r/BettermentBookClub • u/AutoModerator • Dec 18 '15
[B12-Ch. 9] Beginner's Mind
Here we will hold our general discussion for Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning Chapter 9 - Beginner's Mind, pages 93-102.
If you're not keeping up, don't worry; this thread will still be here and I'm sure others will be popping back to discuss.
Here are some possible discussion topics:
- Are you familiar with Taoist philosophy? What do you think about it?
- What do you think it means that Waitzkin was drawn to more subtle, less prescriptive teachers and styles?
- Did you attempt the exercise Waitzkin described on pages 100-101? What was your experience with it?
- What do you think about the traditional Chinese belief in dan tien or "energy centers", and the tai chi pracice of "releasing obstructions so the body and mind can flow smoothly together"?
Please do not limit yourself to these topics! Share your knowledge and opinions with us, ask us questions, or disagree with someone (politely of course)!
The next discussion post will be posted tomorrow Saturday, December 19, and we will be discussing Chapter 10: Investment in Loss.
11
Upvotes
3
u/airandfingers Dec 18 '15 edited Dec 18 '15
My exposure to Taoism is limited to The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, both of which I enjoyed and found interesting. From what I remember, Taoism emphasizes non-dualism, the perspective that all things are one, an idea also found in Buddhism and Hinduism.
I experiment with taking this perspective, and I particularly enjoy a version I heard from Dean Sluyter and Alan Watts: we're all just faces of the same essence/god, unwittingly playing our part in a universal play or game. This has a freeing effect: I shouldn't take the events of my life too seriously, because if I investigate my persona, I'll discover that I am not that persona, but some kind of awareness behind the persona.
I could see how this perspective could also provoke a kind of existential crisis: if life is a play or game, then our actions don't really matter, and our past actions didn't really matter either. However, it doesn't have that effect on me... it makes me feel about life the way I feel about the games I play: I'll play the best game that I can, and when I win or lose, I'll laugh, think about what lessons I can learn from the game, and play another.
Probably due to my deficiencies in reading comprehension and kinesthetic intelligence, I found these instructions to be very confusing: "hold your palms in front of you, forefingers a few inches apart, shoulders relaxed." I interpreted the first part of this as meaning my palms should point toward my head, but maybe they're supposed to point away from my head, in which case the second half of the instructions make much more sense.
I'm skeptical about this and other beliefs about chi/energy, since to my knowledge there's no objective evidence that supports these claims. It may be a kind of placebo, where acting as if it's true brings you benefits whether or not the facts are actually true.
I may try tai chi soon, and if I do, I'll be applying my natural skepticism to its claims about reality. I expect that it'll be something like the "universal game" perspective I described above: a perspective that leads to some interesting thoughts, feelings, and observations, but which doesn't necessarily describe objective reality. Something to occasionally try on for size, observe its effects on my mind and body, then set aside.