October 02, 2026

The Secret Of The Arts

This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner. Be very, very careful about this point.

Shunryu Suzuki was a Soto Zen priest who left Japan in 1959 to teach in San Francisco, where he guided a growing community of American students unfamiliar with formal Zen practice. His informal talks to that fledgling group were later gathered into Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, published the year before he died. Here he says that mastery in any art depends on never losing the openness of a newcomer, because skill can harden into fixed habits that block fresh seeing. The warning to be very careful points to how easily expertise breeds a closed mind without anyone noticing. In this tradition beginner's mind is practiced daily on the meditation cushion, returning to the breath as though sitting for the first time no matter how many years one has practiced.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Beginner's Mind →