the beginner's mind

One of the big problems of reading too much or understanding a lot is arrogance. I have blogged about this in the past. I face arrogance. That is also possibly the reason I don’t read too much fiction as well. What on earth will that give me? I guess I underestimate the fun of reading for the sake of listening to a story. A story need not have deep meaning, it seeks to merely entertain and hopefully mesmerize the reader into a world of fantasy and imagination. Imagination lets us be unbounded by reality and hence the ability to experience what we physically can’t. I would not underestimate its power in doing good to the world and to the person. I am possibly a bundle of contradictions into myself.

But over the years I have learnt to be a little less arrogant or to put it right – I have learnt to overcome / hide my arrogance.  It’s a difficult thing to do.  To put it aside and constantly say I don’t know. Or there are things I don’t know. Or to constantly look for ways to prove yourself wrong. Arrogance can be defeated. It is possible. The right way is to constantly challenge everything. Nothing is real and nothing is the whole truth. In marketing I learnt there is the truth and then there is the truth. Dharen once explained to me that while doing research on hair oil, there is science that says that oil doesn’t permeate the scalp and possibly does nothing to the brain, but there is also the truth when the consumer says that when my mother puts oil in my hair and then I sit to study I can retain more.

To my mind that is the reality. What consumers feel or experience is something that can’t be challenged. They experience the impossible. That doesn’t make him deranged and to be dismissed. That makes it an interesting point of view. There are so many things the consumer says but also the truth is the things he doesn’t say. All this put together is the whole nebulous truth - if there ever was a paradox.

Over a period of time I have constantly tried to challenge what I know and what I feel. Its dam irritating and I understand the value or the pain of being a devil’s advocate. Society depends on progress and progress means taking a stand. And the sticking to it and going forward. You never know everything is an interesting concept but it can’t stop you from taking the steps forward.

Why all this philosophy all of a sudden? Just recently I came across this term “beginners mind”. It is a term from the zen philosophy -  Shoshin (初心)

And I quote from the Wikipedia -

Shoshin is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind". It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts.

The phrase is also used in the title of the book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, who says the following about the correct approach to Zen practice: In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.

Saadat A. Khan suggests that "Beginner's mind embodies the highest emotional qualities such as enthusiasm, creativity, zeal, and optimism. If the reader reflects briefly on the opposites of these qualities, it is clear to see that quality of life requires living with beginner's mind. With beginner's mind, there is boundlessness, limitlessness, an infinite wealth."

That’s right. The beginners mind. A child like curiosity to question everything and the ability to start afresh every time. It is extremely irritating but to constantly question everything is the greatest requirement to learn and to innovate. I try and get that in Jispa but it can get also pretty irritating. And a school with the focus on teaching 30 kids and going forward to a set syllabus is not conducive atmosphere for Shosin.

Yesterday Jispa asked me that ‘you said you could help me in History and geography. Right?”. “Yup. Ask”. “So, teacher was explaining large scale maps and small scale maps. I asked teacher this question and she explained something but I did not understand – if 1:100 is a small scale map and 1:10 is a large scale map, what are the maps in between called?”. This question is seemingly easy but at eth core of it it’s a tough one. For one there are no middle scale maps and the question is not of terms but to understand that sizes are relative and the terms are actually irrelevant. It took some amount of patience on Jasmine and my side and I could hear the irritation in our tones when  at eth end of a large explanation Jispa simply says – ‘I did not understand’.

All this Shosin posin is easier said than done.