I am a veteran student of a spiritual practice that has 365 lessons to help us train our minds with a new way of seeing. During a moment of quiet reflection, one of these lessons came to mind and I realized it could be applied to Bitcoin.
Lesson 189 tells us, “Just do this: be still and put away all thoughts of what you are and what God is; any concepts you have learned about the world; any images you have about yourself. Free your mind from whatever it thinks true or false, or good or bad, from any thought it thinks worthy; and all the ideas it’s ashamed of. hold nothing. Do not bring with you a thought the past has taught you, nor a belief you have ever learned from anything before.”
Although the depth of this lesson cannot be put into words, I have always read it in a way that invites us to approach God with a beginner’s mind.
Now you may be wondering, dear reader, why am I bringing this up. Well, it’s become very clear to me that every bitcoiner needs to do something similar with bitcoin and Money. We must approach bitcoin and money with a beginner’s mind, which is rare for all but the spiritually advanced among us. I observed that quite closely anyone (myself included) initially struggled to understand bitcoin. Many times we dismiss it as cheating or dismiss it. Sometimes it’s because we don’t understand money, or more specifically, healthy money. Or maybe we’ve been so culturally programmed our entire lives that we don’t recognize the cultural brainwashing we’ve received about money.
I’ll repeat the above in a moment so it’s relevant to those of us trying to understand Bitcoin. Only we replace the word “god” with the word “money” or “bitcoin”. This may not be as heretical as you think. I have long believed that our culture worships money and people with extravagant wealth. Even more silly is the fact that almost all of us will strenuously deny that we worship them! However, if you are honest with yourself, you will likely realize that this is true. We tend to pay too much attention to billionaires and put their words or tweets in the press, no matter how stupid their comments are. In my opinion we will learn a lot more by examining how other cultures around the world (in places like Africa and Central America) are using Bitcoin. We can learn far more about Bitcoin from them than they can from us.
Here’s the lesson from before, restated just for all of us who really aim to understand Bitcoin:
Just do this: be still and drop all thoughts of what you are and what money is; all the concepts you learned about money and bitcoin; any images you have about yourself and your relationship with money. Free your mind from whatever you think to be true or false, or good or bad, from any thought it thinks worthy; and all the ideas it’s ashamed of. hold nothing. Don’t bring back a thought the past has taught you about money or bitcoin, nor a belief you’ve ever learned from anything before.
My call to action is to suggest that readers try the following: After reading the above, sit quietly for five or ten minutes and you will be ready to understand Bitcoin with a beginner’s mind. If you’re stressed or confused about a financial decision about bitcoin or money, go back and try again. Rinse and repeat and see if it doesn’t improve the quality of your decisions.
One of the common refrains you hear from Bitcoiners is “Keep humble; Stack sats.” I think this practice can offer you a way to stay humble and operate with a beginner’s mind. Another offshoot of this exercise can be to help you make the right decisions about investing in Bitcoin. No one can tell you how to think about money or bitcoin. Sure, there are plenty of people who can influence your thinking, but You are the one with ultimate responsibility: making financial decisions with a beginner’s mind keeps you open to inner wisdom. In my opinion, this goes radically beyond the expert level of understanding of technology. I wish you every success on your way.
This is a guest post by Mark Maraia. The opinions expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
