The Moments In-between

In meditation, you start by watching your breath go in and out. And when thoughts arise, and you realize you are no longer watching your breath but have been swept away by your thoughts, you gently come back to the breath. It's not that you should stop thinking -- really, you can't (and who would want to) -- it's that by coming back to the breath, and stopping the identification with the thoughts, you realize that you are not your thoughts. You are the being that can observe your thoughts, and even re-direct them if they are not taking you on a positive journey. Sometimes, I think of this as the place beyond or behind my thoughts. It's a stillness. A feeling of "I am that I am," without labels, characteristics or attributes. Just essence.

As you get more and more comfortable with meditation, you can redirect your attention to the moment in-between the inhale and exhale, and the exhale and inhale. And then, you can start to lengthen that moment, until it hardly feels like you are breathing at all. It's like the concentration and barely breathing you experience when you are immersed in a great book, or watching your newborn sleep. Complete and single focus. And the moments in-between the breath become as important, or more so, than the breath itself.

You use the breath as a focus because it is constant and it is a metaphor for our highest, holiest, intention or hope. It's also a metaphor for the experiences of our life. How often do think of our day in terms of the destinations we must get to or the things we must do before nightfall? For example; today I have to get my children ready for and to school; then teach or take yoga; come home; check my email; go to the third floor and complete an art assignment; pick up from school; go to activities or playdates; organize dinner; do the bedtime thing; check email again; make lunches for tomorrow; go to bed. And as we go from one "thing" to another, the moments in-between can get lost. But sometimes, that's where so much is happening.

I found Nikky in a "moment in-between." I had picked up at school, and was headed home to that next moment, and there she was. If I hadn't stopped; if I had just kept on to the next moment, I would have missed her. And my life is undeniably richer because of having found her.

As a child, one of the most influential books I read was The "Phantom Tollbooth," by Norton Juster. It's the story of a boy named Milo, who is bored and disaffected, and doesn't pay attention to anything in his life because he doesn't see the purpose of anything: "When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. ... As he and his unhappy thoughts hurried along (for while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as quickly as possible) it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty."

So often, we live our lives like Milo -- rushing from point A to point B, without seeing what is on the way. As Emily says in "Our Town," we all go so fast, we don't even have time to look at one another." And in each moment in-between -- each soul we pass on our way to a destination -- whole worlds are unfolding. Each person hurrying to the train in the morning; each parent kissing a child goodbye at school; is part of a drama that of which we have no clue. And sometimes, like with Nikky and me; those worlds collide in the moment in-between.