Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Beginner’s mind is, you know, when you started, just started your study, you have no — no prejudice, you know — no preconceived idea. You don’t know anything about Buddhism. And you open your whole mind to the Buddhism. That is beginner’s mind. After you went through — but if you study our way, you feel as if you, you know, understood Buddhism, and as if you attained something special. That is quite usual. But at that time you just lose your beginner’s mind. So, if you feel, you know, even though you study Buddhism, you really — you should like to study more. And your study is not good enough. Then what you study is Buddhism. Do you understand? That is beginner’s mind. And that beginner’s mind is also big mind.’ (from the Suzuki Roshi Archive)

Considering how famous the book title is, Suzuki Roshi did not make “beginner’s mind” a constant theme in his teaching; indeed, we have only tracked nine talks in the archive (out of at least four hundred that we have some record of) where the terms arises. In this case, he is answering a student’s question about it during the second summer at Tassajara, before the book was published.

Also to note that the phrase, as well as “big mind” originally come from Dogen – who was also not afraid to borrow from his predecessors when it served his purpose.