“Beginner’s Mind” in Zen and Early Buddhism: its Development and Difference

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  • Опубликовано: 25 окт 2024

Комментарии • 59

  • @DougsDharma
    @DougsDharma  4 года назад +1

    ✅ Check out this video next on whether the mind is "luminous" and what that might mean: ruclips.net/video/175JTI5AXc4/видео.html
    🧡 If you find benefit in my videos, consider joining us on Patreon and get fun extras like exclusive behind-the-scenes videos, audio-only versions, and extensive show notes: www.patreon.com/dougsseculardharma 🙂

  • @enhancedlemons484
    @enhancedlemons484 Год назад +3

    "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few."
    This quote lives rent free in my head, such profound words from suzuki. Shoshin may very well be the most important and fundamental teaching in dogen's school of zen.

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  Год назад +1

      🙏

    • @KMoscRD
      @KMoscRD 11 месяцев назад +1

      No expectations, experiencing life as it was experienced first time. Drop titles of expert of beginner, just feel.

  • @gavenevans
    @gavenevans 7 месяцев назад +1

    Routine cuts out thoughtfulness and intention. Always being open allows you to be flexible and honest, two very beneficial virtues!

  • @enhancedlemons484
    @enhancedlemons484 Год назад +2

    "Like this cup, you are full of your own preconceptions, and beliefs. How can i show you zen, if you do not first empty your cup."

  • @PavaniGanga
    @PavaniGanga 2 года назад +2

    I was Suzuki-roshi's student for one year. This was at a time (1970) when, fresh out of college, I had only been exposed to DT Suzuki and Paul Reps. That is, I had none of the orienting perspectives that one might gather from a classic like "What the Buddha Taught". To this very day, I can recall the roshi's presence, the way he set down his cup or glanced to one side. Those memories have left an indelible trace or aura. But I agree with you (and Shakyamuni). It was a definite disadvantage to have "baby mind" rather than the basics of Buddhism.

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  2 года назад +1

      Yes I think "baby mind" can be a skillful practice for those farther along the path, but for those just starting out it can be confusing.

  • @djmileski
    @djmileski 2 года назад +3

    Thank u for this thorough explanation

  • @Americanninjaman
    @Americanninjaman 4 года назад +16

    Sounds very much like Daoism/ Zhuangzi. Thank you for the content I always enjoy your videos.

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +3

      Thanks for the comment Robogoy!

    • @Magnus_1996
      @Magnus_1996 4 месяца назад +1

      Zen Buddhism is like a mix between Taoism and Buddhism because it is a result of introducing the taoists of China to Buddhism. Or at least that's my understanding of it.

  • @desertportal353
    @desertportal353 2 года назад +1

    This is excellent and clarifying. Many thanks.

  • @fairytalejediftj7041
    @fairytalejediftj7041 4 года назад +3

    I'll meditate on this. The person who meditated yesterday isn't here, but if I ever meet her, I'll share your advice. 😇

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +1

      😄 Great! The person who made the video isn't here today either, I think he's gone.

  • @mattnickelsitting
    @mattnickelsitting Год назад +2

    I think this huge emphasis on beginner's mind is not so much from Suzuki but rather his students who, ironically, came to Zen with fixed ideas of what Zen is - influenced mostly by D.T Suzuki and the beat Zen era.
    Richard Baker for example is the one who wrote the introduction to ZMBM which is often quoted and defined Beginner’s mind.
    I think the case could be made that Suzuki was not just talking about an empty mind, but rather a beginner’s mind as bodhicitta, one’s initial aspiration for enlightenment. The evidence for this being:
    He named San Francisco Zen Center Hosshinji - “Beginner’s Mind Temple” 発心 short for arousing the aspiration for enlightenment. Not the “shoshin” that is usually mentioned.
    In Shobogenzo when the phrase beginner’s mind is used it’s a translation for or related to bodhicitta. Dogen never talks about Beginner’s mind in the way we commonly understand it now.
    Thanks for your videos!

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  Год назад

      Interesting to consider, thanks!

