Beginners Mind

When I got to Tai Chi class today I was glad to see that besides Zac there were 2 new girls there. Nothing against our regular group but today was a perfect day to start at the beginning. I knew that Zac would explain more because there were new people there and as a result I would get something from it.

Because I was approaching today’s class with beginners mind, I learned some new things about moves that I have been practicing all this time. I found myself more in touch with my breath in regards to doing those movements.

Often we do things by routine and do not give enough thought to what we are doing because our minds are elsewhere thinking of things like laundry that needs to be done, what we will make for dinner, where we are going after we finish what we are doing. All this chatter makes it hard to really get into what you are doing and observe yourself in the moment.

If we stop and approach our tasks with beginners mind like a child, we can see that something we have done countless times over and might consider ourselves an “expert” at can still be fresh and new and we can still learn something from it.