The mind of the beginner is empty, free from habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.
- Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki
I’ve tried to capture the essence of this solitary phrase in the past when I railed against the personality I identified as a “critic”. Of course, I was being critical of critics, but that is my privilege as a blog writer… 
Seriously, though, what I was trying to capture several years ago (up to the present moment) is a way to say that the best way to approach life is not to think you have all of the answers, but to look at everything, even those things you think you have knowledge about, with a fresh mind each time you encounter them.
Going back to my criticism of the wine connoisseur, once you have decided that a particular wine or grape-growing region is déclassé, you are putting yourself in the position of being an expert. No longer the beginner, you tune out all the possibilities, including the one that a particular wine might be good, in spite of the historical preserverence that suggests that it wont be.
This attitude was part of the reason why I had issues with science, even though my job classification is “scientist” and my background is in that field. I got tired of fellow scientists who accepted what had already been “proven” and refused to accept the possibility that other options exist. A psych prof once said a phrase that still bothers me, nine years later. He said that if 999 blackbirds were black and 1 blackbird was red, then ALL blackbirds are black. Science is usually approached in the same way these days. If something is statistically significant, then it is the truth, even when there is some evidence against it.
Once something has been decided as an absolute, the mind closes off and refuses to accept the other possibilities. I have been, for the past few years, trying to cultivate a mind that accepts the other possibilities… A beginner’s mind…
We should all embrace a beginner’s mind…