-Shunryu Suzuki
A Physician’s Prayer for Beginner’s Mind
Let me receive you
like a thoughtful letter
instead of junk mail,
a pleasant surprise over
predictable monotony.
Tell me, show me
who you really are
underneath The List
of meds and diagnoses.
Forgive me if my fear of time
has contracted my capacity
for panoramic perspective.
Come, let’s explore the landscape
of your life together,
hidden grottos and open fields-
places you’ve neglected.
May my presence be a door
you’ve closed on yourself and
desperately want to reopen,
my silence an invitation
to meet the Radiant Soul
inside the one who suffers.
I wrote this poem in April of 2013 with the intention of stretching my heart and decreasing the negativity bias against certain patients who frustrate me. Revisiting it today, I still find it challenging to empathize with certain patients, friends, and family members.
With our country politically divided and my own heart closed at times, I want to take a closer look at my internal walls. Why do certain people irritate me? What makes my body want to flee from certain encounters and stay with others?
To gain some insight into this inquiry, I reached out to a few wise mentors. I asked them, “When is it best to offer accepting, validating, compassionate presence, and when would it be appropriate to offer advice when I sense that someone is really struggling?” Their answers were not as clear and concise as I had hoped. Still, I was grateful for their wise words, and knew I would need to walk the labyrinth inside my own heart for answers. And, those answers would change.
No one algorithm addresses these complex and sensitive human interactions. But I can check in periodically with my own body and breath as I listen to others. I can notice when their words warm this lotus heart to blossom open, or irritate the soft petals that wish to remain tight as a bud. I can validate their honest emotional response without getting lost in a story line I feel imprisons them. I can use their verbal and nonverbal cues as invitations or rejections for advice.
But most of all, this practice begins with me. My degree of discomfort with any person or situation is not only dependent on external factors, but also on my internal response to them, to myself. Am I honest about my response? Am I judging my response? As a family physician, meditation practitioner, and member of a large extended family who values the needs of the group over individual needs, guilt often clouds my ability to see clearly. When I meet my own feelings with kind acceptance, I have more space for others.
Today, I can forgive the lotus heart that yearns to stay closed in certain situations because it needs patience and time to understand. Today, I can celebrate the body squatting in lotus pose as perineal muscles relax in anticipation of another birth. Birthing in silence. Birthing trust. Trust that my heart knows the way. Trust that I am forever learning and have a Beginner’s Mind.
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