  • @nikolajjensen8290
    @nikolajjensen8290 4 года назад +4

    Hi Doug. Thank you SO much for your content. It has helped me in so many ways being on this path. 🙏🏼 When talking about the beginner’s mind, I come to think of your video on Zen Buddhism, and the fact that we don’t really know what Satori is, but that it doesn’t really seem to be the complete extinction of greed, hatred and ignorance. I’ve thought about it for some time, and I may be very wrong. But if Satori is an immediate experience of life beyond dualisms and conceptions, then it must be experience in the here and now, the present moment. Desiring or hatred for the future or the past cannot exist, and neither can it for the present moment. The moment you desire something, you don’t live in the present moment where that thing doesn’t exist, and the moment you hate something, you are thinking of a scenario that does not exist as of right now. In this way, some of the evil roots have indeed been extinguished. I’m not sure this way of thinking holds up. The fact that I’m thinking might be the root problem in itself 😆 Best regards from Denmark. 🙏🏼

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +2

      Yes I've heard similar things said too Nikolaj, so you may be right. I think concepts such as satori are open to a range of interpretations, and perhaps each person and each teacher will have to find their own interpretation. The question is how they are resolved in practice: what happens to a person's thought and behavior after achieving it?

    • @nuwanperera1977
      @nuwanperera1977 4 года назад +2

      The reason for these sorts of interpretations is the lack of Right View (or Samma Dhitti). Without that, you are open to all sort of interpretations. Buddha clearly mentioned this very fact in “Assruthawantha Suthra”. These days many people (even some monastics) label their misguided ideology as Buddhism and try to gain physical (such as money) or psychological benefits (such as status) out of it. This is general nature of lay people who does not have the right view. One day when you have the right view, you will begin to see the flows of these misguided ideologies.

  • @johnnyregs2378
    @johnnyregs2378 4 года назад +5

    I just finished Beginners Mind by Suzuki a few weeks ago. It was actually a really good read. I'm not usually much for Zen, I find it to be too confusing and contradictory of itself, but I enjoy Suzukis talks.

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +3

      Yes, it can be very confusing and paradoxical, that's kind of the point of it. But Suzuki is a very insightful teacher.

    • @mmootplaya6442
      @mmootplaya6442 2 года назад

      it's paradoxical and yet it makes perfect sense

  • @A_Jel
    @A_Jel 2 года назад +1

    Hey thanks dude. I was looking for some new kind of vantage point and this deep dive was great 😌

  • @osumarko
    @osumarko 4 года назад +2

    I am reminded of what the wise teacher Yoda said. "You must unlearn what you have learned."

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +1

      😄 Yes that's right osumarko! I guess Yoda studied Zen.

  • @xiaomaozen
    @xiaomaozen 4 года назад +2

    Very well explained. Thanks a lot for the video! Greetings from Germany. 🙏🏻

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +1

      You're very welcome xiao mao, I love Germany, I've been there a few times and always enjoyed myself. 🙂

  • @whushaw
    @whushaw 4 года назад

    What a great setting for this video 👍🏻

  • @jonk9792
    @jonk9792 4 года назад +1

    Good look at the topic. Important to separate the common sense meaning of beginners mind as having an "attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject" vs. an abstract original mind notion. "Many Chinese Buddhists ... were dismayed by so remote a vision of liberation and sought to reimagine it in more accessible ways" -- Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism
    By Jacqueline I. Stone

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад

      Yes that's an important distinction JonK. The idea of an open attitude to study is much more useful I think.

  • @rajivverma377
    @rajivverma377 3 года назад

    I feel zen is like a mindset where we are trying not to attain any emotional state happy or excited or anything , let mind and circumstances do it.

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  3 года назад

      Yes, maybe so Rajiv, thanks!

  • @ganesanls8723
    @ganesanls8723 2 года назад +1

    Awesome

  • @tamastomordi5851
    @tamastomordi5851 4 года назад +2

    I really like your shirts.

  • @chingdalashyashi8927
    @chingdalashyashi8927 4 года назад +1

    i think your view on the topic exemplifies the idea of the middle way. whether it's the Buddha's or Suzuki's way, it's just a method, and touting either as the absolute right way seems extreme. there are merits in both methods, and which one to use depends on the particular situation at a given time

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад

      Yes thanks mom slaya, I agree, it depends on the context.

