As long as I can remember, I’ve had a passion for mindlessly gazing at horizons, skylines, and the open sky, particularly at twilight. Later in college I discovered the works of Alan Watts, who made the great wisdom traditions of the East comprehensible to the Western mind, particularly Zen, and Taoism. In the Great Way exemplified by these traditions the “nothing” is highly revered over the “something”. Space is the place. The artwork from these transformative paths features a lavish use of uncluttered space. Just gazing at these paintings, one’s mind opens and expands into something impossible to pin down with thinking.
The poetry exemplifies a stunning simplicity baffling to the Western mind. Ponder this famous haiku of Basho
“the Ancient Pond
Frog jumps in
Sound of water”
Stark simplicity. An enigma to our modern minds, rabidly geared to gobbling and manipulating information.
Debussy, the famous french composer said “Music is the space between the notes”
So, consider, where are the “holes”, the gaps, the spaces in your experience?
The great Sage of our age, Nisargadatta said “everything needs it’s “absence”
Could you notice the the “blanks” in your experiential flow, when the data of experience is in abeyance? This is real meditation.
Just notice the space, the absence, right where you are, between your fingers and toes, outside of you and saturating your physical sense.
Don’t be so convinced of yourself, catch the absence.