forgeard M, Roepke AM, Atlas S et al. (2022). Openness to experience is stable following adversity: A case-control longitudinal investigation. European Journal of Personality 36:4, 483-506. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070221076902

Oishi S and Westgate EC (2022). A psychologically rich life: Beyond happiness and meaning. Psychological Review 129:4, 790-811. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000317

Schutte NS and Malouff JM (2022). A meta-analytic investigation of the impact of curiosity-enhancing interventions. Current Psychology 42, 20374-20384. ?https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03107-w

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