  • @nuwanperera1977
    @nuwanperera1977 4 года назад

    Looking at the past video and this one, bhavanga mind = luminous mind = karmic mind. In other words, >> eye + picture forms vision, the initial mind formed for vision is luminous - spot on!. What I can't understand is that, you get all this highly technical stuff right, yet you still talking about impermanency 😊 😊

  • @mr.morrist4975
    @mr.morrist4975 4 года назад

    I'm just curious what difference between an infant's mind and ignorant mind. An infant still goes along with emotions/attachments/cravings? He cries when he wants to eat, he laughs when he was pleased by someone, etc. but does he understand?

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад

      An infant lacks language, speech, concepts. That's the main difference. Both have the same underlying tendencies.

  • @activistarts7722
    @activistarts7722 3 года назад +1

    Hard to listen with an ad every 2 minutes :(

  • @willy2447
    @willy2447 3 года назад +1

    If you wondered what the crows were fighting about, you are on the right path

  • @anicca6877
    @anicca6877 4 года назад

    Could you cancel out the ads in the video? It's kinda disruptive

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад +1

      I've made a tentative decision to run ads on the videos. Apologies in advance for the disruption!

  • @4imagesmore
    @4imagesmore 4 года назад

    No tabula rasa then. And a pointing towards the teachings of Ajahn Chah..

    • @DougsDharma
      @DougsDharma  4 года назад

      Maybe so, how do you think it points to Ajahn Chah's teachings?

  • @haroldschlechtweg8796
    @haroldschlechtweg8796 2 года назад

    Ah brother! I fear you lay too much emphasis on 'beginner's mind' and the analogy you make with the mind of a baby. If Suzuki had wanted to say 'baby's mind' he certainly could have. It is similar to the mistake made by some who suggest animals are enlightened because they don't have concepts. Actually, the notion of 'beginners mind' in context simply means that we should TRY to approach every situation without preconceptions (as difficult or impossible as that may be). It is a heuristic--not a doctrine. I've practiced Zen for more than 12 years now (in the Soto tradition of Dogen). The point of the emphasis on 'conditioning' is that each of us approaches and enters each moment from a particular perspective that has been and is conditioned by our previous experience and that together with new experiences shapes our current experience. Dogen is very good on this. One aspect of Dogen's practice is to 'destabilize' the conviction that we are 'right' or that our views are 'correct' so that we can open up to the possibilities that inhere in each moment of our existence. Any teacher who says we can see reality "as it is" ignores his/her own positionality (ignores the empty nature of 'reality'). For practical purposes (purposes of experience and description), there is no reality independent of of perspective (I look at the world one way, my cat sees and experiences it in another--whose 'view' is correct? Mine or the cat's?). Looking at practice and at the world with 'beginner's mind' is a heuristic--not a doctrine and certainly not a claim that babies are enlightened beings. In Zen, in the zen I practice and that I believe was Dogen's practice, enlightenment is not a state of mind or consciousness. Enlightenment is action, self-less action, both on and off the cushion. Thus we teach, practice is enlightenment, or better, practice/enlightenment. Dogen, and I, believe this action flows from "who we really are" -- "our true self"--or "true nature". This true self or true nature is our inter-dependent "self" that is all/what we are when our egoistic, 'little self" gets out of the way. Self-less action (that is action with no thought of personal gain) is tempered by wisdom, tempered by experience--but the key determinant isn't whether it contains elements of 'learning" or conceptualization or rationality. The key element in enlightened action is that it is selfless, it takes as its object what is not harmful but what is beneficial to one's self and other. Can we, do we, make mistakes? Of course, that's the reality of life. But what matters is the intent. Oh brother, I fear that your rational mind and your committment to a situated reason leads you wrongly. Buddha was a man, what he said was right for his time and for his audiences, but he probably would have said something different if the times or the people were different. Too much reliance on scripture and conditioned rational discourse is sure to lead you down the wrong path. My advice, sit for a while, then go enjoy a walk in that little bit of nature behind you. Forget what you know, pay attention to how you feel, be present to the world around you. Gassho,

  • @ramakrishnaharan1807
    @ramakrishnaharan1807 4 года назад

    All intellectual conceptualization are empty...devoid of essence...mind dabbles around