Published in the Spring 2011 issue of Yoga Connection Magazine in Fort Collins, CO

Perhaps you have swan dived forward more times than you can count, and maybe your descent into Bhaktasana feels more natural than walking.  A mindful practice of yoga has the potential to breathe a fresh perspective into each pose, no matter how many classes—or years of classes—we have attended.  As a yoga student and teacher, I have witnessed beginning students move into and out of their first expressions of new postures with a curiosity that is inspiring.  There is a quality in the Beginners Mind that offers great wisdom and can inform even the most seasoned yogi’s practice.

A Beginners Mind approaches every practice, moves into each posture, and follows every inhalation and exhalation as though it is an entirely new experience.  Each moment is amplified; it becomes the most important moment in our existence.  Cultivating the Beginners Mind in the practice of yoga, no matter how many million times we’ve lifted our hips into downward facing dog, has implications that stretch far beyond our lives on the mat.

From a curious mental space, our yoga practice allows us to cultivate a sense of wonder.  In yoga we practice physical postures, but subtly we practice the art of finding bliss in the mundane: noticing the temperature of the breath as it passes over the lips, the sensation of the heart blossoming open like a flower, the powerful weightlessness achieved in Virabhadrasana II.  All of these moments, when practiced with radical awareness and free from attachment to how it felt before or how it should feel, enable us to experience the ecstasy in the ordinary.

When I think back to my first yoga classes, what got me hooked was the novelty of truly being in my body: as I imagined my internal organs and structural alignment, my body awakened; it was suddenly brought to life.  Feeling the rise and fall of my belly with the breath and moving with such conscious awareness, I was discovering my body—my Self—for the very first time.  I remember fearing that the newness of this awareness and sensations would wear off in time, as it tended to in other areas of life.  Instead, this approach to my practice from the perspective of a beginner helped that novelty grow into a profound sense of wonder that not only deepened my yoga but translated to my life off the mat.

In the decision to approach every single yoga class asking, “What will my body teach me today?” we create space for exploration and come into the present moment.  This practice invites us to walk off the mat and find the bliss in stepping down the stairs at the studio, in unlocking our bicycle and noticing the weather.  It teaches us how to access the beauty in slicing vegetables, in making the bed, in brushing our teeth—in every act of our day that we tend to take for granted.

Practicing this Beginners Mind in the yoga class allows us to be more graceful beginners elsewhere.  It teaches us to approach new situations without expectation: to try—and to fail—without attachment.  We are able to be where we are and let the process unfold naturally.  Often we find that allowing ourselves to be unskilled beginners, simply witnessing ourselves and our progress, enables us to achieve more than when we pressure ourselves to succeed.  In the beginners mind, we flow rather than force.

So, I invite you at the start of your next yoga practice, at the start of your day, even right now: set the intention to approach each moment with the curiosity of a beginners mind.  “What will I notice, what will I learn, what will I feel, today?”