A Beginner's Mind: Life Lesson from Zen Buddhism

"Do not lose the heart and mind of a beginner for an instant."
- unknown Zen master

If you've ever listened to people who are top performers in their field talk about how they got so good at what they do, there is one thing that you will almost always hear: they maintained a beginner’s mindset. The most common example of this are athletes, especially those who compete in individual sports.

It is because they never considered themselves experts that they were able to excel, they say. They were always willing to learn.

However, having a beginner’s mind is not something that is useful exclusively in sports or other areas where you compete with others. In fact, long before it became popular as a method of mastering your chosen field, whether sports, art, or business, beginner’s mind was introduced in Zen Buddhism as a necessary condition of mastering yourself.

"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few." - Shunryu Suzuki

But what exactly is the beginner’s mind? In Zen Buddhism, the beginner’s mind is synonymous with "emptying your cup." If you are not familiar with the concept of an empty cup, it comes from an old Zen Buddhist proverb.