We took the Underground everywhere, also known as the Tube, London’s clean and efficient rapid transit system. The Tube was great for people watching – nearly everyone looked puffy and as if they didn’t eat many fresh vegetables. There were signs posted all over that said Mind the Gap — a safety reminder for people to watch their step as they traversed from the platform to the train.
It seemed a bit more metaphysical to me.
Buddhists practice a meditation of watching the breath. It can be quite powerful to sit and observe the long inhale as it draws in, chest and lungs expanding, hopefully the abdomen and belly, too. Then to watch the long exhale, with its calming effect. When you sit with the breath long enough, you may experience an eerie sensation that you are not breathing at all — something is breathing you. In fact, it seems more accurate to say we are being “breathed.”
Osho, the great Tantra Master, however, said it’s really about watching for the gap between the outgoing and ingoing breath. It takes a little awareness but you can locate it if you slow way down, and if you look closely, you’ll notice a space between each inhale and exhale where nothing is happening. There’s a gap, a silence, a doorway to another reality. It’s like the silence between words, the white space on the page, the background murmur rather than the foreground conversation. That’s the gap, Osho said, where who you are really exists.
Another of my favorite memories of London was touring the Globe Theater, and our guide whose raucous stories split our sides with laughter. But the thing I loved most about London was these spiritual reminders appearing everywhere, all over underneath the town. Mind the Gap. Remember to find out who you really are.
© Catherine Auman 2009
Catherine Auman, MFT is a spiritual psychotherapist based in Los Angeles, Calfornia. She has advanced training in both traditional and alternative methodologies based on ancient traditions and wisdom teachings. Visit her online at http://www.catherineauman.com
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