Mindful Breathing and the Art of Cultivating a Beginner’s Mind

Sister Dang Nghiem dwells on the importance of breathing mindfully, explains why most people choose the path of least resistance, and guides us on how to bring the elements of novelty and excitement into our lives, by cultivating a “beginner’s mind”.  

Sister Dang Nghiem, MD (“Sister D”), is a doctor, an ordained Buddhist nun, and a dharma teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. She is the author of the books “Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun”, “Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit” and “Flowers in the Dark”. 

In this excerpt from her talk, she speaks of the importance of breathing mindfully, explains why most of us choose the path of least resistance, and guides us on how to bring the elements of novelty and excitement into our lives by cultivating a “beginner’s mind”—an attitude of open-mindedness and freedom from preconceived notions.  

Below is an excerpt from Sister Dang Nghiem’s talk, featured in the documentary “Mindfulness: Be Happy Now” (2015) 

Breathe—you are alive! It means nothing, and it means everything. It depends on our state of mind because we all breathe. In the womb, Mother breathed for us, and the moment we are born and we start to cry—that is our first in-breath. And so however old we are right now, we have breathed all our lives. But for most of us, it means nothing because we are not aware of that. There is a breathing center in the brain that takes care of it. So we do not have to think about it, we do not have to be aware of it—it is done automatically. And so the life that we have also continues automatically, because the body has an amazing capacity to take care of itself, to regulate itself. And so, the breath is something that can be very automatic, and to be alive can also be something very automatic.  

But for a person who learns to be aware that he or she is breathing, everything changes—both mental health and physical health. We start with the breath, we learn to be aware of it, and we learn to “touch” the changes in the breath, the changes in the breathing patterns. And through that, we learn to be more aware of our body. Like right now, some of us are quite relaxed, and some of us are less relaxed. But if we are aware of our breathing, we will be more aware of whether we are relaxed or less relaxed. So we are in touch with our bodies. And when we are aware of our breath, we are also aware of our mind. Because when we have anger, we breathe differently. When we have sadness, and worries, we breathe differently. So when we learn to be more and more aware of the patterns of our breathing and the abrupt changes in every moment, then we learn to be aware of what is going on in our mind, what is going on in our thoughts and perceptions that cause the change of that breathing patterns. And so it makes life very dynamic, very lively. 

….. 

It is biologically ingrained in us to live in a way that is of the least resistance, the way that is easiest and also just safest. When our human ancestors lived in a cave, the most important thing was to survive, to be safe. So we developed instincts that helped us. If we hear a noise, we have a fight or flight response immediately. Or, if we see something, we immediately categorize it, so that we can make a very quick decision whether it is something safe or something unsafe. That was developed very early in our history as living beings and is very much ingrained.  

The capacity to be aware, the capacity to recognize—those have been developed much later in the evolution of the Homo sapiens. Our cortex developed much later and with it our capacity for mindfulness, awareness, compassion, and altruism. So we live with our instincts, and that is easier and quicker. We can make a quick decision, and that is why life can be very monotonous. We look at something, and we immediately conclude: “Oh, it's a tree. It's an animal. It's that friend or That’s my wife.” When we make that decision immediately, then it's over. The brain doesn’t process anymore. We don't see the situation, or the person anymore. The brain shuts down and looks for another new stimulus, you see? But learning to be mindful takes more work because it takes us to still the mind, to quiet the mind so that the brain doesn't just make a top-down control, a top-down decision and say "That is that". When we keep the mind quiet, we continue to process that stimulus, that person—maybe our wife, our children, ourselves, our feelings, our body. The brain continues to be in touch with that in a new way. We call that the beginner's mind. We are in touch with the new every moment. It is a mental training. We have that capacity within us, but the other capacity of relying on our instincts—that’s much more ingrained and much easier and quicker. 

Source

Sister Dang Nghiem, MD (“Sister D”), an author of the books “Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun”, “Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit” and “Flowers in the Dark”.