Transcription
There is something quite extraordinary that most people never notice about their own minds. And it is this. Between every thought, there is a gap, a space, a moment of silence. [snorts] And in that space, in that gap between thoughts, there exists a peace so profound, so complete, so utterly untouched by the chaos of mental activity that if you could rest there for even a moment, [music] you would realize that what you have been seeking your entire life has been here all along, closer than your own breath, more intimate than your own heartbeat.
But we never notice this space. We are so completely absorbed in the content of our thoughts, so utterly identified with the stream of mental activity that we miss entirely the silence in which all of this is happening. It is like being so fascinated by the images on a movie screen that you forget there is a screen. Forget there is a space in which the images appear. Forget that the screen itself remains untouched and unchanged no matter what drama plays out upon it.
The thoughts themselves, you see, are not the problem. Thoughts arise naturally. They are part of the functioning of consciousness, part of how we navigate and make sense of the world. The problem is that we have become so completely identified with thinking, so thoroughly convinced that we are our thoughts, [music] that we have lost all awareness of the space in which thinking occurs. And it is this space, this silence, [music] this gap between thoughts. This is where peace lives.
Let me describe what I mean more carefully. Pay attention right now to your own mind. [music] Notice how thoughts arise. A thought appears. Perhaps a thought about what I am saying or a thought about something you need to do later or a memory or a [music] plan or a worry. The thought appears. It exists for a moment and then it passes and then another thought arises and another. And the mind seems to be filled with this constant stream of thinking, this endless parade of thoughts marching through consciousness.
But now notice something else. Between one thought and the next, there is a gap. It may be very brief, almost imperceptible, but it is there. One thought ends and before the next thought begins, there is a moment, a tiny sliver of time [music] in which there is no thought at all. Just silence, just awareness without [music] content, just pure being without any mental activity.
This gap is always there. It exists between every single thought you have ever had. But because the gap is so brief, and because we are so habituated to thinking, so addicted to mental activity, we skip right over it. We leap from one thought to the next without ever noticing the silence in between. It is like listening to music and being so focused on the notes that you never hear the silence between the notes. And yet the silence is what gives the music its shape, [music] its rhythm, its meaning.
Now what would happen if you could become aware of this gap? What would happen if instead of being exclusively focused on the thoughts themselves, you could notice the space between thoughts? What would happen if you could rest even for a moment in that silence? I will tell you what would happen. You would discover peace. Not the peace that comes from getting what you want. Not the peace that comes from circumstances being favorable. Not the peace that depends on anything external at all. But the peace that is your fundamental nature. [music] The peace that has always been here. The peace that exists prior to all thinking beneath all mental activity in the very ground of your being.
This peace is not something you create. It is not something you achieve. It is not something you have to work toward or earn. It is always already here. It is what you are when you are not thinking. It is the background of silence against which all thoughts appear. It is the space in which the entire drama of your mental life is playing out. But we never notice it because we are so absorbed in the drama. We are so caught up in the content of our thoughts, our worries, our plans, our memories, our judgments, our endless internal commentary that we never step back far enough to notice the silence in which all of this is occurring. We are like fish who have never noticed water because they have never been outside of it.
Now the reason this matters, the reason this is not just an interesting philosophical observation but something of immense practical importance is that all of your suffering, all of your anxiety, all of your stress and worry and fear, all of it exists in thought. It does not exist in the gaps between thoughts. In that space, in that silence, there is no suffering. There is just awareness, just presence, [music] just peace.
Think about it. When you are anxious, what is happening? You are thinking. You are thinking about something that might happen. Something you are worried about, [music] some scenario you are imagining. The anxiety exists entirely in the thought. And when you are depressed, you are thinking about the past, about what went wrong, about how things should have been different. The depression exists in the thought. And when you are stressed, you are thinking about all the things you need to do, all the ways you might fail, all the demands upon you. The stress exists in the thought. But in the gap between thoughts, there is no anxiety, there is no depression, [music] there is no stress, there is just this moment, just awareness, just being. And it is completely peaceful.
