Beginner's Mind - - a note to the experienced

[Budoka]

Terry Dobson once said that he'd give anything to regain what he called "beginner's mind"; that feeling you had when you first started training, when every class was an exciting, new experience. When you first learn to do tenkan without overturning or underturning, when you first do a forward roll without hearing the rest of your body slap against the mat, when you manage to do irimi nage without tipping over. . .

I began training in Aikido in 1992. My training has been off and on these last couple of years, and I no longer feel the same level of desire to train as I once did. I've come across other teachers in other arts, I've tried training in kenjutsu, but never have recaptured that beginners mind. I'm likely to begin training in a new town with a new instructor as soon as an injury heals, and I want to make sure that I go in with that same sense of desire as I did eight years ago.

Is this mindset something that is lost forever? Or is there some way of holding on to it? Let's face it, beginner's mind is a state, and any state is controllable.

Your thoughts and insights are welcome. I'd especially like to hear from those of you with 15, 20, 25 years of training.

[BC]

Originally posted by Budoka

Is this mindset something that is lost forever? Or is there some way of holding on to it? Let's face it, beginner's mind is a state, and any state is controllable.


I've always thought of beginner's mind as NOT being in control and accepting it. Not that I'm an expert, but to me beginner's mind means approaching life with an "empty cup" - without any preconceived notions of what should or will happen, or that I have any knowledge of such.

As a side note, one of my favorite experiences of observing beginner's mind is when, during class one day, the instructor demonstrated a somewhat esoteric and unusal technique, and had the class split into three groups of around seven or eight people each to practice from lines. Everyone (including senior yudansha) was kind of scratching their heads trying to figure out how to do this technique and struggling when their turn came, with no one getting it quite right. Then out steps this this non-ranked beginner of only a couple of months and executes the technique perfectly on the first try. That's when the REAL headscratching began!

[Chuck Clark]

After 47 years of budo practice and over 40 years of chasing the zen experience around the world, I don't think it's possible to have an "empty cup." I have met and been associated with quite a few exceptional humans who many, many looked to for guidance. One of them, for example, says it is impossible for humans to have a truly empty cup...but why not have an "expandable cup"...or a mind that is open, responsible for what's there but always willing to take in new information and change the content. In other words, an educable mind. One that sees information and takes it in without prejudice, etc.

Regards,

[szczepan]

After few years of practice, you have some experience/routine and it's no easy to regain excitement of new expectations. I believe there are few things can help:


find a good teacher, he'll push you to the limits, and you'll discover quite new limits in your old body..

let you be "naive" again (that's turn off many psychological filters)

you must establish very idealist goals for practice

in every training you should looking for small practical details which helps you realize your ideal (i.e.: how far you can absorb a power of nikkyo, so you'll discover it is easier when you are one with tori, and it is not far away from one with univers :D well , just a few nikkyo more....)

hope this helps

[Rob]

I've only been training for 15 years so to be honest it seems a bit presumptuous to try and add anything to Chucks post.

However I was at a course on the weekend where this subject was touched upon so I'm kind of 'borrowing' the benefit of another 30 years experience.

Sensei was teaching the black belt class and we were doing a technique most of us have done many many times. Sensei was attempting to focus on footwork. However after a while he pointed out that many of us were 'going home to mother'. By which he meant that when we first started in the arts everything felt awkward and odd. As we progressed we began to feel comfortable with certain movements but that now whenever we are asked to do something in a new or different manner we fall back on what we feel comfortable with or 'go home to mother'. Especially when training under any sort of stress or pressure.

His lesson really hit home for me and for the rest of the course I tried really hard to just do what he was showing us despite the fact that a) I couldn't do it very well b) It felt really awkward and c) Some of the low grades were watching us and looking very perplexed at seeing all the Dan grades losing their balance and getting the move wrong etc.

I really felt like a beginner again and came off of the mat both energised by the experience and utterly depressed at my lack of skill. Which is pretty much how I felt for the first few years of my training.

The other thing I noticed was that once I was really concentrating on my own lack of skill I stopped unconsiously trying to 'teach' the class. After 5 years of teaching my own club it is difficult to just learn and not watch what others are doing or offer suggestions. Again something I would never have thought of doing when I was a beginner.

