Tricycle's Daily Dharma: Beginner's Mind

A recent edition of Tricycle magazine's on-line Daily Dharma, entitled Changing Our Lives Through Action, reminded me of two books which had an impact on me during college. The effect of having read them still lingers today. Both the title of one of the books, and the quote, share a particularly meaningful two word series:

Finding and maintaining right livelihood does require regular, consistent action, but the steps are clear and the results immediate. Finding your own right livelihood depends primarily on getting in touch with your "beginner's mind." from Mindfulness and
Meaningful Work from Everyday Mind by Claude Whitmyer

While an eighteen year-old undergraduate in the Literature program at SUNY Brockport, one of the first classes a took, and one that would come to have a significant impact on my future career choice, was a World Literature class. One of the texts shared in the class was a small tome entitled Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel.

This book was my personal introduction to the spiritual/philosophical world outside Roman Catholicism, the faith in which I had been raised. As such, I was drawn into the fasciniating mix of seemingly simple, multi-layered language and complex disicpline Zen Buddhism involved. After finishing Herrigel's book, I began combing the shelves of the off-campus bookstore shelves for similairy themed books.

It was here among some forgotten philosophy books that I came across Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice by Shunryu Suzuki.

Like the quote from Daily Dharma, both Suzuki and Herrigel's books speak to the necessity of clearing one's thoughts (mind) to achieve a more meaningful life (action). This is of course easier said and attempted than done and is perhaps why I find it easier to achive any prolonged meditative state while running. When the body (action) is fully engaged, my mind can more easily turn inward, similiar, I would guess, to the experience of counting breathes, or chanting. The true beginner's mind though requires great discipline in practice to achieve. This is where I fall short, not in my knowledge of "what to do," but in my practice of doing so meaningfully.

While I am trying to find the path, I've still got a lot to learn...

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!