Taking a Short Moment

    In John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, Milton writes “Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” It is a sentiment that one will find echoed in many spiritual paths- that there is, and should be, much pain and hardship on our journey towards the light of wisdom and growth. We may tell ourselves that our own evolution can only arrive after dedicating ourselves to hours of intense work or burdensome practice. Only suffering, we contend, leads to grace. Fasting, pleasure-denial, physical discomfort, and other arduous work are often assumed to be the most effective and essential ingredients for true spiritual progress. We might cling to the long-held belief that nothing good can come without considerable sacrifice, that if we can really commit ourselves to some arduous path of discomfort, then and only then, can we be finally purified and made whole. The old adage, “No pain, no gain,” is simply a pithy revamp of this common assumption. We convince ourselves that insight can only be achieved through difficult means and that only suffering can raise us up from our fallen state. Once we allow the complete and utter breakdown of the false-self, then at last can the true splendor of our divine self emerge, or so we surmise. 

    There may be a kernel of truth to some of this. It does seem that throughout history many people have found a certain lasting strength and wisdom by passing through the transformational fire of hardship- what we call a rite of passage. Many of our most revered and lasting stories from The Odyssey to the biblical story of Jesus to the Lord of the Rings trilogy describe certain individuals’ rise to greatness as being achieved only through a harrowing succession of trials, tests, and in some cases, facing or even succumbing to death. We may be apt to imagine that we too must follow a similar path if we are to find the peace and knowledge we seek. Whatever we must face on the road to revelation, we are often sure that it can’t just be cute puppies and rainbows; there must be a few monsters along the way.   

    Perhaps we have been a bit mistaken though. Have we bought into a false narrative about spiritual attainment that has us constantly scanning the buffet of spiritual practices to find the most difficult and demanding forms? Have we ignored the effortless ways, assuming that these practices will be the least potent? 

    Maybe we do not have to actively pursue any more discomfort than life will already present to us. Maybe there is a very simple and effortless practice out there that leads us up to the light without all the struggle we were expecting to pay as a toll. The terrain of sacrifice and challenges that we may have thought offered the only way to ascension may actually have a very relaxed bypass that takes us to the same place with considerably less pain. It’s not a shortcut that delivers quick results, but it does allow us to grow without dramatically leaving life as we know it behind. It allows the ocean of our life to seamlessly wash over the ground of our spiritual experiences so that both are more integrated with each other. This path can lead to wisdom without the constant straining and striving to get there. It purifies us so gently and gradually that we may not readily notice the effects at all. Then, one day, almost as if by unexpected grace, we find that our vision has shifted. We discover ourselves to at last understand what all the sages and teachers have been pointing to- a space of being where we can relax in the splendor of existence with clear eyes and an abiding sense of gratitude for the simple ability to witness it.  

     The technique or practice that I want to share with you may not sit with everyone as the best way to approach meditation. That is okay. We all have our preferred way of doing things. Even a brief, flimsy attempt to simply close your eyes, sit still, and breathe will have some benefit. I will divulge that I approached meditation for years the same way that many of you might be doing currently- setting a fixed time and fixed behaviors as the framework for the practice. By chance though, I met a man one day who would radically change my ideas about what meditation looked like and what it could offer. 

    His name was David Levin and sadly he passed away a few years ago. While he was alive and when I knew him, he was a generous, kind, and a supportive presence in my life. I am truly grateful for the wisdom he shared with me. It wasn’t life changing but it was certainly game changing. I first met him as a yoga student. He was in his late seventies. He would come to my level 2 Vinyasa flow classes which were definitely not easy. We work hard in these classes and David would participate as much as he could. He did his best and kept up without any shred of pressure to perform or achieve. If we went into some challenging arm balance or contortion, he would just smile and watch other people work at it. He knew his limits and had no desire that I could detect at least, to push past them. Learning handstand was not on his bucket list. His poses may not have merited the cover of Yoga Journal, but his practice was sincere and embodied. You could tell he liked the practice. Before leaving the studio after class, David would  always offer some bit of genuine heart-felt praise to whoever led the class. He saw the gift in the service. To his many asana teachers, some 30 and 40 years younger than him, he always made a point to express his warmest gratitude for the class.

