Title Zen Mind Beginner's Mind

Author Shunryu Suzuki

Year Published 1973

Kind of Book Zen Buddhism/Meditation

How strongly I recommend it 9/10 

My Impressions This is a classic in the school of Zen Buddhism. Suzuki is often credited as the man who brought Zen to America (much like Yogananda went down in history as the man who brought Yoga to the West). This book is very short and sparse, but by no mean "simple." Each page or chapter can be read like a koan which should be read and reread and meditated on. It is the kind of book to come back to time and time again.

Date Read circa 2012

Practical Takeaways

  • Always keep your beginner's mind

  • Read each sentence with a fresh mind

  • Own your own physical body

  • Keep the right posture no matter what you're doing (driving a car etc.

  • "Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else" ie. If you're not the Buddha

  • Let your nature free

  • Live in the reality of the present

  • Give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow in order to control them

  • Die a small being moment after moment

  • See things as they are and let everything else go

  • Obey the rules so that you may have freedom

  • (While meditating) Do not try to stop your thinking. Don't be bothered by anything

  • Be grateful for the weeds in your mind ( they will enrich your practice)

  • Just watch the waves of your mind until they become still

  • Accept things as they are whether agreeable or disagreeable

  • Don't have expectations for your meditation practice. Don't try to attain enlightenment, but still sit with purpose

  • Make every attempt to get rid of your self centered desires

  • Don't expect to see progress over night, just keep going forward and know that little by little you are making progress

  • Practice every day.

  • Don't attach pride or feelings of good or bad to your practice

  • Carry your meditation practice throughout the entire day (not just when you're sitting)

  • Don't hold onto anything you have done in the past. Start each day new

  • Don't become discouraged in your practice. Ie. Be patient

  • Study yourself

  • Don't seek something outside of yourself

  • Don't hoard knowledge. Be free from your knowledge

  • Become very curious in yourself and your breath and your mind

  • Practice. (Intellectual understanding in not the goal)

  • Stop trying to attain enlightenment

  • Accept that everything is changing

  • Forget all of your previous ideas about meditation and just practice

  • Practice with a soft and flexible mind

  • Don't try too hard while practicing

  • "When you practice Za zen you should not try to attain anything."

  • Be consciousness

  • Just sit

  • Get rid of your desire for possession

Big Ideas

  • Someone who is a beginner (or coming into something for the first time) is able to see many possibilities

Because

  • The beginner's mind is empty so they are able to see this objectively and without judgement

  • Someone who is an expert (or has been doing something for a long time) often is only able to see a few possibilities

Because

  • The Expert's mind is so full of what they know (or they think they know) that they are not able to see what is really there

  • The progress made through one's meditation practice is so gradual that often the meditator doesn't even notice the progress

  • The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.

  • The weeds in our mind (ie. Monkey brain ie. Erratic thoughts) eventually enrich the meditator's practice

Because

  • The meditator learns more from working through their obstacles than by never having obstacles to begin with

  • An intellectual understanding of the mind is not the goal of Zen Buddhism

 

Unknown Terms

Shoshin: a word from Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind." It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts.