An example of a “beginner’s mind” moment…

I was practicing bow technique with a metronome app. There are a variety of sound options for the click, including wood blocks, drums, digital beeps, and so on. Down at the very bottom of the list was an option called “scratch”. Curious, I selected the sound and understood that it was supposed to sound like a DJ scratching a record.

Amused, I chuckled and thought ‘I wonder if anyone actually uses this sound? When the developers included this sound, were they just being silly?’ I was about to move on, and that’s when my beginner’s mind spoke up, asking ‘why don’t you give it a try?’, so I did.

As it turned out, using that sound while practicing bow technique ended up teaching me something new about feeling rhythm. I’m glad I didn’t listen to my “expert’s mind”, which told me that this experiment was not even worth trying. Silly expert’s mind!