So basically for me the beginners mind isn't necessarily the puppy like exuberance we remember it as it also means pushing yourself into doing things that feel odd and awkward. It also means switching off your instructor head and just trying to learn.

Hope this helps

[George Ledyard]

I have about twenty-four years in Aikido. I remember when I saw my first Aikido. My wife and I were walking in Georgetown in Washington, DC when we saw a poster for a demonstration. It was happening within the hour so we walked on over. Saotome Sensei, Ikeda Sensei, and Terry Dobson Sensei were there assisted by a small number of yudansha that had moved to DC to help Saotome Sensei open the DC dojo. That group included Raso Hultgren and Megan Reisel who later would head their own schools.

I can still picture it. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. I knew in that instant that I had to do this thing. I was in class at the DC dojo within the week. Within a few months I was training six or seven days a week. There were only classes six days a week but I had a key to the dojo so I went in on Sundays to work on my weapons. Warren Little from Missoula, MT was living behind the dojo in his camper and would throw open the back door and while sipping his coffee and reading his Sunday paper he'd yell out "Train Harder, Harder!"

Do you ever recapture that feeling, when it is all brand new, when even the Shodans appear to be just amazing, when every class you are in over your head with new technique and your head feels like it just couldn't contain any more information without bursting? When your spouse learns never to grab your wrist and your coworkers are considering having you deprogrammed because all you seem to talk about is this weird activity you've fallen in love with? No, you never actually get that back, just like the very first great love you had when you were young, it's never quite the same.

One thing I have realized over time, there are peaks and valleys. There are times when you feel like you own the mat, that no one can touch you, that you feel the sheer joy of movement. And the students who train with you seem to be really progressing, and seem to understand your excitement about what you been teaching, and they seem to rush to the dojo at every opportunity to train with you...

And there are times when you can't believe that you've been working on a technique for over twenty years and still don't really get it, not like your teacher does, and your body aches and your knees hurt, your students all seem to have other pressing engagements and classes are smaller than usual, and you get the distinct feeling that no one gives a rats ass about what you have spent your entire adult life pursuing... Maybe if you hadn't spent so much of your passion on Aikido, just maybe you wouldn't have had that divorce... Maybe you should just quit and be like regular people, close the stupid dojo, which never seems to quite generate enough income for you that you can stop worrying about money, and would anybody really care if you did?

But then one day you attend a seminar and a teacher like Tom Read Sensei gets out there in front of you and your feeling of pretty much having seen it all disappears in an instant as you realize that this man is doing things on the mat that you have never seen anyone do. That there is something absolutely magical about the way he is effortlessly playing with his partner... And you absolutely know that you want to be able to do that.

Or you host a seminar with someone like William Gleason Sensei and he starts talking about the elemental energy connection of a minute movement of the hand and he can take your whole center with the most subtle movement and you know that you don't get it but you also know that you are going to die trying.

And low and behold a new student shows up at the dojo who is really hungry and reminds you of yourself when you first started. And the joy they have in learning is infectious and the students who had been a bit busy come back and tell you how much they had missed practice, and the energy of the dojo really starts to cook again and you absolutely know that this is the ONLY thing to do and you pity regular people who just don't get it.

What I would say is that everything runs in cycles. People are attached to the positive cycles, they are addicted to the peak experiences and want it to be that way all the time. They want to avoid the valleys and most people quit the first time they hit one of their down periods. Or they jump arts the first time they hit a plateau thinking that somehow the art just didn't do it for them like it used to. The secret is to just keep training. No matter how down you are at the moment you will find yourself being really up to the same degree at some point. Enjoy the up moments and don't pay too much attention to the down ones but don't attach too much importance to either. At a certain point you realize that these cycles seem to come and go of their own accord and there you are still training.

If you have really lost touch with the joy of the art, it may be because you are training with uninspiring teachers. There are certainly people I have seen that I find completely uninspiring, mediocre in fact. But that doesn't mean you have to quit, just expand your horizons. There are people out there whose love of the art is contagious, who have stopped listening to what anyone else says about what they should be doing and are doing absolutely fantastic stuff. People who have made a real effort to understand what O-Sensei was talking about when he described Aikido. These folks can totally turn your world around. If you really find that you can't regain your passion for training, then perhaps it is because you should really be doing something else. Find something that you can be passionate about and do it.

