Beginner’s Mind
A short film about starting over.
A little boy sees and hears the birds, with delight. His father comes along and feels he should help his son “develop.” He says: “That’s a jay, and this is a sparrow.” But once the child is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer really see the birds or hear them sing. He has to see and hear them the way his father wants him to. His father is being reasonable and practical, since few people can afford to go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the little boy starts his “education” the better. Maybe he will be an ornithologist when he grows up.
Many of us have forgotten how to see and hear in the old way.
But sometimes, the world shocks us back into this state, unexpectedly. Artists often fight tooth and nail to get there, swatting away doubtful inner voices like buzzing flies. Occasionally, we are blessed with a sunny day by the river, where the smell of earth and the rustle of the leaves stirs within us something ancient and simple.
Beginner’s Mind: to temporarily let go of learned ideas and concepts, so that one may approach life with a fresh perspective, returning to the senses, to a world of colour, shape, sound and texture.
Psychologist Eric Berne believed people could regain a sense of freedom through recovering their spontaneity, intimacy and awareness. Spontaneity means acting from a place of trust, instinct and intuition. Intimacy is having tender appreciation for others, and being able to honestly and openly share our experiences, thoughts and feelings with them. Awareness is the ability to closely experience the world as it is, through the senses, rather than through filters, labels and learned concepts. Awareness is the capacity to see a coffee pot, or hear the birds sing, in one’s own original way, and not in the way one was taught.