I don't know exactly what I thought when I first saw the words "Beginner's Mind," but it would have likely seemed enigmatic to me.
You're either a beginner or not, aren't you?
If someone told you to 'have Beginner's Mind', it seems easier said than mind-ed.
With all of that said, I found a shortcut that works for me, which might work for you:
Tell yourself "I don't get it."
Hear something, see something, touch something, taste something, and think "I don't get it."
Let it trick your mind in the moment to bring you some mental distance.
It's a sort of placebo effect, a mental magic approach to seeing things with fresh eyes.
By telling myself "I don't get it," my mind adjusts and starts seeing a 'thing', or a situation from a new perspective. I become 'dumb' in a good way.
It gets your natural curiosity going.
I see the building blocks of something, I see new details that I previously overlooked, that weren't new at all: they were there the whole time, but my mind was somewhere else. That somewhere else being a place of faux-wisdom, dripping with ignorance that was unbeknownst to me.
An Example For Practical Assistance
Let's take this book cover, which belongs to 'Secrets of Voodoo'. ***
I told myself "I don't get it" and started noticing and seeing the following:
Why is the candy stripe pole those colors?
Are the colors of the border, title, and author's name important in some way?
Who are the people in the photos on that shelf?
What is the significance of the multiple flags in the background?
Why are the chairs so small?
What does the symbol/sigil on the ground represent?
What role is Christianity playing here?
Is there a reason the women are all dressed the same?
What significance do those clothes play?
What does the color white mean to them?
--
Do you get it?
Final Thoughts
When is this all helpful?
When you hit a roadblock, or feel stuck.
When you need someone else's perspective, and no one is around.
When you need to be creative.
When you need to truly understand something, or how it works.
Maybe my little sleight of mind won't work for you, but I hope it does.
If it doesn't, maybe you just need to 'not' get it a little more.