Being Able to Take Stock

In a world plagued by uncertainty and change, it can be easy to fall into a monotonous routine and lose sight of the beauty around us. But what if we took a step back and viewed our lives with fresh eyes? What if we approached each day with the beginner’s mind, full of openness and eagerness to experience the world in a new way? That’s what this post is striving for, to take stock of all that surrounds me and allow myself to start over and appreciate the beauty of the everyday. Join me on my journey to find the delicate art of Shoshin and live it in this thought-provoking post.

Finding the delicate art of Shoshin and living it.

Things are going good now, right? I suppose it all depends on who you’re asking. Of course, this is largely due to COVID-19 — I had thought just a few weeks prior to this that things were look up regarding the pandemic, however this is no longer the case. Canada has exceeded the U.S. infection rate s, and our vaccines per capita have been far lower. We are resuming lockdown as another third wave hits my local region.

It is easy, and it is effortless to let the fatigue and exhaustion of this current state of play. I don’t blame anybody that is. I’ve found myself, night after night, unable to sleep and unable to stop thinking about the looming future ahead.

There’s so much fragility in that future — so much uncertainty. And what of the past? I’ve tried my best to do as much good with myself as I have in the past year, but it still feels like I’ve fallen completely short.

…Short of what, exactly? The world has made it abundantly clear that the ideal of a meritocracy is just a pipe dream. And, no matter how much good work you end up doing — no matter how healthy you eat or how many cold showers you take — you end up turning into bones & dust like all the other people that made awful decisions with their lives. The dust is indistinguishable.

We have been given this time, for an unknown reason, by an unknown being. This being seems wholly uncaring of how exactly we spend it, or what actions we take. I am given this radical freedom — but only for a limited time.

And then, when the performance is over, His stage hands tactfully take each and every piece of scenery off stage. They then deconstruct the stage itself, before disappearing.

It is humorous and meta to have the show pertain to the protagonist’s anger at how short the show is — in a tragically ironic sort of way.

But that would be missing the point entirely.

Shoshin is a word from Zen Buddhism meaning “beginner’s mind.” It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.

And that’s where I believe that’s the headspace I need to seek refuge in right now. We are designed to become desensitized to the world around us — to ensure we do not get overwhelmed and overstimulated by it constantly — but it has such a negative side effect. We easily begin to forget all the beauty that surrounds us, even in the smallest facets of life.

As I’ve spoken about since the beginning of my writing on Medium, I believe that nothing is more important to meditate on and regard than the everyday life. The minute of our daily routine, the people that surround us, the abode we see so often it becomes invisible.

Become a beginner in, bask in the genuine beauty of everything that surrounds you — without having to first have it be taken away from you — something that so often is required for this level of gratitude.

That’s what I’m attempting to do — to just take stock of everything around me, everything I have. To give myself permission to start over and perform badly at all the things I want to one day be good at. Allowing myself to pause and really take a look at my surroundings, to look at my family’s faces for the first time again.

It can often feel as though there is a heavy monotony when it comes to the everyday, but this monotony is from the perception, not the acts themselves. A mind that frees itself from the automatic-typical response can see a rich variety, can view something different in the same plant that’s been in her front yard for the past thirty years.

That’s what I am striving for. Every day is a new day. Each night that you fall asleep is death just practising, and every morning is a new day.

“This is the beginning of a new day. I have been given this day to use as I will. I can waste it. . . or use it for good, but what I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it! When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain and not loss; good and not evil; success, and not failure; in order that I shall not regret the price that I have paid for it. I will try just for today, for you never fail until you stop trying. — Ric Kausrud, 1997.

About B. Kenneth Brown