Put your preconceptions aside: begin with a beginner's mind

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few” Shunryu Suzuki

In September of 2015 something fascinating happened. A group of three individuals defeated the Harvard University undergraduate debate team. The victors team was not like any regular university team you may know. It was a group of prisoners from the Eastern New York Correctional Facility. Yes, you read it right, people with criminal records, one of them for manslaughter. The debate was carried out at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison. It is not surprising that most of the bets were on the Harvard team winning, who had previously won three times at the American Parliamentary Debate Association National Championships. To make it even more difficult, the prisoners on the debate team didn’t have access to the Internet. Further, access to books and articles for research was approved by the prison administration, which could take up to several weeks, making debate prep an evening more challenging task for the inmates.

In general, I think most people don’t consider a debate and their winners as national news, but when the assumptions that we hold in our minds about a group of people are shaken, particularly when they concern a group of people usually viewed with less respect, it is worth understanding why.

Most of us probably have a lot of preconceived assumptions about prisoners and the students hailing from an Ivy League institution such as Harvard. We probably consider the first group, the prisoners, as losers, and the latter group, the Harvard students, as winners, and that is indeed a preconception. Only if we let go those assumptions and allow the potential of the possibilities to wander in our minds, we can truly understand the value of the world in front of us, and the value of the people in it, regardless of their condition or situation. Our assumptions and preconceptions give us a very partial story of the people or things upon which we place those assumptions. These assumptions are a limitation on our own capacity to see the invisible, to understand the inexplicable, and to give meaning to what seems to be trivial. It seems natural that our initial reaction to such a story and each party’s ability is distorted by the way we think and our beliefs. However, if we were to view this debate practicing the principles of the beginner’s mind, we can see the possibilities of the prison debate team because they are more than just prisoners, they too have experiences and intelligence, capacities and skills.

To practice the beginner’s mind is to empty our minds from preconceptions, or habits; to let go, at least for a moment, those learned premises about how we think and believe the world is or should be, and approach situations with openness. Only by emptying our minds, not necessarily from the experiences and knowledge that we have gained over time, but from the assumption that that knowledge determines how the world is and works, can we be ready to doubt, stay open to infinite realities, and accept what happens to us, or what we intentionally promote. This doesn’t mean that what we have learned throughout our lives won’t be useful. Seeking knowledge is our essence as human beings, and the reason why we are curious in the first place. But a beginner’s mind helps us observe the world as it is. The prisoners’ team that defeated Harvard is made of individuals, like you and me, who made big mistakes and are paying big time for it. In a limited mind, they are just prisoners who won by luck. In the beginner’s mind, they are humans who worked really hard to succeed.

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 About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an HR Professional at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique researches and writes about leadership and HR and seeks to explore the overlaps of productivity and leadership in the business and non-profit world. Enrique is also a competitive ultrarunner.

Twitter: @erubio_p

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