Beginner's Mind is a term we often hear, one to remind serious yogis to get a little less serious. To drop the pretense, the showiness, the I'm-All-That-Asana. To soften up and let down their guard. To find the ease--the play--within their yogic work.
Directed at true beginners, it helps take the pressure off, assuring them that we're all in this together. That no one's holding them to an unattainable standard.
But Beginner's Mind is really simply a reminder to stay in the Now--for everyone. To lose the I-Should-Have, the I-Could-Have's. To stop worrying about what happened yesterday, what could happen tomorrow. To recognize that everyday is a new day (on the mat or off) and we need to meet that newness with an equally fresh attitude--a beginning.
Of course we start with the breath--because there's no better way to get present than to focus on the breath. Your last breath can't sustain you; your future breath holds no promise. Only this breath--this one right now--is the inhale, the exhale, that matters. The current breath that is prana's currency.
We expand with the potential of the breath and get receptive in the outer skin. We stay open...wide open...and invite a surprise.
In the Now, there's no blame, no regret, no expectation, no judgement. There is only what we are doing, what we are feeling.
And this is the true irony of Beginner's Mind: it's really not about mind at all. Rather, you get out of your head and into the rest of your body, into your senses. You smell yourself. You taste yourself.
Our view of the past, our vision of the future, these are carried in the mind. Our senses, though, deliver us the moment. When listening, smelling, feeling, "now" becomes a verb, a process--like art.
And this is where we live.