[Edited by George Ledyard on 11-24-2000 at 04:49 AM]

[Mike Collins]

Ledyard Sensei speaks pretty well for my experience. I go through periods where I love this stuff, and then there are times when it seems more important to feed the hogs, paint the barn and plow the back forty than to train (and I live in a tract home in the suburbs).

The thing about finding one teacher who completely ignites your imagination really is the key, I think. I get to see my teacher all of the time, and he is pretty amazing, but I get to see a teacher from Japan who is absolutely unbelievable for me about twice a year, and he has a way of providing just the thing(s) I need to work on for the next six or eight months. I don't think I've ever "gotten" what he has taught, but I got to experience it, and that has made me better.

If you have lost the "beginners mind", try training through it, cause that's part of the deal, and keep an eye out for seminars. You may have to go to ten or twenty before you see the guy who you connect with- I think that is very individual, but when you get to train with a great teacher, make a point of supporting every seminar in your area so he/she has a base of support to justify coming back.

This stuff has a way of getting harder to stay with as you progress. I think that may be a natural selection thing preventing it from being transmitted to the half-hearted (like me)

[Gil Gillespie]

Real good thread. Exceptional posts by George and Chuck, and though there may be half-hearted among us, that sho ain't you, Mike ;o)

It's true that shoshin (1st mind or beginner's mind)is a mindset and though I hesitate to venture where George and Chuck have trod I always feel it is inextricably connected to ichi go ichi e (one life, one encounter), the whole immediacy of the moment. Chuck's expandable bucket also enters heavily into the understanding. I've encountered others who became bored with Aikido and it always baffled me.

O-Sensei said "Aikido is the universe" & who could ever assume they have THAT figured out? Even in waza training there is always so much to explore and refine. It truly is the lotus blossom that can never be fully pealed. If you've worked your way through your dojo's syllabus and figured you've got the X on knocking people down then you've missed the point anyway. New senseis and wider radius on your seminar attendance will merely repaint your ego.

It's always a thrill to experience a nuance of a technique I've been doing forever, just like hearing a "new" guitar lick in a song I've been hearing for 30 years.

Gil Gillespie
"In the beginner's mind there are infinite possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few."

[Mike Passow]

This thread is a perfect example of why I lurk around E-Budo. :) Truly excellent posts everyone!

Yours,
Mike Passow
Black Bear Society Martial Arts
Wausau, WI

[Aikieagle]

Once my teacher was asked that question, "how do you get the beginner's mind." All he said was, "How can you 'get' something that you already have?" His point was well taken. What good is a search for your hand if it is with you already? Once you "try" then you lost it, once you "see it" then you lost it. My teacher always told me when i was just starting to train to not ask questions or try to contemplate what i was doing, to JUST TRAIN. Now that I have more training, i understand why he says this. Just train, and all things occur. The universe enters and leaves the body in our training at the same time. If the universe is continual and never stops, then how is there a beginning or an end? If there is a beginner's mind, is there an "ender's" mind? If there is no beginning, then how is there a beginner's mind?
Hui-Neng(a patriarch of Zen) said that enlightenment is nothing attained, it is already there. It will come to you in any way, in a flash, or with time. Young or old, new or expert, these things matter not to understanding. These things come together, beginning is the same as the end, young is the same as the old, existance is the same as non-existance. So what does it matter? Who cares about beginner's mind, just train.
Or as my Zen teacher said, "Where is this cup?" Everyone said all kinds of answers, in the table, in your mind, on this earth, all he said was, "It's right there." That to me explains understanding. Thank you.

[Budoka]

Wow,

All that zen gave me a headache. :-)

Actually, Aikieagle, I have to disagree with all that one with the universe stuff. I do not train to become enlightened, because if I'm already enlightened then I already am and how can I become that which I already am, and since I am what I am. . . well, you can see how this kind of argument is not only circular, but specious. . . and I don't mean that in any sense of mean spiritedness, but out of frustration.

