Mind the Gap

Have you ever noticed how much time we spend listening to the endless chatter inside of our own heads? Think of a time when, just for a moment, you experienced a truly quiet moment -- a moment of peace and stillness with a sense of being at one with the universe.

When you are able to achieve a break in the endless stream of chatter (or noise) in your head and break free into the stillness, even for just a moment, you have found a powerful space called “The Gap”.

In the London Underground public transit, there is a recorded announcement to “Mind the Gap” when you step from the platform onto the train. Similarly, for a moment, let’s pay attention and explore what it means to personally “Mind the Gap” and intentionally achieve a moment of stillness.

The chatter in my head is the most loud and disruptive in reaction to two situations.

In the first situation, around a woman to whom I am attracted, I often go “nuts”. Which is another way of saying that the conversation in my head is particularly loud and all consuming. I suppose that being single only heightens the craziness.

There is the conversation in my head about wanting connection with this attractive person. There is the conversation about how I must do something to accomplish that. Then there is the old recording about how I am not good enough to connect with that person. There are old triggers about my mom from when I was an infant. There is a separate conversation about how I must maintain my center and not get all worked up about this attractive person. All these conversations are occurring at about the same time and, maybe, I might even be trying to engage in a conversation with this person and trying to be present and truly be in the moment with that person.

In other words the noisy chatter in my head means that, essentially, I am a great big mess inside.

The second situation when the chatter in my head is most loud and disruptive is around the topic of money.

I am an entrepreneur. Previously, my business activities have centered around real estate investment and construction remodeling activities which is to say that, right now, my past business experience is of no use for making money in Pagosa Springs. So, I am blessed to wake up every morning with the question “what should I do today”. Some mornings that question looks like a huge blessing and an opportunity. Some mornings that question looks more like panic. As in “OMG! how am I going to generate some income now”.

So, women that I am attracted to and my cash flow situation are the two topics that lead to the loudest and most disruptive conversations in my head. Then there is my interior dialogue about specific family members. And that person in Town with whom I disagree. And that other person who won’t ever talk to me again. And that old girlfriend who is really a newly, old girlfriend. And my desire to get into physical shape again like I used to twenty years ago. And, and, and…..

The question is this -- “Am I my thoughts?”

I have been blessed with many brief and irregular moments where I can experience a gap between my thoughts. Every once in a while I am able to achieve a moment of peace, stillness and quiet even to the point where the conversation in my head stops. If only for a moment.

So, how do we get beyond the noisy chatter in our own heads?

The ancient Toltecs in Mexico referred to the "mitote" as the dream of reality that we make up for ourselves.

In the ancient Hindu religious tradition, the "maya" is the world of illusion which our mind fantasizes is the actual reality occurring around us.

We are not our bodies and we are not our minds. We are the gap in between the thoughts.

Although Rene Descartes assured us is the 1600’s that “I think, therefore I am”, this father of modern western logic actually misleads. The truth is that “I am” -- period. And, in addition, most of the time I can think. It is possible to exist without thinking; even if only for moments at a time.

Don Miguel Ruiz, who is best known as the author of The Four Agreements, teaches that “earthly life is hell. Hell is the combined dream that all humans share. Both individual and collective dreams are actually nightmares. We all contribute to the dream that is characterized by fear. An ultimate healing would mean to waken from the dream and to thereby be liberated from hell.” (Beyond Fear, Ruiz)

All great barstool banter, eh? But let’s see if we can bring it back home and empower ourselves today.

Consider that who you and I are is the gap in between the thinking. We are not the thoughts.

In that momentary experience of the “the gap” we find our true connection to the divine. In that momentary experience of “no thought” there is no “I” or “me”. There is only “everything” and “unity”; the oneness or the divine that some refer to as God.

In those moments of experiencing “the gap” we transcend the myth of separation and division. The myth that I am separate from you does not prove valid within the clear experience of "I am the divine". We all are of the one, of the divine.

Are we different and separate? Do Christians live in a separate “boat” (think mothership earth) from Muslims? Is the fate of the planet of the Jews any different from the fate of the planet of the Muslims?

Wow, man! Let’s keep bringing it back home.

Is the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District a separate group of people from the businesspeople of downtown Pagosa Springs? Are the interests of the Town government different than the interests of the County government? Will the businesspeople of downtown succeed even if the water district does not?

Are each of us separate, unique individuals whose survival is in direct competition with the desire for survival by other people and groups of people around us?

Will taking sides by one group against another group lead to the success and satisfaction of at least one of the groups?

“Our entire network of fearful perceptions, all stemming from that first false belief in our separation from God and one another, is called the ego. The word ego is used differently here than the way in which it is often used in modern psychology. It is being used as the ancient Greeks used it -- as the notion of a small, separated self.” (Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love)

Right, wrong, shame, blame, and guilt all belong to the land of the ego. A strategic Pagosa partnership of the various diverse people of our community can only be formed if we are willing to be beginners at a new type of dialogue based on “building a world that works for everyone with nothing or no one left out”.

Sure that’s an ideal. But are we going to solve our multi-layered Town economic problems with the age-old approach of I am right and you are wrong? I don’t think so.

The key to our economic survival and growth in Pagosa is to learn and practice a new type of conversation between people here. Increased sales tax, new tourism, and sufficient water for future growth are not “separate” topics to be dealt with by “separate” groups who fight to “win” against each other. The oars, the mast, the hull and the galley of the ship must all work together if the boat is going to sail in the direction that we all want it to go.

The old politics of divisiveness haven’t worked too well in Pagosa. Anyone in favor of more divisiveness and further inability to grow our Town wisely?

The only way we are going to re-build our Town after the economic implosion is if we can work together as a unified team: the Town, the County, the water district, the slow-growth folk, the developers and the second home owners. The only way to come together is to begin learning how to have a new conversation different from the “right, wrong, shame, blame and guilt” types of conversations from the past. We need to begin learning to work together as a team and communicating effectively to build the future rather than lament the past.

To begin getting beyond the automatic human tendency for “right, wrong, shame, blame and guilt” we must begin to “mind to gap” and observe that, actually, we are not our thoughts. Therefore we do not need to communicate from the knee-jerk, divisive patterns of old.

Just for fun, here is the 5th Verse of the Tao (via Dr. Wayne Dyer)
from Lao-Tzu in 500 B.C. ancient China.

Heaven and earth are impartial;
they see the 10,000 things as straw dogs.
The sage is not sentimental;
he treats all his people as straw dogs.

The sage is like heaven and earth;
To him none are especially dear,
nor is there anyone he disfavors.
He gives and gives, without condition,
offering his treasures to everyone.

Between heaven and earth
is a space like a bellows;
empty and inexhaustible,
the more it is used, the more it produces.

Hold on to the center.
Man was made to sit quietly and find
the truth within.