Beginner's Mind vs "Inner Drives"

   The concept of having a beginner's mind often seems to run counter to a tendency to see novelty as a sign of progress. When I am in a bookstore, I have a craving to read every single book I see, knowing that each one contains a certain wisdom. But I feel like this urge to consume more and more is related to a more primitive drive that equates "accumulation" with "success". It's like that old story of Aesop about the Grasshopper and the Ant. While the grasshopper is busy enjoying himself and playing his fiddle, the ants store up their food for the winter and end up prevailing. In the same manner, I have a tendency of equating "more" and "new" with better. It would appear that I, like many human beings, am geared up to prefer both accumulation and novelty.

   The problem with too much of this "drive" is that it sacrifices depth and intensity for superficiality and breadth. But also, it leads to a kind of artificially induced boredom. If I see something I have "seen before" or "read before', I automatically assume that it is already known to me, so I might pass on and read something else. Or, worse still, I will feel that I am missing out on something else that is new to me that happens to be "somewhere else". Truly, however, is any book or paragraph exhaustible, or does it have multiple meanings? Here is where I think the concept of "beginner's mind" can be quite useful and empowering. If I can see that the same paragraph, when read at different times and in different contexts, can give rise to novel meanings, I am no longer bound to the idea of accumulation/novelty. These things cease to matter, in fact, when innumerable jewels exist in the same text. Many expressions tend to circle around this idea, such as how the river is never the same river from one moment to the next. But the point is: it really depends on one's mental attitude. If one's mental attitude is prepared to see newness even when they experience the familiar, then something overrides the habit of classifying similar experiences, and I am then seeing something anew-with a fresh new perspective. This ability to see the same thing through different eyes needs to be trained. It somehow needs to be disciplined. 

        I am not necessarily talking about meditation per se, but there needs to be a mindset or attitude that allows for surprise even when the text appears to yield information that we already know. And here is the point--this attitude must override a habitual way of pursuing only what appears as new or different. 

Self-Soothing in Meditation

  The "self-soothing" system is an idea that has been introduced to me in Paul Gilbert and Chodron's book, Mindful Compassion. The authors describe self-soothing as the part of one's body and mind that is associated with contentment, and which is often linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. Being content with what is: now why would that have ever been an evolutionary advantage for humans? In contrast with the drives toward fulfilment of hunger, status, etc. it would seem that the feeling of contentment would run counter to the drive for survival. However, self-soothing is important because without it, there wouldn't be any foundation for a social life or world. Instead of cherishing what they have in terms of their relationships and things, people would continue to strive for more things, which would certainly upset the ecological and social balance of life. For this reason, being content with what is or with what one has seems like an underrated but necessary element of human survival.

   How does "self-soothing" relate to meditation? The idea is that, by grounding one's experiences in the fundamental processes of the body--the abdomen and breath, for instance--one is tuning into aspects of their being that are not rooted in planning, strategizing or striving. Quite simply, these are the fundamental parts of our being that exist independently of thinking, planning and striving. They are not subject to gain or loss; they simply function to serve the body's survival. By tuning into these processes, people can turn to a more clear-minded, nonjudgmental acceptance of the world that is not subject to the ups and downs of trying to acquire or achieve things or, conversely, try to avoid unwanted things. 

    This idea reminds me that at the end of the day, humans are creatures--they are created and embodied. The body is a miracle, but I so rarely turn to it and see it for its amazing capabilities. Even the process of breathing is very complex and requires that many vital functions are in order, and yet none of these functions really requires my conscious effort, assistance or guidance. Many processes, in fact, work in this way, without the brain having to tell it to do so. For this reason, I have to only marvel at it and observe it gratefully when I am meditating.

Compassionate Balance

 I am reading a book called Mindful Compassion by Paul Gilbert and Choden, which talks about the notion that compassion is not about trying to be calm and serene in the face of difficulties, but more so about facing difficulties squarely and with honesty. This requires a keen mindfulness of "difficult" or problematic emotions that we might wish to best leave behind.The authors poignantly note:

If we set out to get rid of our rage, vengeance, sexual desires, anxiety, and all the other stuff that goes on in our heads, then we will be constantly monitoring if we've been successful or not, and this will undermine our mindfulness practice. Moreover, how can we understand or relate to humanity? (p.173)

The difficulty in relating to this excerpt, for me, is that there is a fine line between beholding pain and suffering and "giving into it" or "reacting to it". I think this is the tricky aspect of compassion practice. On the one hand, there are those who regard aforesaid emotions as "impure" (Buddhists included), and therefore as karmic obstructions that need to be somehow purged. While I think this is an important aspect of Buddhist practice, in fact, there is nothing in mind that is truly impure, if we are able to behold it with a certain detachment that is not self-involved. This is the level of seeing emotions as energies rather than as qualities belonging to the self. It's only when I add the second thought of "this is my emotion" that I start to feed into the sense of self, and therefore start to feel the compulsion to act on those feelings and thoughts.

    On the other hand, spiritual practitioners might also fall into the error of believing that, because phenomenon are "empty" in nature, one does not need to worry about the consequences of acting on those emotions. This is to deny the rule of karma and to get deeper into enmeshment. So I think an important practice is to try to see all emotions with a certain kind of loving presence that does not attach to one feeling or the other, thinking it is "mine". This way of thinking might also include wallowing in emotions: saying, for instance, "this is who I am and there's no way to change me". One has already fallen into the unfortunate trap of confusing emotions for the self.

   Reading novels can sometimes help us practice this art of beholding. Have you ever read a novel and became so identified with one particular character, story, or narrative, that you essentially cut out the rest of the characters as "worthy" of identification? When reading books, one can observe the ways in which some characters stand to represent 'ourselves' while others are marginalized or seen as "others". This mirrors the experience of everyday life, moment to moment. So in those instances, we need to step back and ask ourselves: which one of these phenomena is truly "me', and which are the "others"? Then we can practice somehow not making a hard boundary between self and others: to behold different permutations in how the text might be experienced depending on the reader's identity or the character's identity. But overall, again, the idea is not to judge one character or prefer one over the other, but to try to look at the whole situation with a sort of loving detachment: seeing "this is it" and observing the intricate dynamics without attaching to one particular scene or another.

Gilbert, P. & Choden (2014). Mindful Compassion. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger