#7 on shoshin: the only way to stop being a slave to your old beliefs
By: Berenice De La Lanne
Tags: Life Hacking, Spirituality, New Age, Biohacking, Shoshin

Lately I’ve been heavily influenced by the magnificence of the Japanese culture, not just by the amazing food but also by the japenese zest for innovation. If you’ve ever been to Tokyo — you will understand how cool it is and if you havent been, it’s definitly a must when this whole lockdown is over — it’s such a futuristic world and it’s so cool & innovative, yet very traditional.

When I was in Tokyo I got to experience a lot of intreseting things — not just watching sumo wrestlers train, waking up super early in the morning and watching the tuna auctioning on a fish market, but also experiencing the japanese concept of shoshin.

The Japanese is so extremely innovative yet traditional. The old always combined with the new embracing the shoshin way of life. Picture by Su San Lee.

What exactly is shoshin?

Using our favorite encyclopedia yet again: “Shoshin (初心) 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. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts.” [1]

See, I told you — it’s mind blowing an in that beginner’s mind of shoshin you experience a state of openness and wonder that allows you to approach life without any biases and preconceptions socially associated with the knowledge and experience. A curious mind without an ego — just as a children approaching life, without any fear or judgement or the old belief system recreating the reality over and over again.

When you adapt a level of shoshin to your daily life embracing your curiousity — egoless, fearless — in every moment with the stories you’re telling and just how you form that piece of white paper, the canvas that I call life — that every day is always a new opportunity to rewrite your story and thus, stop being slave to your old beliefs.

You are a slave to your old beliefs when you are recreating your past experiences in the now, the experiences that shaped your beliefs in the first step and I mean, it’s what everyone does, because our minds like the known — the comfort that recreating the old gives us.

The concept of Shoshin on the other hand can help us approach every day with a fresh mind, a new mind that is free from all the past experiences. Just like the feeling after you meditated in the morning for a quick 10 Minutes.

Creating something totally new with the state of openness and being open minded is so highly refreshing because it lets your old beliefs being open for disruption.

And when we are disrupted — basically meaning a disturbance of our old beleif systems — we are freed, we are completely transformed into a better version of ourselves — similar like the Pokémon going into the next stage of their evolution. Charizard would never be Charizard if he let Charmander define who he is — talking really nerdy to you — but its an amazing example. And who would want to stay forever in their first step of evolution? We humans are designed to evolve. I mean look at your body now: do you have hair all over you like the homo sapiens had? Hopefully not, because we humans evolved.

Our belief systems are formed throughout or life and as Ortega y Gasset beautiful states: “Beliefs constitute the base of our life, the reality in which we choose to dwell. All our conduct, including the intellectual life, depends on the system of our authentic beliefs. In them lies latent, as implications of whatever specifically we do or we think. The wo*man, at heart, is believing or, which is equal, the deepest stratum of our life, the spirit that maintains and carries all the others, is formed by beliefs.”

So our beliefs run are a program our mind repeatedly runs to confirm the reality we choose to dwell in. Our entire education system is a programmed belief system brought upon us: get good grades, achieve otherwise you will end on the street, bla bla bla. To quote Elon Musk “I didn’t go to Harvard or Stanford but the people who work for me do.” Not diving deeper into that — you get the idea.

Looking at life from the beginners mind can reveal a lot of incredible opportunities and experiences. Picture by Ryoji Iwata.

So when we start applying something like Shoshin it’s letting us embrace that we might not know anything about a new subject or a new field of interest — which is totally OK — and just letting our curiosity lead us to new kinds of belief systems and new things that we would have never explored before if we just applied our old belief system on everything that would feel new and disruptive to us. Shoshin is all about allowing things to come in that you ever would have expected coming in: incredible opportunities and completely unpredictable things, which you can’t predict with your boring old belief systems.

There so many things in life where we would have never seen opportunities and things coming because we embraced the state of openness — yes, similar to saying YES to everything — you can find the article here:

And I know for sure you know a moment in your life where you’ve been so open to something new that you were just surprised how much it changed you, because you embraced your curiosity and freed yourself from your old belief systems. For example, I disrupted myself everytime I lived in an entire new country and culture. If I wouldn’t have been open minded I would have never had a good time.

How can you rediscover your beginner’s mind?

#1 let go of the need to add value

Many people, especially high achievers, have an overwhelming need to provide value to the people around them. On the surface, this sounds like a great thing. But in practice, it can handicap your success because you never have a conversation where you just shut up and listen. If you’re constantly adding value then you kill the ownership that other people feel about their ideas. At the same time, it’s impossible for you to listen to someone else when you’re talking. So, step one is to let go of the need to always contribute. Step back every now and then and just observe and listen.

#2 let go of the need to win every argument

If you’re having a conversation and someone makes a statement that you disagree with, try releasing the urge to correct them. They don’t need to lose the argument for you to win. Letting go of the need to prove a point opens up the possibility for you to learn something new. Approach it from a place of curiosity: Isn’t that interesting. They look at this in a totally different way. Even if you are right and they are wrong, it doesn’t matter. You can walk away satisfied even if you don’t have the last word in every conversation.

#3 be open to completely new information

I have a tendency to talk a lot (see “Providing Too Much Value” above). Every now and then, I’ll challenge myself to stay quiet and pour all of my energy into listening to someone else. My favorite strategy is to ask someone to, “Tell me more about that.” It doesn’t matter what the topic is, I’m simply trying to figure out how things work and open my mind to hearing about the world through someone else’s perspective.

#4 assume that you know nothing

In his book, Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb writes, “I try to remind my group each week that we are all idiots and know nothing, but we have the good fortune of knowing it.” Its impossible to know everything since information is changing at the speed of light. Just release and let go and go with the flow. There is nothing to be proven neither to yourself nor to anyone else. Just admit that you are a student of life and you’ll be amazed how Shoshin will guide you to your own evolved Pokémon stage.

I just love this japanese concept of Shoshin because curiosity is everything in life. I think it’s so fun to be curious because it’s a very playful and childlike state. When you embrace that childlike energy, you are super intuitive and super free from everything that you’ve experienced before by just being playful about what life can be, because life should be as easy as being a child again. Your life is whatever you want to define it to be and applying Shoshin to everything you do and just allowing things to come through the cracks of your being you will bring so much ease and fun with it.

All the best to you,

Berenice

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Click on the “play” button below to listen to the entire Podcast Session #35 on shoshin x essential edit.