Never Lose Your Beginner's Spirit

初心忘る可からず (shoshin wasurubekarazu): the beginner's mind must not be forgotten. Zeami wrote it in 1424, closing his treatise The Mirror of the Flower, as the one maxim his school of Noh held good in every art, and he gave it three parts: the beginner's mind of right and wrong, of each new stage, and of old age. Everyday speech makes it advice to beginners, keep the humility you started with. Zeami meant a master's rule: there is a beginning at every stage of a life, and the last of them is old age.