So what we are talking about here is not some esoteric [music] mystical experience. We are talking about something utterly simple and completely accessible. We are talking about noticing what is already here. What has always been here? What could not not be here. The space between your thoughts. The silence that holds all sound. The peace that [music] exists prior to all disturbance.
Now, how does one become aware of this space? How does one notice the gaps between thoughts when the thoughts themselves are so loud, so compelling, so apparently continuous? The answer is through attention, through awareness, through a kind of watching that is not itself thinking. Most of the time when we pay attention to our thoughts, we do [music] so from within thinking. We think about our thinking. We have thoughts about our thoughts. We create a commentary on the commentary. And this keeps us trapped in the level of thought, never allowing us to notice the space in which thought is occurring.
But there is another kind of attention available to you. And it is the attention of pure [music] awareness. It is the attention that simply witnesses thought without getting caught up in it, [music] without identifying with it, without believing it to be who you are. It is the attention that can observe a thought the way you might observe a cloud passing through [music] the sky. Noticing it, acknowledging it, but not becoming it, not chasing it, not getting lost in it.
And when you bring this quality of attention to your mind, when you simply watch thoughts arising and passing without getting involved in their content, something remarkable begins to happen. You start to notice the gaps. You start to see the spaces between thoughts. You start to recognize that thoughts are like waves on the ocean of consciousness. [music] And you, the awareness that is watching you, are not the waves. You are the ocean.
This is what meditation is actually about. Though this is rarely explained clearly, meditation is not about stopping thought. You cannot stop thought through effort. The more you try to stop thinking, the more you are thinking about trying to stop thinking. Meditation is about recognizing the space in which thought appears. It is about shifting your identification from the thoughts themselves to the awareness that holds the thoughts. And the beautiful thing is that you do not have to wait until you are sitting in formal meditation to notice this space. [music] You can notice it right now. Right here in the middle of your ordinary life, between one thought and the next, there is a gap. And in that gap, there is peace.
Let me give you a practical example of how this works. You are going about your day and suddenly you notice that you are anxious. You are worried about something. [music] Your mind is churning with anxious thoughts. Now the usual response is to either [music] get completely lost in the anxiety believing all the worried thoughts or to try to push the anxiety away to distract [music] yourself from it to make it stop. But there is a third option. You can bring awareness to the anxiety. You can watch it. You can notice the anxious thoughts arising. And as you watch, as you maintain this witnessing awareness, you will notice [music] something between one anxious thought and the next anxious thought, there is a gap, a moment of silence, a space in which there is no anxiety at all. And if you can rest in that gap, even for a moment, if you can be present in that space of silence rather than immediately leaping to the next thought, something shifts. The anxiety loses its grip. Not because you have pushed it away, but because you have recognized that you are not the anxiety. You are the awareness in which the anxiety is appearing. And the awareness itself is not anxious. The awareness is peaceful.
This is the profound shift that occurs when you discover the space between your thoughts. You realize that you are not your thoughts. Thoughts are something that is happening but they are not what you are. What you are is the awareness in which thoughts appear. What you are is the space, the silence, the peace that exists [music] prior to all mental activity. And this changes everything because once you know this, once you have recognized this space, even once you can never fully forget it. You may get lost in thought again. You certainly will get lost in thought again. But now you know that there is something else available. You know that beneath the noise of thinking, there is silence. You know that underneath all the anxiety and worry and stress, there is peace. [music] You know that you have a refuge, a sanctuary, a place you can return to simply by noticing the gap between thoughts.
Now I must be clear about something. I am not suggesting that you should try to live in the gaps between thoughts all the time. That you should attempt to stop thinking entirely, that thinking is bad or wrong or something to be eliminated. Thinking is a marvelous tool. It is tremendously useful. It [music] allows us to plan, to create, to solve problems, to communicate, [music] to navigate the complexities of life. The problem is not thinking itself. The problem is compulsive thinking, unconscious thinking, being so completely identified with thinking that [music] you believe you are your thoughts. The problem is not being able to access the silence, not knowing that the gaps exist, [music] being trapped in an endless stream of mental activity with no restbite, no rest, no access to the peace that underlies it all.
