Shoshin
Definition: beginner’s mind; having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions
Origin: Japanese, Zen Buddhism
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Buddhist concepts are fairly popular in America, yet despite their popularity, I believe that America’s ethnocidal culture often prevents us from fully grasping the meaning of these beliefs and practices. To that point, what I say in this newsletter is not intended to generalize or speak on broad swaths of Buddhist cultural and religious practices.
Ethnocide undermines our ability to appreciate Buddhist ideas and practices because Buddhism thrives via having a strong attachment to place. When you destroy a culture but keep the people, one method of ethnocidal cultural destruction can be the minimization of the innate human connection to the environment. People and businesses in ethnocidal societies are encouraged to develop an unsustainable relationship to the earth in which reckless pollution and destruction are the norm. And when the environment is destroyed or neglected, one’s connection to place and culture decreases.
While Buddhism speaks to universal truths and anyone can engage in the practices, the environments where Buddhism has taken root display an obvious attachment to place. Zen Buddhism speaks to this truth.
Buddhism comes from Nepal and expanded into India, and around 300 BC to 100 AD it started to spread throughout the rest of Asia. As Buddhism’s following spread, it began to merge with the indigenous customs and beliefs of various regions, which is one of the main reasons why there are so many different types of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is slightly different from Zen Buddhism because Tibetan people are different from Japanese people. These Buddhist traditions are different and it would be absurd to consider one iteration of Buddhism as being better than the other. They are both examples of Buddhism adapting and merging with the people and the environment, so to fully appreciate Buddhist practices you need to have an attachment to the places where they have taken root.
America’s ethnocidal culture does not provide the fertile soil for Buddhism to adapt and grow, and due to these ethnocidal foundations, Americans are prone to appropriating and consuming the iterations of Buddhism from another culture.
Shoshin is a Zen Buddhist concept that can be roughly translated as “beginner’s mind,” and it is a concept that Americans need to understand and adapt so that we can counter ethnocide.
Attachment & The Beginner’s Mind
The concept of attachment is a major component of Buddhism, and people are led to believe that one should not have any earthly attachments. Unfortunately, “attachment” in ethnocidal societies is often misinterpreted as material possessions, and people feel that they need to rid themselves of their possessions in order to practice this pillar of Buddhism. Since most people cannot rid themselves of their possessions, people often feel that succeeding at ridding themselves of all attachments is an impossibility.
Additionally, American materialism has encouraged all of us to perceive our possessions as an extension of our identity and a pathway to freedom. If we lose these possessions, we are inclined to believe that we have just lost a part of ourselves and our freedom.
Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about attachment and I described it as “not ridding yourself of your possessions, but making sure that you don’t become a hoarder. You have to be able to let things go.” We all have stuff that we need, but when it is no longer needed we need to be able to let it go.
Being able to let things go is empowering because you know that you are not dependent on being attached to anything. Therefore, whenever you decide to attach yourself to anything, you know that you are doing so because it is beneficial and that you are strong enough to leave when it becomes unhealthy. This attachment could be clothes, material objects, a relationship, a job, an identity, or an essence.
Shoshin has a connection with attachment because the beginner’s mind is too fresh to be weighed down by attachments. Ego, a sense of superiority, or even the need to be perceived as smart are types of attachments that prevent us from having shoshin. Shoshin makes us more receptive to new information and capable of learning.
In much of America, children are being brought up to believe that their identity and self-worth are interconnected to academic success. Ironically, this social education undermines shoshin because it makes people less receptive to information that does not correlate to them being on top or a success. If knowledge means that you are now a beginner and not an expert, people can feel like their ego and identity has been crushed and now they may decide to destroy knowledge in order to sustain their attachments. Likewise, knowledge could mentally crush someone’s sense of self if they cannot embrace shoshin and instead cling to their attachments.
The United States and our ethnocidal culture makes Americans less receptive to shoshin because our national identity is largely built upon the idea of America. America has a cultural identity built upon an attachment to an idea and not a place, and in many ways this represents an inversion of shoshin and Buddhist principles.
Growth & Transcendence
The beginner’s mind requires a lot of awareness because the purpose of shoshin is to facilitate growth, yet the goal is to sustain this mindset as you grow. You need to cultivate the mindset of a beginner through practice as you obtain more information.
These practices can take many forms. For example, a teacher must be capable of learning from their students in order to be a good teacher. There are plenty of experts who are awful teachers because they refuse the possibility that they can learn from their students. They have the mindset of an expert and not a beginner.
We all may have an expertise in a particular subject, but if that expertise makes you believe that you must be an expert on anything and everything then you are denying yourself knowledge as you remain attached to the idea of being an expert.
An accurate westernized interpretation of shoshin could be the equivalent of the critic within critical theory, which was the European precursor to America’s critical race theory.
Shoshin should incline us to be receptive to new information, and also ask critical questions that challenge anything and everything in pursuit of the truth. Children ask “why” hundreds of times a day, and they do this because they live to engage in a vigorous pursuit of the truth as they seek to understand the world around them.
As adults, the role of the questioner becomes the task of the critic. Critics ask tough questions in order to get closer to the truth and help society overcome and transcend the limitations of a flawed status quo. In German, critics facilitate a process of transcendence that they call aufheben, and this word has no English equivalent.
In America, critics by and large are perceived negatively unless they exist to criticise entertainment and spectacle. Criticism is often portrayed as a purely destructive exercise, rather than what it is, which is a reconstructive one. Criticizing the government or the American narrative pertaining to race and inequality still remains controversial because our society’s attachment to a benevolent American narrative pressures all of us to have an unquestioning, pseudo-expert relationship with our society.
Critical race theory has become a controversial topic in America because people are asking questions and doing research trying to reconstruct our society without the attachments that have clouded our vision and impeded our pursuit of knowledge.
Shoshin is a Buddhist practice that can thrive in America if we adapt it to our society and use it to help make America a more truthful, healthy, knowledgeable, and inquisitive society. Finding a way for the beginner’s mind to thrive in our soil, in this place, is important if we are going to be able to let go of America's attachments to its ethnocidal systems and foundations.