There is a place within each of us, perhaps conscious, awake, and alive or instead buried beneath the muck of hurt and trauma. That place, if we can be in it is called Shoshin or the Beginner’s Mind.
In Buddhist teachings, to not know the answer and to be aware of it is the desired place to be. Simply, being in a place of openness and accepting the unknown creates within us a peace that cannot be obtained when we are struggling in search of an elusive outcome.
It has taken me years to attain this awareness, and many days I still struggle to be content in the waiting. But when I can be, still, patient, pausing, not even seeking, I find that my lack of effort pays off more so than if I had exhausted myself trying to be the master of my fate.
Control is a drug for a codependent. And like any false relief, the addiction to it grows in an endless cycle. The more we attempt to control an outcome, a person, or our lives, the more the universe rebels on us sending us even bigger curveballs to control and manage. As our problems grow bigger, so does our need for control grow stronger.
Think of it as a river flowing from source to ocean. If the river flows straight, the path is smooth, and if we allow it to go its course, the river reaches its destination in no time. But control dams the river up. Control says, “this river isn’t going the way I want it to”. I want it to go in a different direction. When we dam up the river, the river now meanders. Our path becomes more complicated. The time for the river to reach the ocean actually slows in comparison to letting it go the way it’s designed to go.
Albert Einstein had a beginner’s mind when he developed the Simple Theory of Relativity. Up to that point, the classical physics of Newtonian origin reigned supreme. But those physics hit a dam in the river. The ideals of classical physics couldn’t explain away the problem of why, no matter what, the speed of light remained a constant 186,000 miles per second.
Instead of continuing to exhaust his energy on that problem, Einstein simply stopped trying to figure it out and accepted that it just was what it was. The speed of light was constant. So be it. By placing himself in a beginner’s mind[set], he was now able to be open to possibilities that had eluded all other physicists before him. He saw that space and time could not be separate. They had to be one thing (space-time), not two.
Imagine being a child again, discovering the world for the first time, but with the advantage of being the person you are now. Eyes of innocence free of the “nonsense” left behind when we try to impose our own structure on that which cannot be known… our future. How much more do you think you might see? Or would you be able to release the need to see and know? Could you just then simply be?
