In Zen Buddhism, there’s an idea called “beginner’s mind,” which means that we should approach all things as if we were beginners. We don’t know how to do the basics, we don’t have any habits formed yet, we don’t have the skills or knowledge particular to a thing. Instead, we are learning, and when we first approach learning, we are open. We fail. We err. We correct. We repeat. Learning is openness. Think back to your first day at something. You were nervous, sure. But also, you were open and empty, eager to learn.
This openness, this emptiness, this readiness for possibilities and failure and new efforts, is what I think we’re trying to do when we make New Year’s resolutions. We want to try our efforts at being something or someone new, or at learning something or achieving something. And to do that, we must begin, and what beginning is more auspicious than the New Year?
But every day, really, is a beginning. We put a lot of stock in New Year’s resolutions, and that’s fine. Sometimes I’ve done them. Sometimes I haven’t. Most of the time, I think of something I want to learn or do in the next year, rather than something I resolve. My process isn’t as regimented as a New Year’s Resolution. It’s more of hey, there’s in the thing world I’m curious about. Maybe this is the year to explore it.
And for me, that fits in with the idea of beginner’s mind, because I alway want to try to keep that openness and emptiness towards new things. It’s hard. It’s hard not to fall back into habit, and rely on expertise, and not start something new and different. But that’s what I want. I want to begin. I want to be beginning.
And, like Ezra Pound, I want to make everything new.
So what I’m hearing is that we should take up archery…