Creating Space

A few years ago, while I was in England on an annual teaching trip, I received a call from my home in Nepal telling me that some of my students were not doing well. They were creating various problems for themselves and for everyone around them. I became genuinely irritated by this news, and the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. I kept thinking, over and over: "Why is it always like this? Why are they doing this?! How am I going to deal with this problem from the other side of the world? What will happen now?" And so my mental process continued, without stopping. Ironically, these thoughts were spinning in my head while I was sitting in the car on the way to give a talk titled "The Key to Happiness." When I realized this fact, I became even more irritated with myself and thought: "What a joke! If I myself cannot be happy, how could I possibly teach others about happiness?"

Then I stopped thinking for a moment and simply looked out the car window at the passing landscape. Fortunately, we were driving through an open field in the countryside on a beautiful day, with a large blue sky above our heads. We had about 20 minutes before arriving at the venue, so I looked out and let my mind merge with that spacious sky. Inspired by the vastness and beauty of the sky, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was surrounded by space, like in that scene from the film Titanic, where Kate Winslet stood at the bow of the ship with Leonardo DiCaprio and leaned out over the vast ocean. After just a few minutes, I felt a sense of relief. The irritation and tightness were replaced by a feeling of spaciousness and relaxation, and the problems that had been bothering me seemed small and no longer suffocating. In fact, I quickly found myself jotting down some ideas about how the misunderstanding between my students could be resolved.

When our mind is tight, any thought that arises dominates it. When we manage to adopt an attitude of spaciousness, nothing that arises can dominate it. It is like the difference between a small room of 10 square meters and a hall of 100 square meters. In the small room, anything you put in there ends up defining the space completely. If you put a desk, it becomes an office. If you put a bed, it becomes a bedroom. If you put a refrigerator, it becomes a kitchen.

In the hall, you can have many things, as well as different areas, and yet no single object can define the room by itself. When we create space, thoughts and emotions may continue to arise, but they simply stop defining our mental state completely.

How to create space

Why not try it right now? You don't need to spend much time on this exercise. Just 5 minutes is enough, though 10 minutes would be even better.

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Imagine that you are surrounded by an infinite, perfectly clear blue sky. The sky is spacious and cloudless, pristine, the deepest sky blue, and it envelops you completely, extending forever in all directions, up, down, and all around. There are no walls, boundaries, or buildings. Absolutely nothing in any direction. Continue focusing on this infinite sky, making it as vivid and vibrant as possible.

If you get lost thinking about work, tasks that need to be done, or anything else, that is completely normal. Simply return your attention gently to imagining the boundless space and continue the meditation.

After making this sky as clear and vivid as possible, spend some time appreciating the space you are visualizing. Do this by feeling the quality of spaciousness of this sky. For example, bring to mind how beautiful it is, or appreciate how infinitely vast, spacious, and immaculate this sky around you is. You don't need to keep thinking about it. Just try to gently feel what it is like to be in the spaciousness of this sky.

Allow yourself to feel the spaciousness of the sky permeating everywhere, inside and outside, body and mind.

Rest for a moment in this sensation of spaciousness.

Slowly open your eyes and reacquaint yourself with your surroundings. How do you feel?

Originally published at radicallyhappy.org