Three years ago, when good fortune made me the temporary caretaker of a cello, I began taking lessons with a teacher in the neighborhood. I hadn't tackled a stringed instrument since high school guitar class and a short stint playing bass in a classmate's band. I was starting at the bottom.
This experience is serving me well as I start lessons again, this time in a whole new genre. I've had to work at chipping away certain prejudices (classical music is somehow "higher" than popular or folk music), become willing to make mistakes, and return to practicing very basic skills. At 52, I'm my teacher's newest and oldest student.
The Zen tradition has a principle called beginner's mind. Cultivating beginner's mind requires putting aside preconceived ideas and the egotism that can come from previous accomplishments. The student has to turn off her own mental chatterbox, quiet down and listen. She has to be willing to say (if only in her own head), "You're better at this than I am," "I goofed," or "I'm just not getting it; can you show me how?"
Beginner's mind is know-it-all's opposite.
No one is ever too old to learn something new; however, the learner needs to adopt a mindset similar to a 5 year-old learning to read. Beginner's Mind 101 is the prerequisite to everything else.
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