"Beginners-Mind" (sho-shin)

[andreios]

For the record, the expression comes from a book entitled Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

Ken, is your article mentioned by John available anywhere somehow? I'd love to read it...

[Ken Lee]

Ken, is your article mentioned by John available anywhere somehow? I'd love to read it...

The article appeared in Jan/Feb 2006 edition of View Camera: click here for a proof copy in PDF format sent to me before it went to print. I don't make many darkroom prints these days - and the selection of photos and equipment is more representative of 7 years ago - but the basic approach is still current.

Here's the relevant section:

Large Format Clarity and Beginner’s Mind

In Japanese, the term sho-shin means “Beginner's Mind.” It’s an attitude encouraged in the study of Zen and the arts. We don’t attain it by holding on to some particular idea or approach. Instead, we get it as we learn to clear the mind of all preconceived notions. When the mind is clear, we can see things as they are. We can sense nuances. These nuances are the real subject in our photographs. Since Large Format is all about presenting these nuances, Beginner’s Mind is always rewarding.

Zen Mind Beginner's Mind is about the practice of meditation (and the word sho-shin appears to be a direct translation from the original Chinese) but as Suzuki says in that chapter: "This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."

[sun of sand]

Always be a beginner or always be creative?

tell me the difference and which is more apt to provide you with winning results


I think this is really important and frankly I don't think it's worded quite correctly

at least not well enough for most to truly understand the meaning


"I don't know"
being flexible
trying
his disciple Kwong's dedication and perseverance

dedication and perseverance suggests a level of mastery
No a level of beginnership


it's not seeing the wide open world through a newborns eyes as much as it's always seeing possibility of further mastery or other ways of achieving the same when the previous path has been blocked

[h2oman]

SOS - I think the rest of us get what Ken was alluding to, regardless of how it was stated.

[sun of sand]

I'm really sorry but if that were true why would one need to read it in a magazine or highlight "important passages"


If it were so simple and if you're correct that everyone has understood exactly what this is supposed to mean
How could anyone write a book on it without someone at the publishers telling that author of that book

"..uhhhh, we know dude."


I'll bring it back to cards

You can play a thousand novices and each one will believe one thing and that one thing is that ANYTHING can happen. The cards are random.
They may have nothing right now but the novice believes they may turn the luckiest card to better their hand and so should pay just about whatever they have to in order to draw it
But while the expert already has them beat that card the novice pays to see also holds promise for the expert
Novice may end up with something decent but the expert may have just turned their good hand into a great one the novice never even thought of
because they are not playing creatively. They are playing with a set goal in mind. they think nothing of their opponents cards.

8.4/10 they lose the hand. Their problem -especially if they never outgrow it- is that that one time they win they will have won a big pot.
The novice remembers the big pot.
The expert remembers they have won more off them in the previous hands than the novice just won in one

Sun Tzu’s Art of War states, “Therefore, when I have won a victory I do not repeat my tactics but respond to circumstances in an infinite variety of ways."

The expert is a winner
The beginner is a loser



so you go ahead and believe that everyone else is an expert and correctly understands
Maybe they do
I doubt it
but I don't know

I ask questions trying make sure we get it
make sure I get it
but everyone "knows" and sees no point. I'm just barking up the wrong tree
seems against the teachings of zen and taoism, IMO


do people care or do people care to exploit

[Vaughn]

As far as I remember, a "Beginner's Mind" has nothing to do with being or acting like a beginner...or even a master. I have it on my bookshelf...I should read it again. It has been 30 or so years.

[mdm]

I'm just barking up the wrong tree

Too right.

[jcoldslabs]

For some reason the "beginner's mind" concept makes me think of this quotation from David Byrne that I've always liked:

"When I see a place for the first time...I notice everything, the color of the paper, the sky, the way people walk, doorknobs, every detail. Then, after I've been there for a while, I don't notice them anymore. Only by forgetting can I remember what a place is really like...so maybe for me forgetting and remembering are the same thing."

Jonathan

[barnninny]

I've adopted this as a personal motto, with a slight alteration: "Anything more than 500 yards from my front door just isn't photogenic." For me it holds true most of the time. Whether this is the result of laziness or sho-shin, I have no idea.

Jonathan

You're my hero.

[barnninny]

Zen has always eluded me, but the idea here seems to be basically the same as that of Vipassana: being fully in the present, and mindful. In photography terms, seeing the world immediately around you, and seeing it in the present. Not as you may think you have seen it a million times in the past, or what you may think it will be when the sun is in a different place in the sky or the leaves are a different color, but the way it is right now, right in front of you.