Our attachment to the past, while rampant and prevalently ongoing, goes
almost unnoticed. It goes almost unnoticed not because we don't know
we're attached to the past. It goes almost unnoticed because it's so
much a part of our modus operandi, it's so much part of how we
are that we rarely consider the possibility of not being
attached to the past.
In much the same way as a fish doesn't distinguish it lives in water
because it's always there, because that's how it always is for a
fish, in much the same way as a bird doesn't distinguish it lives in
air because it's always there, because that's how it always is for a
bird, so we don't distinguish we live in the past ie we're attached to
the past - because it's always there, because that's how it always is
for us human beings.
If I stop and notice the form of my attachment to the past, if I stop
and take notice of how living attached to the past
shows up,
I notice I constantly compare current situations to those
I already know. It's not something I do consciously. It's not something
I do deliberately. It's simply
machinery
which incessantly repeats the mantra (if you will)
"This reminds me of something which happened earlier" ...
"This is like something I already know" ...
"This resembles something I'm familiar with" ... over and
over and over again.
The
machinery
incessantly comparing current situations to those I already know,
doesn't
show up
for me as unusual. The way I compare everything to something I already
know, is just the way I am ... or so I say. It's how I
judge things. It's how I look for their validity. I almost
never look at things the way they are without
comparing them to what I already know. Looking at things the way they
are without comparing them to what I already know, is called
"beginner's mind", a not necessarily elusive, difficult, or
far fetched way of looking at things.
"Beginner's mind" was first articulated in the annals of
Zen.
If beginner's mind is looking at things the way they are without
comparing them to what we already know, you could say beginner's mind
is setting aside what we already know when it comes to
assessing something new. It's more than that actually. You could say
beginner's mind is setting aside what we already know when it comes to
assessing anything in front of us. You could say
beginner's mind is not being held hostage by our memories of what's
already happened. You could say beginner's mind is in effect having
no memory.
There are a number of scenarios which could result in what I'm calling
"having no memory". But the ones I'm considering for the purpose of
this conversation aren't the ones you may think I have in mind. I'm not
talking about having no memory as a result of illness. I'm not talking
about having no memory as a result of injury. I'm not talking about
having no memory as a result of aging. I'm not even talking about
having no memory as a result of drinking
too muchwine.
There are two ways I'm speaking about having no memory. The first way
I'm speaking about having no memory is intentionally setting memory
aside. But it's the second way I'm speaking about having no memory,
havingnomemory, which is the powerful and
(another) entirely appropriate
Zen
distinction. Notice it's the former, intentionally setting memory
aside, which is the access to the latter, having no memory.
The former is an act of intention. The latter is a possibility.
So beginner's mind is the possibility of having no memory. The beauty
of this is you can't be beginner's mind if you're
unwilling to confront the
machinery
you are. It's in confronting the
machinery
we are that we discover the access to being beginner's mind. It's the
same access, by the way, to discovering
who we really are.