Shoshin

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Shoshin is a concept from Zen Buddhism that means “beginner’s mind”. It refers to keeping yourself flexible and approaching learning with an open, eager mind and trying to eliminate your preconceptions. I think it is better described by a practitioner of Buddhism.

In the mind of the student there are many possibilities; in the mind of the master there are few.

—Shunryu Suzuki

I feel that putting this concept into practice could benefit from today. In my mind, this philosophy is an excellent way to keep yourself humble and be able to accept new ideas and information. It seems in today’s world that people often refuse to hear information that they don’t already agree with.

By making the conscious effort to keep your mind unlocked; you allow yourself to be open to new ideas and concepts. This is challenging to do. There are many times when it feels like I’m going against my nature to listen to something, but I feel it is important to hear ideas out. You just might learn something that will give you the opportunity to grow as a person in some new way that you had never considered.

My discovery of this concept itself is an example of my striving to learn and improve myself. I only recently heard the phrase from the quote above and found it to be something worth committing to. I have been told that I can be dismissive and closed off to other thoughts. This is not the person I want to be.

Shoshin can be seen put into practice in those who follow the scientific method. People that follow the scientific method allow their hypotheses and theories to be questioned. It is even encouraged for others to question their ideas. A good scientist should always have an amount of skepticism and the willingness to adopt new ideals and information as it becomes available.

In more recent times, scientists changing their opinions to better suit newly discovered information or incorporate new instruments that provide better data have been labeled as unreliable. Yet, this is precisely the behavior one should illustrate as a good scientist. You need to be able to realize when your strongly held beliefs may have been founded on bad data and be able to change your opinions to reflect better understanding.

These people have to be brave to go before the world and say, “I was wrong before.” This is one of the core concepts that makes a person good at being a scientist. I cannot understand why others see this as a weakness of character. This is a person doing exactly what they should do to be proficient at their profession.

I can only hope that I will be able to achieve this level of openness with my thoughts and beliefs. I still feel myself get defensive and start to resist hearing other opinions when my convictions are being challenged. I need to be better at understanding that if my beliefs are sound, then they will stand up to questioning and remain robust and may even become better when I allow myself to question and examine them.