Contemplative Mind, Beginner's Mind
A long line of spiritual teachers invite us to find the newbie within
“We are always only beginners on the path to a deeper interior life.” —Judith Valente1
In her book How to Live, Judith Valente invites seekers of our time to consider how the 1,500-year-old wisdom from Saint Benedict of Nursia remains as relevant and useful to our day as it ever was. She points out that St.Benedict operates under the assumption that “we are always only beginners on the path to a deeper interior life.”
On the one hand, this reminds me of Shunryū Suzuki, whose modern-day classic book Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind unpacks how being a beginner in the spiritual life is a place of “many possibilities.” In other words, when an accomplished spiritual teacher like St. Benedict (or, for that matter, Judith Valente) warns us that we will always be “only beginners,” we might want to consider how this is very good news. To be a beginner is to be available for anything that the Spirit may wish to send our way. It is to be in conformity with the teachings of Jesus, to “become like children” — which can be understood, at least in part, as reclaiming the experience of being a beginner, to restore the “beginner’s mind” in your own heart.
Why is it so spiritually important to always be a beginner? To be a beginner means to be liberated from having to be the expert, the one with all the answers. It’s an invitation into humility in the best and most creative sense of the word, to that place of excitement and adventure that marks the starting point of all new initiatives. Perhaps most important of all, to be a beginner means to embody qualities such as openness, willingness, the ability to learn and be guided, and the capacity for wonder — qualities that often elude us once we’ve mastered this or that skill, but also qualities that invite us to dive deeper into a truly mystical spiritual practice.
Consider how it feels to think of yourself as “always a beginner.” Do you chafe against an idea like this? If so, perhaps you haven’t yet fully experienced the rich blessings of being “just” a beginner. But if you find that this idea invites you into a deeper place of trust and acceptance, then perhaps you are already cultivating the humility that serves us well as we explore the mystical journey.
Valente, Judith. How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning, and Community (p. 9). Kindle Edition.