What I am suggesting is that you learn to recognize that you have a choice. You can engage in thinking when thinking is useful, when it serves a purpose, when it helps [music] you accomplish something. And you can also step back from thinking, rest in the silence, abide in the space between thoughts and find there a peace that thinking can never provide. Because here is the truth. Thinking cannot give you [music] peace. Thinking can solve practical problems. Thinking can figure out how to get from point A to point B. [music] Thinking can analyze and plan and create. But thinking cannot give you peace. Peace is not found in thought. Peace is found in the absence of thought, in the gaps between thoughts, in the silence that exists when thinking ceases.
And this is why so many people are perpetually stressed, perpetually anxious, perpetually unsatisfied. [music] They are looking for peace in thought. They are trying to think their way to peace. They believe that if they can just figure everything out, if they can just plan perfectly, if they can just understand completely, then they will finally be at peace. But it does not work that way. The more you think about your problems, the more entangled you become. The more you analyze your anxiety, the more anxious you get. The more you try to think your way out of stress, the more stressed you become. Because the thinking itself is what is creating the disturbance. The thinking is what is obscuring the peace that is already here, already available, already your own deepest nature.
So the way to peace is not through more thinking. The way to peace is through recognizing the space between thoughts. It is through learning [music] to rest in that silence. It is through discovering that you are not the noise. You are the silence in which the noise appears.
Let me tell you what happens when you begin to live from this recognition. When you begin to access regularly the space between your thoughts, life becomes lighter, simpler, [music] less burdened. Not because your circumstances change, not because your problems go away, but because you are no longer exclusively identified with the thinking mind. You have discovered a refuge within yourself, a place of rest, a source of peace that cannot be disturbed by anything external. The anxieties still arise, the worries still come, the stressful thoughts still appear, but now they are seen as weather passing through the sky. They come and they go, but they do not define you. They do not disturb the fundamental peace because you know yourself as the sky, not as the weather. [music] You know yourself as the space, not as the content that appears in the space.
And uh from this space, from this silence, [music] from this peace, you can respond to life more appropriately, more wisely, more effectively because you are not reacting from anxiety, not acting from stress, not being driven by compulsive thinking. [music] You are responding from a place of clarity, from a place of stillness, from a place of peace. This is not about becoming passive or uninvolved. This is [music] not about checking out or becoming indifferent. You can be fully engaged with life, fully present to what is happening, fully active in doing what needs to be done. But you are doing it from a place of peace rather than from a place of anxiety. [music] You are acting from clarity rather than from confusion. You are responding from awareness rather than reacting from thought.
The space between your thoughts, this is where your true power lives. Not the power of thinking, not the power of figuring things out, not the power of mental analysis, but the power of presence, the power of awareness, the power of being fully here without the constant mediation of thought. And the extraordinary thing is that this space is always available. You do not have to go anywhere to find it. You do not have to become anyone different to access it. You do not have to achieve [music] any special state or attain any particular realization. You simply have to notice what is already here. The silence between thoughts. The peace that has always been present waiting patiently for you to recognize it.
So right now as you read these words or listen to these words, notice notice the arising [music] of thoughts. Notice the passing of thoughts. And notice, if you pay very close attention, the tiny gaps [music] between thoughts, the moments of silence, the spaces of pure awareness without content, and rest there just for a moment. Let [music] yourself fall into that silence. Let yourself be held by that space. [music] Let yourself recognize the peace that lives there. Not the peace of getting what you want. Not the peace of everything being perfect, but the peace that is your nature. The peace that you are, the peace that has never been disturbed by any thought. No matter how troubling, no matter how persistent, no matter how convincing. This is your refuge. This is your sanctuary. This is your home. The space between your thoughts where peace lives. And it is always here, always available, always welcoming you back whenever you remember to notice it.