Beginners Mind

Beginner's Mind

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00040gl

In this BBC radio 4 radio programme, 'Suryagupta, chair of the London Buddhist Centre, explores the Zen Buddhist concept of Beginner’s Mind, which encourages the viewing of the familiar with fresh eyes.

She discusses the first time she discovered the benefits of Beginner’s Mind, at a retreat in Wales. While meditating, Suryagupta became fascinated by the sound of birdsong, feeling as if she was hearing it for the very first time. This meditation encouraged her to experience life anew, through help from texts such as Suzuki Roshi’s classic title Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.



Suryagupta considers the obstacles that can hinder Beginner’s Mind, such as pressure and the burden of expectations. She suggests that attempting to return to the simple and spontaneous innocence of the child’s mind can help us overcome these obstructions, in order to experience moments of revelation and wonder. She concludes with a quote from Henry Miller, who celebrates the benefits of sharing these discoveries with others. In doing so, we can connect deeply with one another, and experience an interdependence that is freeing and refreshing.'

I found this way of thinking to be hugely helpful in my studio practice and in life more generally. In the arts there are no answers and so it can be difficult to get a real sense of achievement because the artistic process is always evolving and has no set end conclusion.

Radio 4's 'Something Understood' ponders Is Art Good For Us?

In the latest episode of BBC Radio 4's Something Understood (Sunday 18th December 2016) "the poet Michael Symmons Roberts explores the idea that the arts are good for us - body and soul - and considers whether they can be both tonic and threat to society.

He says, "Art is as various as we are, and its moral weight and status is unstable, unpredictable. In times when people are losing trust in politics and religion, art can start to look like a replacement. But if we put too much of our moral weight and hope into art, we imperil it, and it can imperil us too."

Some of the great Victorian philanthropists thought art would benefit society and used their wealth to make art freely available to the masses. Whether or not the original Turner paintings offered in a Manchester museum,improved the lives of the working class is not evidenced, but the continued idea that the arts are of moral benefit persists.

Roberts offers the example of Ken Loach's groundbreaking film Cathy Come Home as a sign that society can be improved through the arts - along with the way Bob Dylan and others used their music to effect social change in the US during the 1960s.

But he also strikes a note of caution. "The arts can act as the conscience of the state, a challenging force for good. But they can equally be used as an instrument of propaganda. Whenever I hear the arts per se being touted as a positive moral and political force in society, I start to feel uneasy." Using evidence of Nazi propaganda from the Second World War, he also points out that a love of art is not necessarily an indication of a healthy morality.

Roberts concludes that art is not per se a good thing for us, but that he 'couldn't imagine, and wouldn't want to, a life without music or poetry or films or paintings'."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08557zj