At the end of December, 2023, I wrote a blog post about some writing goals I’d set for myself:
“I’m more interested in what’s to come, not what’s past. When I ask myself what I want to accomplish as a writer in 2024, the answers come back loud and clear. I want to take more risks in my writing, to challenge myself in what I write about and how I write it, and to help others with the same goals.”
Taking more risks, challenging myself—this reminded me of the Japanese word “shoshin,” which means “beginner’s mind.” It comes from Zen Buddhism, but the concept applies to any endeavor that requires effort and dedication: when we start to practice an activity, we lack preconceived ideas about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s horseback riding or running for public office: the idea applies equally to all pursuits.
Something happens, however, as soon as we achieve even a small amount of proficiency. Our openness to new ideas narrows. The better we get, the more close-minded we become. When we rise to the level of experts, we are in danger of becoming conventional, of rejecting new and challenging ideas, and gradually sinking into obsolescence.
How can we avoid this state of being? I found some answers in a UK Guardian article about 97-year-old painter David Hampton. The reporter, Tim Jonze, writes, “I ask how he [Hampton] avoids repeating himself – or getting jaded. ‘Variations,’ he says, and leans over to the kitchen table on which lies a stack of maybe two dozen squares of kitchen roll, each one containing nine small ink drawings around a theme. They’re minimal, intricate, rather beautiful with the ink leaking into the absorbent material. I wonder if he’s embraced any new technology, but I needn’t have asked. He picks up a nearby iPad with hundreds of colourful designs on it.”
Another artist who seems to dwell perpetually in the beginner’s mind is Leonardo Drew. In this video, he talks about traveling from Lima, Peru, where he viewed the ancient geoglyphs visible from space known as the Nazca Lines, to Madrid and Switzerland. He says that the trip helped him realize that he could spend time out of his studio and not miss the studio, because “life was going on, and art was going on, within me. The art is fed by experiences.” Later, reflecting on a trip he took to Japan in 1997, he says, “There is always an opportunity to learn.” But most important, he states, “If you’re open, you can continue on this journey forever.” I take this to mean that cultivating beginner’s mind is crucial to sustained creativity.
Natalie Diaz is a poet whose work is always fresh and lively on the page. She’s also a basketball player, a sport that helped her fit in and make friends in her native Mojave culture. In this PBS Newshour conversation from 2013, she says that writing never fully satisfies her, and that’s why she does it: “When you feel like you’ve completed something, or you really know something, that’s when it almost seems like you don’t need to do that anymore.” Her debut collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon, 2012) contains intricately patterned free-verse poems, as well as an abecedarian, a triolet series, a pantoum, and several prose poems. Reading the book, we sense the restless intelligence behind these poems, that unsatisfied mind looking for the next connection. In other words, the beginner’s mind.
What do you do to retain beginner’s mind? Do you have any techniques that help you stay fresh in your writing practice? Please share them in the comments. Thank you!