     One day he invited me to get some tea after class. We talked for a while about life, yoga, and philosophy. He was very soft-spoken and I caught myself needing to lean in to hear his words over the ambient chatter of the coffee shop. He spoke slowly and deliberately and had an easy, relaxed demeanor that I chalked up to his age. I sensed that he was not prone to large emotional fits. He was grounded and deeply present with me. We had a great talk and near the end of our conversation, he said, “You know, Matt, if you’re open to it, I‘d love to share a bit of what I have been studying. No pressure though. Only if you’re interested.”

    “Sure,” I said. I figured he might have simply been looking for some like-minded friends in the yoga community and I was willing to extend myself in that regard. We met sometime later at a Whole Foods in Longmont near a studio I taught at. He came in holding a few printed pages of text and we sat down in the store’s dining area. He had a distinct way of paired studying with me. He would read a sentence (or two, if they were particularly short), and I would read one. Then he would read, then I would read. The text he shared was rather simple and not particularly colorful or entertaining. It was almost repetitive at times, speaking in laborious detail about “relying on open intelligence” rather than “data.” That was the language it used ad nauseum. The author never dabbled in synonyms for these terms and in this regard it could seem a bit dry at times. I could tell the author was wise though. Even if her writing style lacked flair, the redundancy of the verbiage worked. “Open intelligence” was her word for the space of consciousness. Barely a paragraph went by that the term wasn’t used. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just distinct. Not really my taste admittedly, but the author definitely knew her stuff.

     We would pour over a few pages of text this way until we got to a good place to stop and discuss the author’s points. In these digestive pauses, I would sometimes push back against some particular assertion made in the text. David was always welcoming of my counterpoints. Though he seemed to deeply revere the writings he shared, there was no sense that any of it was sacrosanct or above criticism. I appreciated that he saw the value of the somewhat bland-but-wise writing without the expectation that I should share it equally. Near the end of our time together he asked, “How about if we sit for a moment.” 

    “Sure,” I replied, “How long?”

    “How about three minutes,” he responded.

    I nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

    “I’ll set a timer for us,” he said, pulling out his phone. He set the timer for three minutes. I sat up straight, took a few deep breaths, and closed my eyes. When the chirp of the alarm sounded three minutes later, I opened my eyes and I could see David across from me with his eyes softly gazing right about chest-level in my direction. I sensed that he never closed his eyes during that brief interval. He asked, “How was that for you?”

    I couldn’t offer much. It was a nice break from staring at pages of text, but Whole Foods isn’t exactly a peaceful or quiet place for meditation. There are constant sounds from people talking in the check-out line and the music playing over the speakers. Even with my eyes closed I could not avoid the constant sense of activity around us. I can’t say I found any of it particularly distracting or unpleasant though. I was simply aware of it- the busyness of the space. I said to him, “I noticed that your eyes weren’t closed.”

    “I really don’t close my eyes when I meditate,” he replied softly. 

    This was certainly an interesting revelation to me. “Really,” I wondered, “Say more.”

    “How about this,” he said, “Let’s try something else. I call this taking a short moment.”

    I was game. “Okay,” I replied.

    “Don’t close your eyes this time,” he said with a certain air of relaxation and ease. “Just let go of thinking for a moment.” 

    My eyes softened.

    He scanned around the store for a few seconds as if examining the space above the grocery shelves. “Now grab the four-corners of the ceiling with your awareness,” he added, “not your eyes, just your awareness.  

   It was an unusual detail but I understood the request. The invitation was to simply sense where the corners were- to see without looking so to speak. He gave me a few seconds to process it. I kept my eyes open, gazing softly, chest-level in his direction. 

    “Now let your awareness include the three-dimensional space down to the floor as well.”

    I obliged, letting my awareness lightly flood the entire building much the way water fills a fish tank except from the top down. After about a minute, he stopped me. “Okay,” he inquired, “How was that?”

    It was hard to describe and, in some regards, it still is. I experienced something very powerful in that brief moment but its power was not dramatic or overt like some immense force or explosion of energy. It was powerful like a sunset is powerful- spacious, radiant, clear. I felt, in that moment, that nothing was out of place. Everything in the whole bustling expanse of the grocery store belonged perfectly with itself. The entire spread of content- the bits of conversation, the movement, the physical objects- revealed themselves to be noticeably relaxed and harmonious. Though the environment was anything but quiet or still, nothing was offensive, distracting, or out of place. By resting my attention in the emptiness within the walls, everything else seemed to fade into the background. I felt personally expanded in a sense, but in a way that was natural and unforced- like my own consciousness field had been effortlessly enlarged like a cloud of vapor being softly diffused into the atmosphere. Though I had barely invested a minute into the whole process, that moment felt quietly and potently transformative. I encountered a new way of looking at the world- not drawn into all its diverse and noisy content, but rather into the calm, relaxed, negative space permeating it. 

    Again, the effect wasn’t overt but it was noticeable. It didn’t widen my eyes like a show of fireworks or some intense scene in a movie. It didn’t blow my mind like so many dazzling spectacles that might make a person want to pull out their camera and record them. It was perfectly ordinary and yet, somehow, it wasn’t ordinary at all. 

    As I tried to articulate my experience, David simply smiled and nodded. He informed me that the true and lasting benefits of this practice come with repetition. He suggested that I try taking short moments throughout my day just like that one.

     “When you first wake up, when you get out of the shower, before you go to sleep- take a short moment. It doesn’t have to be very long,” he explained, “Just do this as often as you can remember to. Repetition is the key.” 

    I thanked him for the advisement and assured him that I most certainly would keep practicing.

    “Next time, before you walk in to teach,” he added, “see what it’s like if you just pause, right outside the door, grab the four corners, let go of thinking, and then walk in.” 

    The short moment, as I have described my own experience with it, has been revolutionary in my own practice. In the beginning it took a bit of intentionality, but I do it regularly now, often spontaneously without much planning or foresight. It is still very much intentional though. I simply pause my analytical thinking and let my eyes, ears, and awareness softly rest in the empty space surrounding me. I often do this for less than 30 seconds, but I might do this a hundred times over the course of a day. I have often described this method as a pointalistic approach to awakening- sort of like a Georges Seurat painting. Seurat would add small dots of color to the canvas rather than traditional brush strokes. One dot by itself would have very little significance to the picture, but dot after dot after dot and at last the image comes out. It’s in the accumulation of smaller particles that the larger concept takes shape. The short moment is simply a dot- to use the analogy. If you want to get the big picture, you’ll have to keep taking short moments. A single moment will likely not do much. Keep doing it though, and important insights begin to emerge. Even if you think you get it and there is no more need for repetition, keep going, keep taking short moments throughout your day. The insights become more ingrained. Conviction deepens. You begin to see something that cannot be unseen.  

    What I appreciate about this approach to mediation, is its ease of availability. You don’t need to carve out any significant portion of time. Your day will never be so busy that you cannot take 30 seconds here and there to just marinate in the empty space blanketing the world around you. You can do this in almost any situation at any time. Yes, even driving your car. 

    Of course if you want to keep meditating as you do, then by all means, keep going. Do not deny yourself the pleasure that comes from sitting, breathing, chanting mantras, or any other meditative activity. What you may discover though, if you take these short moments as I have suggested, is that none of these are particularly essential to finding peace, ease, and satisfaction in your experience of life. Whatever imperfections you once perceived in yourself or the world around you begin to soften in their impact. We begin to slide out of the ego mind which is constantly caught up in its analysis of things. The duality of good and bad begins to loosen its contrast to us. We begin to accept things as they are, rather than trying to force them to become what we want them to be. Objects and events can come and go as they will, but we discover something lasting and unmoved in the peaceful openness surrounding all of it. By simply letting our minds settle into the emptiness of space itself, even if only for a few seconds, we allow the emptiness to eventually teach us how to be- relaxed, open, and permissive to whatever is arising in our own intelligent space of presence.

Thank you, David. Your memory will always be a blessing.