“In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between
thoughts. After practicing for years, you become the gap.”
-J. Kleykamp
“Some people walk in the rain. Other people just get
wet.”
-Attributed to Bob Marley
This is becoming easier for me as I age because the gaps
between my coherent thoughts are growing by the day. Someone once asked
me how I walk in the rain without getting wet. I told them I walk between
the drops. Life is full of thoughts and activities. It can all be
exhausting. Two of my personal goals in life have been to have a quiet
mind and to be invisible. I have become relatively successful with both
of these goals. Meditation helps me quiet my mind. For me meditation
is basically being still, being silent, and breathing. It doesn’t prevent
thoughts but helps me let them go. They keep coming but most of them I
just wave at as they keep on moving. Walking between raindrops takes some
skill and one must be very nimble of foot. Becoming the gap between
thoughts and learning to walk between raindrops is all part of flowing with
life instead of fighting it. None of this come naturally to me. I
have a personality that tends to fight life. I go back and forth between
wanting to change and improve the world and wanting to rebel against it.
Some people also talk about the idea of fighting life or fleeing from it.
This is called “fight or flight”. Becoming the gap and walking between
the raindrops is different. It is the middle path. It is not
fighting or fleeing. It is being present to life. When you are
really good at this presence, you live in the gap and you never get wet.
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