Peace and joy in munchkin land

PEACE, JOY & YOUR  “INNER” BEGINNER

Well... “how does your light shine?” Today?  My answer to that is we shall see how it feels in a couple hours.  No, I’m not talking about Karma or the universe, or my back that sometimes  reminds me that I abused it until I needed a significant surgery a couple years back.  I’m not talking about my spirit, well not right this second.  Mostly I’m talking about a very small spot on the tip of my left index finger and another place  on the left side  of my right thumb.  

Both of these  spots have some irritating pain this morning and I know exactly why.  a few of you out there also know why.  These spots hurt  because I was learning  a song on the guitar that has a funky but easy finger picking pattern.  I’ve known the chords to the song for a while and have wanted to. Be able to “pick it” for some time, however, something has been holding me back—until yesterday.

You see there’s this thing called the beginners mind or your inner beginnner.  The  concept. Here is that you can experience the  world in a new way—with curiousity and enthusiasm—when you channel things as if they are a brand new experience.  

So... I open up youtube anbdIstart watching as if I have never played this song before.  I didn’t feel the need to compare what I was learning with other songs or techniques I knew.  I went in believing I would learn a great deal and knowing I would need to practice this learning to master. The song.  I also knew that if Itried to bend the chords and the song into the. Patterns I typically use or have used in playing that song, I’d likely end up somewhere on the mediocre side.  

To make a long story shorter....I’ll get to the point.  seeking peace and joy almost always. Relies upon looking for new meanings in old experiences.  As the munchkins tell Dorothy when she asks where to begin?—At the beginning! If you start at the beginning with few preconceived notions you won’t  compare your learning with that of others and. You will value any step forward.  You probably won’t care too much about what other people think because, after all, you are just starting out and all you have to be is a little more skilled than you were yesterday or earlier today.  

This mindset can be incredibly powerful yet far more relaxed than the one we fill with our expectations or our assumptions about the expectations of others.  So peace comes from the practice of new ways and new patterns that refresh the world and joy comes from the hundreds of small gains made when you are a beginner at anything.  Approaching  life with a beginner’s perspective and you’ll soon be riding without training  wheels or be on the road to shambala (with a couple of sore fingers sometimes .). Practice peace and joy starting at the beginning of eac h day and remember. You don’t need that much finger pressure and that that your hand is fast  enough to use a pick :)

More on this  tomorrow after all when you are writing about the beginning  it takes a while to get towards the end.