Beginner’s Mind

When the world feels overwhelming, mindfulness practice can offer a respite. This blog of mindful moments comes from my need to start each day as a new beginning - to remember to look at the sky in the morning and say: "Yes, I am grateful for the chance to begin again and again".

One of the important concepts of mindfulness is keeping a beginner's mind. Instead of bringing all of your concerns to a mindful moment, stay in the present as if you are experiencing your surroundings for the first time, on a new day.

Even if your pause is at the kitchen sink while you wash the dishes, simply take time to feel the water run through your fingers.

Here's a poem to inspire you.

“Instructions for the Journey”

by Pat Schneider

The self you leave behind is only a skin you have outgrown.

Don't grieve for it.

Look to the wet, raw, unfinished self, the one you are becoming.

The world, too, sheds its skin: politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.

It's easy to lose this tenderly unfolding moment. Look for it as if it were the first green blade after a long winter.

Listen for it as if it were the first clear tone in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

And if all that fails, wash your own dishes.

Rinse them.

Stand in your kitchen at your sink.

Let cold water run between your fingers.

Feel it.

*Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash