January 14, 2013
Beginner’s Mind

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities.  In the expert’s mind there are few”. - Shunryu Suzuki

Son,

What is fear?  Fear is ignorance, fear is speculation.  You might say ignorance causes fear.  You might say speculation causes fear.   In essence they are the same.  Why are they the same?  Because regardless of the name you use they produce the same results.  Ignorance says “I don’t know and what I don’t know scares me", thus fear.  Speculation says “Because I do not know I must speculate in order to know but the frenzy and futility of this speculating disrupts my mind and scares me”, thus fear.  Also speculation births nefarious pride because it is our tendency to define our speculations as truth and then act upon them.  Is not all the various and sundry evil humankind perpetrates on itself and the world birthed from such a process?   Once you think that you know then pride and attachment are born, then mental formations, then dangerous volitional acts which ultimately create vast schisms that tear us apart into conflicting dualisms.  Thus inner strife is born and from unsettled inner strife comes the projection of our own fears onto others who in turn become the scapegoats for our hatred.  Not knowing scares you when you’ve been taught or believe that it is a great evil not to know and that your life should be spent frantically consuming facts and figures. 

Instead the answer is “I do not know and that’s ok because not knowing is beginner’s mind, the true source of all meaningful knowledge.  It is only a clean slate that can have the long equation written upon it.  And afterwards it is erased, then there is Mu and you can begin again.  Maybe the next time it is the drawing of a flower, or a poem perhaps, but it is only the clean slate that can accommodate either and indeed all.  This is Oneness.”

It is the division of knowing and not knowing in one’s mind that causes turmoil.  Pitted against each other they are a powerful and negative dualism.  They create an endless cycle of attachment and accumulation that eventually turns into a great burden and still you will never be satisfied.  The lust for knowledge is tantamount to the lust for riches and they are the same in that neither ever bring peace.  Just be open, empty, and ready to receive. 

Christ said you must be like a little child.  Lao Tzu said he was like an idiot his mind was so empty and he spoke of the bellows, empty inside but capable of endless production.

Be the bellows son.

Love,

Dad

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