Even now, beginner's mind

One of the books I am reading this summer is Zen Teacher: Creating Focus, Simplicity, and Tranquility in the Classroom by Dan Tricarico.

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of Zen. I think because inside I always felt so crazed and chaotic, that the idea of just breathing and being seemed impossible to me.  

It doesn’t feel impossible any more. I have had some impactful teachers along the way to help me make contact with that peaceful presence that we all have somewhere. Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones introduced me to the notion of writing as a zen practice. Henry Thoreau always reminds me to “live deliberately.” And countless classrooms of students have taught me how to be present in the moment. (I don’t think teaching and learning can work any other way.)

Along with the idea of being present in the moment, another zen idea I love is Beginner’s Mind or Shoshin.

I have been teaching for 30 years. I have probably taught 11th grade for at least 20 of those years. But each of my eleventh graders will go through that year only once. Books I have read 25 times, I will be introducing to them for the first time. In order to make the best connection between the students and our course material, I have to be able to think of it both as the experienced person I am, and the novice they are. I have to be able to access beginner’s mind.

In his discussion of beginner’s mind in Zen Teacher, Tricarico poses this assignment:

Think of the last time you learned something new and then reflect on the following questions:

How did you approach that situation?

What was your perspective?

What were you thinking?

How did your outlook in those circumstances differ from times when you felt like you knew what you were doing and had already garnered some experience?

What would be the benefits if you entered into every situation as if you were a novice, as if you had something to learn?

What then? (Loc 299, Kindle book)

I really do try to go through my days (summer days like today, and teaching days) knowing that I always have things to learn. About everything. No doubt there are days where my ego gets the better of me and I get that cocky expert edge, but usually I get knocked back down into the space where learning happens, and wonder.

I’m always looking things up and doing on the spot research on things that come up in conversation. I think it annoys my friends a bit, but it has become an automatic thing to grab my phone and Google things I’m curious about - whether that is how old Dakota Fanning is now, or where Rachel Maddow went to college, or what the difference is between an ICBM and some other kind of North Korean missile.

But I think he may mean a more formal instance of learning something new. Like our students experience. I go to a conference every May with an organization called NJWA - the New Jersey Writing Alliance. It’s a group of high school and college writing/English instructors who gather to help build bridges between our different teaching and learning environments.

While I am not exactly a novice to teaching writing, I can always find a workshop session on something new. “Learning to Write as if No One is Reading” piqued my curiosity. I went in and sat in the front, or maybe the second row. (That’s sort of new to me. I was always a sit in the back kid and college student.) I was hopeful that Jay Armstrong, the presenter, was going to share something that I could use. And when he began not with a typical introduction, but by drawing us right into a powerful story about himself, I already had what I had come for and was eagerly waiting for more. Even though I have probably been teaching twice as long as he has, once he started I settled firmly into the role of student, waiting to see what he had to teach me. Not waiting in the empty vessel sense, I definitely brought my own life and experience to what he was saying, but I was excited about the new ideas he was helping me generate.

If I am being honest, I have high expectations for teachers, and am often critical when they (I) fall short sometimes (as we all do). It is sometimes an effort for me to turn at off and settle into beginner’s mind. I also find myself comparing the ideas being shared, with my own practices, and there may be a bit of judgment involved. In the best workshops, the judgment is most often, “Damn, I wish I had thought of that!”

I walked out of that workshop with some new insights into the power of storytelling, some new ideas for teaching writing and revising that I actually used the next day in class, and a lot of excitement about how to go about setting up a Write-a-thon at my school, which I have started the groundwork for.

Beginner’s mind, to me (even when I’m not exactly a beginner) means going into a situation ready to learn. I think I’m going to talk about that idea with my students this year - formalize a little zen practice in the classroom and help us all be present for the 90 minutes we are there (or as much of it as possible) and open all the time to learning something new. Myself included.  As I am rereading some of the texts I am going to be teaching in the upcoming year, I am remembering my novice wonder at the gifts of Toni Morrison and hoping that I can help my AP Lit students find that same joy in her genius. And of course, each reading brings me new insights as well.  Shoshin.