When we’re born, everything we do is creative because everything is a leap into the dark. Our brains are still a random tangle of nerve cells, not yet aligned into the neural networks that reflect our habitual thought patterns. Because we have no prior knowledge we have no preconceptions, no subjectivity, no fears. We’re curious, receptive and non-judgmental. Everything is equally interesting, and we give our attention freely.
In Zen Buddhism, there’s a term for this condition: beginner’s mind. Buddhists believe that beginner’s mind is essential to living fully and deeply, to being able to respond authentically in the moment and remain open to possibility. It’s also, says Shunryu Suzuki-roshi in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, the ‘real secret of the arts’.[1]
But gradually, we learn to stay away from hot things. We learn to keep upright so we don’t fall down. We learn to shape sound into words. We learn to label things and we group things into types. Everything we perceive is weighed against prior assumptions, so we can focus our attention selectively: where we think it matters. We develop patterns of thought the way that sheep wear narrow tracks across their fields. We don’t even notice we’re making them.
Are we nothing more than nebulous thought patterns? What does my pattern look like? Yours? The Buddha’s must have been as complex as a fractal or a mandala, fading out towards the edges into all that is:
Others, though, might appear less flexible:
For growth to happen, a change of pattern is required. However, knowing we need to be jolted out of a rut is one thing; doing it is another.
But sometimes, when everything outside changes, our internal pattern shifts, too.
[1] Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Tokyo: John Weatherhill, 1979)
The Creative State of Mind 