For a broader introduction to why and how we meditate, see Why We Meditate and How.
This might seem like a remedial topic for you experienced meditators, but I promise you, it keeps coming up again and again.
You know that joke that David Foster Wallace told in a commencement address speech? About the two fish?
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
We are kind of like that with space. Our lives are so full, our minds are so full, all the time. We are endlessly entertained with our eyes, our touch, our thoughts, etc. The moment we sit down on the toilet to take a crap, we pull out our phones and start scrolling. Wake up, scroll, eat, commute, work, eat, work, commute, drink, eat, TV, sleep. Any little gaps in between those things, we have our phones to check. We have no space in our mind, in our day to day experience.
It sounds funny, but it’s actually painful. We are hiding from something but we don’t know what’s scaring us. It’s like a sandcastle and the tide is coming in. Or patching plaster on a house with no foundation. Cracks keep appearing while we’re frantically running around with spackle and a hair dryer trying to patch things up.
We try everything - all the possible strategies, drinks, drugs, distractions. Nothing works. We just can’t relax.
Finally, we decide to try meditation. We sit down with no distractions, in a quiet place, maybe with incense burning and a nice shrine to remind us what we are doing here. And somehow it’s worse! Our mind is even crazier when we start meditating! It’s so frustrating!
Of course, our minds are not actually busier. It just feels that way because we aren’t distracted by all the external stimuli we normally put in front of ourselves.
But we are lured forward by the possibility. We have this memory of a moment where we felt clear and relaxed. We’ve tried to recreate that moment - going back to the same place, wearing the same clothes at the same time of day - but it’s never the same. But there was this moment - one of the sweetest times in our life. We want to feel that good again.
In our meditation tradition, we call that moment The Gap. It’s the space between all the stimulus. It’s the context in which life happens. It’s like seeing negative space in a painting for the first time - once you see it, the painting will never be the same.
One way to look at meditation practice is as hunting for The Gap…. So let’s try it.
It’s not like hunting for a squirrel or an extra 10% off. You sort of have to wait. But you can’t just hang out. Here’s how we do it: