In this article I’m looking at Shunryū Suzuki’s beginner’s mind in Zen and Heinz von Foerster’s ethical imperative. Readers of my blog know that I love connecting the dots often in seemingly varying fields.

Suzuki said something useful: “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.”

Suzuki didn’t mean that expertise is bad. He meant something about the stance the expert takes. This implies closure and certainty, the sense that you already know what you’re looking at.

By contrast, the beginner approaches with a different posture, not from weakness but from openness. The beginner doesn’t pretend to understand. The beginner stays curious. The beginner remains alert to surprise: There’s so much we don’t know about this person or situation. Let me watch closely. Let me notice what I haven’t seen before. Let me find new ways to interact. This brings a kind of freshness and openness to a situation that can otherwise easily get stale.

That posture matters. It opens the space for others to be present in ways expertise often doesn’t allow.

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