New Beginnings…Beginner’s Mind…& Starting Fresh

New Beginnings…Beginner’s Mind…& Starting Fresh

How does a fresh start look and feel? What is optimal? Your Source Essence knows for sure.

Beginning Again
When we think of beginning again, we typically think of starting over. The feeling of again takes precedence over the reality of beginning. In the movement arts, for example, we return to our original mark and repeat a specific sequence with a refreshed level of intensity, and/or with the intention of adding vigor, flavor, or whatever else was perceived to be missing from the last attempt. We strive to perfect something we have done before. This is the definition of practice. Practice tends to have goals that, no matter how fluidly we think we hold them, are “an ever-fixed mark”* we strive to hold once attained.

We have been conditioned to experience a new beginning as starting over from a place of lack, or, on rare occasions, as an attempt to repeat something mastered with increasing levels of finesse. Is this a fresh start? Is it truly a beginning? Practice has its new beginnings, certainly. Each of these tends to hold elements identical to our first attempt.

A blank slate, empty canvas, or blank page, while enticing, can bring up fear in our minds and bodies. Bodies we have trained to obey the mind.

Beginner’s Mind
In Zen practice, and some mindfulness traditions, one is encouraged to approach every effort, any action, from a place of not knowing. Not knowing how a thing is done. Not knowing from the place of the mind. Not assuming, ever. In my experience, this takes more discipline than anything. It is an adventure in letting something else lead {not the mind}.

Beginner’s Mind is an idea, a concept, and a practice, of bringing an empty mind to each moment, letting oneself be led by the heart. Or, so says Nalini, and you may feel otherwise.

One of my favorite lines from the film The Last Samurai is, “…too many mind…”. The American protagonist in that scene is trying to learn, rather than allowing it to happen. I have vivid memories of my body knowing that truth before my mind could find it. Flow is simple once we let go.

I watched the film again recently, mostly to observe whether the last battle would, once again, reduce me to a puddle. It did, but this time the melt was formed from something other than reactivity to perceived injustice and tragedy. Progress! A heart opening witnessed from within. Scenes like that have never felt to me like, “Oh, how noble, what a brave sacrifice!” but as a heart-rending waste. A waste of love. Love’s shadow acting out. In this case, the disciplined fearlessness of courage confronting fear. Love facing its opposite with no recourse but to be itself rather than sacrifice itself.

Of course that is one observation. The drama of the thing is meant to stir up emotion. This time, my personal puddle held love. Love for the gift given. Love, not for the willingness to sacrifice, but for the impossibility of living any other way, of walking any other path than that of the heart.

What does that have to do with Beginner’s Mind? Or, with Beginning Again? That is my point. What do either of these concepts have to do with a truly fresh start?

Starting Fresh
Source shows me that to truly start fresh, I have to let go of knowledge gained, surrendering my gifts, talents, and abilities into the truth of each moment, allowing the Source Essence that I Am {and you are} to take over. It means letting to of circumstances, people, places, things, yes. But, at its essence, a fresh start is more than a blank slate. It is an upwelling of Divine Love through a newly {or determinedly} opened heart.

The deepest levels of letting go of cherished truths and ideas create the fertile soil for New Beginnings.

What if optimal is being fully present in the moment, any moment, no matter how seemingly insignificant? Bringing everything we are and could be to bear, through the heart? Isn’t that a goal? Isn’t that an agenda? It can be. When the ego co-opts any practice, it brings its filters along for the ride. What if we didn’t need any baggage at all? What if this transit is designed to be experienced baggage-free?

Can we really let go and start fresh? What if the practice of a new way lies in bringing all that we are, all that we allegedly know, all of the wisdom that flows through us, to bear through a single point of light? What if this happens by collecting our energy bundle through the heart portal and letting it fly free with no mind, rather than too many?

What if we can let go of starting over, and beginning again, and start fresh?

May the frequencies of this New Moon and the Imbolc alignment bring you freshness of every kind.

Let your heart lead, and leave the rest behind.
{hey, don’t worry, nothing you love ever leaves you}

Nalini

*Quote from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116. “…Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken…”