I recently returned from a week-long retreat at a nearby monastery. During retreats, I enjoy a quieter mind. During those times, I have explored a practice where one focuses on the quality of the experience between thoughts.
Many teachers have spoken and written about this. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche wrote: "It's possible to become aware of the space in between our thoughts, our moods, our perceptions, and our breaths. What makes the gap so precious? Let's say we are looking at a cloudy sky...Then suddenly there's an opening, and for an instant we glimpse the sun. That opening in the clouds is the gap. The clouds represent all the normal content of the undisciplined mind, the endless muttering about our days, our meals, etc...If we pay attention, we can recognize the gap, the fleeting space in between thoughts... In these gaps, we experience pure perception."
I have asked senior monks at the monastery about the value of noticing the gaps between thoughts and suggestions about how to do this. During my latest retreat I realized that I was bringing a lot of expectation and hope to those moments and trying to understand it conceptually. This was not a new realization. However, this time I decided to let go of what the various teachers had said and to just bring a curious, non-wanting mindfulness to that experience.
When I told this to one of the co-abbots, he got excited by my change in attitude, because he knows that I think too much! He shared with me an old Buddhist metaphor, that I have heard before, which is expressed so well by Thich Nhat Hanh: "A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon." Indeed, my focusing so much on the fingers pointing at the moon, in this case pure awareness, was getting in the way of exploring this state of pure awareness.
While I didn't have any earthshaking experiences in my explorations of the space between thoughts, I had moments of feeling that vastness of pure awareness which is aware of everything, and I had moments of peace. That was enough because I was able to remember and be with the reality that we grow at the pace that we can; we can't grow faster than who we are.
The metaphor of meditation being like cutting an onion was helpful also. As we meditate, over time, the various layers of identity began to fall away. Of course when one layer falls away, another layer emerges. Each time this happens, it is so easy to see the new layer as a problem or an obstacle, getting in the way of our progress. However, we can reframe our view and realize that what's in the way IS the way.
All of us have this yearning for peace, for an end to suffering and struggle. Buddhism does not say to try to get rid of these desires, yearnings, and wantings, but to not attach to them. Easier said than done, obviously. What is more realistic is to learn to recognize when we are having these hopes, yearnings, and expectations, and to hold them more lightly. Forcing never works in the long term. This wanting clouds the mind (to continue with Yongey's metaphor) and keep us from seeing clearly.