Explore this mediation inspired by the Japanese concept of ma, which refers to “the spaces between everything.”
Today’s practice offers a unique approach to training our attention and invites us to explore the empty spaces that exist all around us and inside us.
For instance, we might think of the space between the plants in the garden, or between the notes in a song. It can also be emotional space, like the silences in a conversation. Or the little gaps between our thoughts and emotions.
Often, we don’t even notice these empty spaces—but bringing our awareness to them can reveal new meaning and beauty. By exploring the space in-between through this mindfulness practice, we also enhance our creativity, noticing skills, and awareness.
A Guided Meditation for Noticing What’s Present and What Isn’t
- This practice is inspired by the Japanese notion of Ma, the idea of examining that space that exists between everything that’s not actually empty, but is full of potential.
- Start by finding a comfortable posture. When you’re ready, you can simply begin to lower or close your eyes, whichever is most comfortable for you.
- Now, bring awareness to your breath. Watch and feel the rise and fall of the inhale and exhale. Then, tune also to the spaces between. What is the moment when the exhale finishes before it turns into the inhale? Or the inhale turns into the exhale? Allow your awareness to rest in the stillness between your breaths.
- Next, turn your attention to your heartbeat, your pulse. See if you can find that in your body, the sensations or sounds of your heartbeat, and the spaces between each heartbeat.
- Whether you’re sitting or laying down, notice now spaces where your body makes contact with the world. What’s behind or underneath you? Feel where your skin makes contact with your clothing, and tune your awareness to these sensations and the spaces between.
- Scanning through your body, notice sensations as you might in a body scan, deeper in your body. See if you can pick up on the spaces between, where you notice almost no sensation, or between sensations in space or in time.
- Shifting to your other senses now, just listen and notice the sounds around you. Near or far, left or right. Notice all the sounds, and the sounds even within sounds, as well as the spaces and the silences between the sounds. Tune into smells and tastes as you breathe, noticing where these land and the spaces between.
- Allow your eyes to open and be aware of when they go from closed to open. Holding your eyes steady, just notice what you see around you and within your field of vision. Furniture or other objects in the space around you. The shapes of all the objects in your field of vision, as well as shapes and sizes of the spaces in between. Beyond the objects, see the walls, the corners where walls come together. Rooms and the spaces between them. Is there perhaps something new you’ve never noticed before? When does light become shadow? Colors and hues—when does one color become the next? Continue to notice these and other spaces between in the physical space around you.
- You can also explore your own mind, your own experience of the space between thoughts, emotions, memories in your mind. Rest there when you find it. Explore what’s happening, what could be happening, the potential in all of these spaces between. Continue here for the next few moments.
- As you continue with the rest of your day, keep staying attuned to spaces between. Between inside and outside. The shapes between the clouds or the stars in the night sky. The lull between the waves of the ocean. Stillness between the raindrops. Space between you and other people, physical and emotional. Between a joke and a laugh, a question and an answer. Between waking and opening your eyes. Continue to seek out, explore, and rest in all of these spaces between and see if your perspective doesn’t slowly begin to shift on the world around you, and the world inside of you.
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