Nurturing a beginner’s mind doesn’t mean we pretend we don’t know things. It just means we get more intentional about pausing to ask if our assumptions about people and the world are always correct.
Our guest this week is teacher Shamash Alidina.
He shares a simple technique for opening and strengthening your awareness and curiosity about everyday things. This walking meditation is designed to help you:
- Practice seeing the world with a “beginner’s mind”
- Get outside, move, breathe, and give your churning mind a break
- Notice things in a new way through your senses
Shamash Alidina: “Beginner’s Mind” Walking Meditation
Read and practice the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
1. Find a safe place to walk.This practice
1. Find a safe place to walk.This practice is a little different from a typical guided meditation, because you’ll be walking. Choose somewhere safe to walk. If you’re listening on headphones, keep the volume low enough that you can still hear what’s happening around you.
2. Begin by standing still.Feel your feet on the ground and notice your posture. There’s no need to change anything. Just arrive here, and take one conscious, gentle breath.
3. Look around as though you’ve just arrived.Before you start walking, take a moment to notice where you are. Imagine you’ve just arrived here from another planet: You don’t know what anything is, or what anything is called. You’re simply here to explore, a bit like a child—noticing, looking, listening, wondering.
4. Begin walking, a little more slowly than
4. Begin walking, a little more slowly than usual.When you’re ready, start to walk. It doesn’t need to be very slow—just a bit slower than your habitual pace, to give yourself a little more space to notice.
5. Bring attention to your feet.As you walk, feel one foot lifting, moving forward, and touching the ground, and then the other. There’s no special experience you need to have. Just notice the ordinary sensations of walking.
6. Notice three things you’ve never noticed before.Now let your attention open, and look around. Challenge yourself to find three things you’ve never consciously noticed before. They can be completely ordinary: a crack in the pavement, the shape of a leaf, a mark on a wall, a strange-looking cloud, a color you’ve never paid attention to.
7. Try seeing without naming.As you continue, see
7. Try seeing without naming.As you continue, see what happens if you don’t name what you’re looking at. Instead of thinking “That’s a tree,” simply notice what’s actually there—the direct experience of seeing. This is beginner’s mind: being willing to look again, with curiosity.
8. Listen as if you’ve never heard this place before.Now shift your attention to listening, simply receiving whatever reaches your ears. Maybe it’s traffic, birdsong, people talking, the wind, a dog barking somewhere. Notice the volume of each sound, and how far away it seems. See if you can catch something you would normally miss: the rhythm of your footsteps, a faint hum, the wind moving through the leaves.
9. Notice the mind that says, “I know this place.”The mind may say, “I know this place,” or “There’s nothing interesting here.” You don’t have to argue with these thoughts. Simply notice, “Ah, that’s just the mind,” and gently ask, “What else can I notice?”
10. Let yourself be playful.You don’t have
10. Let yourself be playful.You don’t have to take mindfulness too seriously. Walk as though you’re a child exploring somewhere for the first time. If something catches your eye—a puddle, a funny-shaped tree, a tiny insect, even your own shadow—let yourself stop and look.
11. Recognize that this walk has never happened before.You may have walked this path before, but you’ve never taken this particular walk, on this day, at this time. This exact combination of weather, sound, light, people, thoughts, and feelings has never happened in quite this way. You might silently say, “I don’t know what happens next,” and keep walking. You don’t need to know what you’ll notice or what you’ll feel.
12. Welcome whatever is here—even boredom.Beginner’s mind isn’t about having wonderful experiences all the time. It’s about being available for whatever is here. If you notice your mind becoming bored or impatient, or a thought like “When will this meditation end?”—wonderful. You’ve just found something new to notice.
13. Continue your walk with curiosity.When you’re ready, carry on walking, perhaps a little lighter, a little more curious, and a little less certain that you’ve seen it all before. Enjoy your walk, and enjoy not quite knowing what you’ll notice next. Thank you for trying this out.
