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“In the mind of the beginner there are many possibilities, in the mind of the expert, there are few.”Suzuki, Shunryu.  (1970). Zen mind, beginner’s mind.  New York:  Weatherhill.

Beginner’s mind is a posture or state of mind in which the communicator approaches a moment of communication with as little conditioning as possible.

Exercise

Open you mind and bring the awareness to breathing. As you sit and listen to the other, anchor your awareness in the sensation of your own breath. The words and affect of the person you are listening to begin to gently shift into the background of your awareness while the sensation of your breath emerges in the foreground. You are listening deeply to this person while you are maintaining the presence of your own breath, your own thoughts and feelings. This listening is now less about “my self” and more listening to “the other.” It is now a contextual awareness of all the complexity of sight, sound, feeling and awareness emerging into your consciousness. Like a child that first walks into a carnival, you are open to all that is present for your consciousness without discernment that “this” is better than “that.”

This is one thing to do today that will make a difference in your day: http://techcritique.com/this-week/2008/12/2/one-day-for-human-rights.html

“What we have no words for, we cannot understand; it does not fit into our view of what is real. And if we stumble upon it, as the study shows, we may be taken by surprise, and frightened. On the unknown places on their maps, the ancient cartographers wrote, ‘Here thee be dragons.” (Kornfield, 2000, p. 62)

image:www.webweaver.nu/…/dragons/colorful-dragon.gif

For those of us who are upset about our age, I have a question; “are we surprised?” Did we not see it approaching? Perhaps our problem is not with age but with our resistance to accepting it. Perhaps we have trouble accepting age because of a fundamental misinterpretation of what it means.
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This exchange is just so interesting I want to provide a link to it here. Gennefer Snowfield  http://www.jellyflux.com/ and others discuss the essence of building a genuine community via the internet:

“It’s no secret that I spend a lot of time on Twitter.  For me, it’s a valuable medium that facilitates quality sharing and knowledge exchange with smart, like-minded individuals who enhance my thinking and enrich my life.” (See the rest of this post: There’s Too Many ‘Me, Me, Me’s in ‘Follow Me’)

When we are mindful, we can change the way we experience other individuals in the business environment and function in organic and natural processes that bring creativity and heart into form, while preserving the essential features of business practices.

8 Operational Tools

1.  Consciously work to preserve relationships, reframe interpersonal challenges and develop a utility to achieve outcome.
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While sitting with a friend yesterday, I was reminded of how important it is to honor the threshold - the thing that symbolizes that which we are leaving and the beginning of where we are going.

Stop, next time you walk through the front door of you apartment, condo, home or office – just short of the threshold. Stop and gain a sense of the reality of what is happening in this moment of your life. There is no guarantee that from where you are leaving you will ever return. So pause a moment, turn around and “claim” the life you have lived in this context, the people who are saying “good-bye.” Just a moment – to recognize your life as it unfolds.

A threshold is a gift and an opportunity to awaken the mind.

Now imagine that our internal states are just as noticeable. You awaken in the morning, perhaps with the dream -  a moment, a feeling, or an image – a moment away from this day that you are slowing becoming conscious of. Can you pause to mark the transition? Can you recognize that you are betwixt-and-between? What was – is ending. What will be – is emerging! Simply pause and claim these unfolding moments.

Image: Tdukes,Hawaii, 2008

“There’s and old story about a farmer who went to the Buddha seeking help for his problems.  Either droughts or monsoons make his work difficult, he complained.  What’s more, he grumbled, even though he loved his wife, there were certain things about her he wanted to change.  Likewise his children – yes, he loved them, but they weren’t turning out quite the way he wanted.
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“Mindfulness allows for a discrimination in psyche which is free of judgment . . . and which still allows for the influence of the unconscious to be entertained in consciousness. Mindfulness is not looking for a way “beyond,” rather it is a posture which seeks insight within and which allows an openness and availability to unexpected and uninvited unconscious content.
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