{"id":1975,"date":"2010-10-01T08:55:30","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T15:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2010-10-01T08:55:30","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T15:55:30","slug":"beginners-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=1975","title":{"rendered":"Beginner&#8217;s Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/shoshin.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1976\" title=\"shoshin\" src=\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/shoshin.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"290\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been practicing Zazen now for maybe a dozen years.\u00a0 My practice  has waxed and waned, twisted and contorted into all different flavors of  meditation and mindfullness.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve researched, read, written and  forgotten most of what I would ever know about The Path &#8230; so it is a  small wonder that when my friend mentioned &#8220;Begginer&#8217;s Mind&#8221; I had a  hand slapping forehead moment of DUH-ism.\u00a0 How could I forget the jewel  of the practice?\u00a0 So of course this morning I began to google Shoshin  for a refresher course.\u00a0 It&#8217;s that habit, you know?\u00a0 If only I read one  more article, find one new exercise, listen to one more mockumentary &#8230;  then I will find what has been missing on my road to easy street.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for me, for the moment, my google-gone-wild was short  lived.\u00a0 And I was able to smile at my high-tech lens that I was trying  to look through to find the old teaching.\u00a0 Beginner&#8217;s Mind.\u00a0 To  completely empty our cup, so that we may take in the new elixir that  life is pouring into our chalice.\u00a0 Shoshin.\u00a0 To realize that all of our  &#8220;knowing&#8221; amounts to a thimble full of nothing.<\/p>\n<p>In this moment &#8230; when I am tempted by conditioning to judge the pain  and circumstances as the root of my suffering &#8230; I can instead find a  small cushion, push aside the clutter on the floor (and in my mind) and  SIT in the stillness (still-a-mess) and let my heart open to what is  Here and Now.\u00a0 This Breath . . . there is no-thing more to add or take  away in order to realize (real &lt;&gt; lies) the power of the practice.<\/p>\n<p>Deep bow of Gratitude.<\/p>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 0px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;\">\n<p>Beginner&#8217;s Mind<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been practicing Zazen now for maybe a dozen years.\u00a0 My practice has waxed and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1981,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}