One of the wonderful things about Buddhists is that they can tell you exactly how to do something. A recent article in the magazine Lion’s Roar offered some steps to maintaining a beginner’s mind, that state of approaching the present moment wanting to learn from it rather than control it.
The article recommended noticing what’s happening now physically, emotionally, and in our thoughts. The next step is to remember what the practice is for that state of being. For example, if we’re being hard on ourselves, the practice is loving kindness.
When my thoughts start running around on the hamster wheel of life, I’ve been asking myself, what mind is this that’s happening right now? And let me tell you, I have a lot of minds.
There’s “I’ll never get there” mind. There’s “compare myself unfavorably to others to make myself feel not good enough” mind, and there’s “compare myself to others to make myself feel better than them” mind, both of which result in fear and unhappiness.
When I can name a particular mind, I feel an immediate sense of relief, as if I’m no longer required to believe that what it’s telling me is reality.
A workshop leader recently said, “We’re constantly trying to make sense of the world around us.” We see children do this, but we forget that it’s an ongoing process, that the meaning making factories of our minds work 24/7 every day of our lives.
So how do we choose to look for meaning in the world? My comparing minds have only one way to interpret all of reality—better than/worse than.
Gratitude mind, on the other hand, opens us to the wonder and beauty of existence. It creates the possibility of trust, which allows us to recognize and enter into our relationship with the rest of creation. From that vantage point, the only way to make sense of the world is to love.
Being Finite 
Thanks, dear Rachel! This is exactly what I needed today. – Merrilee
“When I can name a particular mind, I feel an immediate sense of relief, as if I’m no longer required to believe that what it’s telling me is reality.” YES! Love this blog.
Thank you Rachel. The practice question “What is happening right now?” is helpful to me when it enables me to acknowledge suffering that I unconsciously and reflexively try to ward off and deny. “It’s entirely normal and OK to feel yucky” I might think, and then feel a sense of relief. As you say, the act of “naming” bestows awareness. For me it feels like I now have the enemy in my crosshairs, or at least out in the open, rather than being plagued by some subversive energy that insinuates itself into my sense of self. One could even refer to this practice question as adventitious. But I wouldn’t.