Walking Around the Park

My goal for this year: to grow in my perception and participation in and with what Zen masters call “the beginner's mind.” My journey on this path began some 50 years ago in my 30's. There have been many digressions. Slowly and with what my Great Aunt Tommy called “fits and starts,” one learns that one does not “do” beginner's mind. “Beginner's Mind” begins with letting go of the “doing” mind. One does “not doing.” It is a practice. One minute of reflection becomes five, becomes fifteen, then twenty while, perhaps, walking around the park each day for 50 years. What emerges is an awareness – of the Oneness – The Way of the Watercourse. There are fewer moments these days when I forget I have never not been a poet, that I have never not been a child.

From the mailbox on this first day of the new year:

Our defenses are breached by the unguarded acceptance of a small child. –James Finley, cac.org