Of course Beginner’s Mind often ain’t so simple. Emotions are often sticky. There’s information in them. Emotional suppression driven by sympathetic controlling mind is a thing, and even has its usefulness. But a key aspect of Beginner’s Mind seems to be just allowing yourself to feel whatever you want + need to feel.

The deeper practice is to harness our natural curiosity and be curious about all our feelings + emotions + situation in general — is it really an intractable problem? If the answer is No and we know it, it brings us back to a wise simplicity, an advanced Beginner’s Mind you might say.

The simple Beginner’s Mind is good training to get a feel for it.1 But when the shit hits the fan — and it will — let yourself feel it and be naturally curious about it.

  1. To remember that state of mind before improvement. ↩