Space

How about this morning, a new day, we take a moment to be quiet and go where words can’t go, where time can’t go, where our attachment to hope and regret has no purchase. Do you hear the airplane passing overhead and that dog barking next door? Do you feel the rise and fall of your breathing? Do you see, in the mind’s eye, thoughts arising? Do you see the space between and around the thoughts, that most wonderful space that comes from nowhere?

This space is our essence, and yet it has no cause. Isn’t that amazing? It is the essential, immutable aspect of life, of consciousness, and yet, it is completely empty, with no beginning nor end. In religious terms, it is known as ‘Buddha Mind,’' Christ Consciousness,’' Atman,’ or, in Zen talk, ‘MU’ or ‘Not Know Mind’. To come upon it is to find a peace beyond words, beyond time, beyond the mental constructs of hope and regret.

To learn to abide in this space, moment to moment, is to live from innocence, where everything is new. It is to become intimate with the meaning of Christ’s words, ‘I have overcome the world.’