Using a Beginner’s Mind

Bending time, coping with today's challenges and cherishing relationships.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki

“...time that flows

will have the shape

and sound

of a guitar,

and when you want

to bow to the past,

the singing spring of

transparent time

will reveal your wholeness.

Time is joy.”

Pablo Neruda

Beginner’s mind has evolved from the Zen practice of using all our senses to absorb and appreciate the nuances of every moment. Practicing beginner’s mind can occur regardless of whether one has been in a similar situation before. It allows for a new, wider perspective of your surroundings that bends or alters time. We all had a moment when, deep in our thoughts, we wondered where the time had gone.

Beginner’s mind is more involved with conscious observation in the present. It entails having a peripheral view to simultaneously understand your immediate surroundings. This widening of your perceptual lens allows all that is unique in each context to show its interrelationships. It is a mindful technique to sustain our well-being and to sustain harmony. According to poet David Whyte, it is “...about uncovering the invitational nature of the universe – the way it’s simply waiting for us to wake up into its astonishing beauty and its depths.”

Mindfulness

Source: Natasha Rabin (c) with permission

Why is time an important factor in this process? It is the vehicle of attaining a beginner’s mind when it is not overwhelmed with stressful cultural pressures. However, like most nouns, it has its linguistic constraints: it is static, defined by content, and devoid of context.

Yet, treating time as a verb alters its definition and usage. “Timing,” for instance, the verb form of time represents actions that can become relevant to the flow of how you are inter-relating with the many possibilities of your environment. They emerge in the description of aesthetic and artistic endeavors. Poems, for instance, are another way to expand nouns into an active force within different contexts, as Pablo Neruda did in the above quote.

Being focused on what is occurring and blending within a given context provides a springboard for harmonious interaction with other contexts. Bending time is a process of converting its restrictions into a recognition of our ecological interdependence. “Timing,” for instance, allows for involvement, which is alive, especially when you use a beginner’s mind. It provides a segue to alter the cultural constraints that stifle actions, producing a fragmentation of behaviors and knowledge. This is a false sense of how nature works, one that prevents all the living patterns that yearn to connect.

Most nouns are defined by measuring duration and quantifiable rates of change. Nora Bateson, president of the International Bateson Institute, uses the metaphor of a meadow to transform this notion. She describes her participation in life as an active recognition of all interactions that make up the complexity of her existence. “Meadowing” is her description of how she approaches her way of living interdependently and making sense when being in nature by practicing, and “… thinking like an ecology there. I am studying the ways of it, wondering how do things stay the same while they change? “ We certainly have to deal with many factors of life, i.e., appointments, train schedules, show time, etc. Ask yourself how the different aspects of time restrict or support you in your everyday interactions. Does your life express or describe the complexity of possibilities that you experience every day?

Having a beginner’s mind is living in a world that encourages making room to question, grow, explore, pause, and cherish what is in between and beyond our relationships. It is a spontaneous example of improvisational choreography on the stage of life.

Raga

Source: Natasha Rabin (c) with permission

This implies that mutual learning and sharing opportunities are like throwing darts randomly. It is done without a singular purpose other than allowing them to land where they may. Yet it has the potential to emerge and evolve into what we humans are meant to be. It is, as poet and author Frederick Buell urges, “So let’s go for the aesthetic, not the anesthetic.”

My sense is that if we start with a beginner’s mind and stay in the present moment with what is happening in our relationships, we will nurture an aesthetic resilience and a sacred connection to nature. That is the liminal gift we need to enable us to use all our senses to understand how the whole of anything is more than its parts, as is the earth to each and all of us living creatures.

Here are some prompts and suggestions for discussion in small groups to allow a beginner’s mind to bend time and improve our interpersonal and environmental relationships:

How can changing nouns to verbs, i.e., house, family, school, job, finances, etc., help you view each context in your life differently in the ways you approach interrelationships?

In what ways can different contexts, i.e., schools, work, family, politics, economics, etc., be seen as having interdependent benefits from using a beginner’s mind and bending time?

Consider and discuss the consequences of using a beginner’s mind while being in the present during routine activities, while focusing on your breathing and expanding perception of that moment.

How would you adopt a communication style that uses open questions, paraphrasing, and pausing before expressing support in a win-win conversation to enhance relationships?

Imagine going through your regular everyday activities without rushing and experiencing the outcomes as positive and joyful. In what ways will this alter your sense of the timing that occurred?

Would placing your attention on what is occurring in the present, without preconceptions, alter your sense of how it would affect the well-being of your mind and body?

Can using a beginner’s mind give you more of an understanding about what is in between your interpersonal relationships, and if so, how would it create new possibilities to enhance your life?

How can active “give and take” mutual learning, which has a respect for random outcomes, encourage new explorations in your relationships? How can this encourage and support our interdependence?

In what ways have you used verbs rather than nouns that helped you understand your behaviors in a different way?

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**This article originally appeared on my Psychology Today Blog, March 17, 2026

***I am available for individual, couples, and family psychotherapy as well as presentations and workshops on how to use ecological communication to resolve conflict and improve interpersonal relations. I am also a certified classical Homeopath.

****For further information on my practice, publications and availability see my website: www.drkennethsilvestri.com