See, beginner's mind is that attitude that many people new to any sort of training bring to their training, whether it's budo, dancing, art, music, what have you. Where every new day brings with it something truly new. And every experience is exciting and novel.

The other posters here understood it immediately. And whether their view was that of an empty cup, and expandable cup, it still recognized that with time, yes, there is an ending mind. . . it's the mind of the teacher who doesn't want to bother teaching tonights class, the student who doesn't want to train anymore, because, after all, what else is there left for him to learn.

I've heard some of the most experienced aikidoka complain of this. Aikidoka that I respect. I have no problem with a zen perspective, but all too often the answer becomes "there is no answer, there is no question, there just is. . ." and that's not good enough for me.

That's why I asked such a specific question, and I ask it of a specific group, people with decades worth of training. How is it that in your 12th year, or 17th year, or 35th year of training, you still find your way to the dojo and still experience that newness? Or do you?

[Chad Bruttomesso]

Aikieagle,

Welcome to the Aikido Forum here at E-Budo. Thank you for taking part in our discussion. Here at E-Budo it is the policy to include your full name with every post/reply. You can do this be either entering it manually or by setting it up as a signature. If you need any help with this please let me know. Once again, welcome.

Thank you,

[Ron Tisdale]

Never mind, someone beat me to it....
Ron Tisdale

[Aikieagle]

I am sorry if it sounded too Zen (that sounds funny). It(Zen) just sometimes seem to be more reality than reality does.
The disillusionment we feel in everything we do seems to follow us in all that we do. Everyone goes through it, in thier jobs, in marriages, in LIFE. But does that mean there is no point into living since I have been going through it for x amount of years? One of my teachers had the opportunity to train with o-sensei. He said that he would often come in and clean his arms as if he was cleaning off dirt. Then he would say, "Today is a new day, I am not the same person as yesterday, and today is my technique will be different."
I do understand that sometimes we do a technique so many times you wonder if there is anything to learn anymore. i have gone through this too, but i rose myself out if it. I realized that there is more to it than just technique. Technique alone is empty, anyone can do a technique. But to look at the same technique diferently evertime you see it, that is something hard to do. I guess that is why o-sensei is our teacher. But we have to surpass our teachers, that is the only way the art will live on. If it stays the same, it will die, so we must be more optimistic and more envisioning of what we are doing.
Perhaps it is a generational thing, there are many people from the generation before mine who are very unhappy with life, dissillusioned by the events in their lives. I myself come from the generation X, and as a part of that generation, optimism and a new vision must come out from us. Otherwise we can not grow, the art will not grow, and our understanding will not grow.
Psychologist would say this is a "middle-age" idea, the feeling of tiredness, the "what am i doing with myself" feeling.
So there might be many reasons why you feel that way, and perhaps it is not the art or technique at all that is causing this feeling, but you. Enlightenment does not have to be the aim of our training, that would be self defeating b/c you can not train in enlightenment, it just is(zen again, sorry). You train to train. As practitioners go through thier training(just as anything else) you have to find ways of "rekindling" your training. Try a different angle, a new perspective, a new way. Believe me, you can never run out of new perspectives, no one is that powerful to cover all angles of vision. O-sensei's life in Martial Arts never stagnated, it was always changing. I think we should follow that example. If not, then we have died inside and lost our way...

[Mike Collins]

As we say here in beautiful California:

Kewwlll.

Now, what is your name, and please post it with your posts.

[Aikieagle]

In a movie: Ace Ventura II, the main character starts off in a movie in this temple in the mountains where the monks stay. When a man comes in looking for him, he says, "I am looking for a man named Ace Ventura." The smiling monk says, "No one here carries with them a...label."
I thought it was kind of funny to gain some understanding from a comedy of a really goofy guy. But life always shows me that you can learn from anything and anybody.Even in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet says, "What's in a name? Doesn't a rose smell just as sweet with not its name?" I really love that quote. Anways, I just thought that would hold an interesting thought. But not to cause trouble, I apologize for not saying my name. They just seem to come last on the list when it comes to posting a message. But it does make it more personal.....

Cesar Aguirre