If you have traveled on the London underground tube system you will be familiar with the phrase, “Mind the Gap”. It is posted all over the stations and heard each time the subway car door opens to remind travelers of the gap between the car and the platform.
I recently read a story about an elderly woman who regularly visited the Embankment Station on the tube line specifically to listen to the message. The recorded voice was that of her husband Oswald Laurence, a theater actor, recorded over 45 years earlier.
Since her husband’s death, in 2007, she had gone to the station daily because it was her way of connecting with his memory through his voice. On a visit in 2012, she was met with alarm. Her husband’s voice was no longer there. She no longer recognized the recorded voice reminding commuters to mind the gap. She was devastated and queried the station staff as to what had happened to the original voice, explaining that it was that of her late husband. She was told that the voices along the line were now part of a new digital system. Devastated by the idea of no longer being able to listen to her husband’s voice, she asked if she could possibly get a recording of the original.
Transport London went one step further and reinstalled her husband’s voice recording at the Embankment Station.
Today if you travel the tube you will hear various digital recordings all along the lines but not at Embankment Station. There you will be reminded, as from the beginning, to “mind the gap” by the theatrical tones of Oswald Laurence’s voice just as it sounded decades ago.
I find this story a welcomed reminder of the basic goodness of people. Oswald Laurence’s widow, Margaret, must surely have felt pure joy with the return of her husband’s voice at Embankment Station.
While this beautiful story of connection and the basic goodness of people is enough, it reminds me of something more. We may not travel the tube and need constant reminding of the dangers of not paying attention to the gap, but the inference here might help remind us of the benefits in our own lives when we learn to do so.
Anything that we experience through our senses provokes a reaction. It seems to happen so quickly that we can feel we have no control over our reaction. We do. Just like we can learn to watch for the gap between the underground platform and subway car we can also learn, and with repeated reminders become acutely aware, that there exists a space between any stimulus in our environment and our response to it.
This is especially pertinent when it comes to interacting with others. Each of us shows up with our preconceived beliefs, values, and conditioned ways of being. What one person may find off-putting in a conversation another will not be affected by.
The words and actions of others can ignite a spark within us from which we react. From that reaction is born the next moment of interaction, and on and on it goes. If we are to move beyond the entrapment of our conditioned reactions we will need to recognize that our power to do so exists in the gap, be it ever so difficult to identify at first, between the stimulus (words and actions of other and our thoughts) and our response. When we learn to do this we will discover that we actually have a choice about the next moment.
We can experience our thinking mind as very busy and as if there is a steady stream of thoughts with no break in between. It feels that way to us because we have not taken the time to examine it more closely.
There are gaps between our thoughts. When we become more aware of the gap between one thought and another we have a far better chance of slowing down the harm to ourselves and others. In order for us to become more aware of the gaps in our thinking we need to have a method to do so. We can not become aware of the subtle movements of our mind when the mind is distracted by the external environment or relentless internal dialogue.
We need to deliberately, through the practice of stillness, bring our awareness to how the mind is working. There are a number of ways to do this. I am most familiar with mindfulness meditation, which is the practice of sitting and watching our minds. At first, we might experience our mind as very busy and even have a sense of it being out of control. As time goes on, with continued compassionate practice, we will start to experience the gaps. We will recognize that while we have lots of thoughts, the idea of a solid stream of thinking, that we come to identify with, is a fabrication. We can work to bring that awareness into our daily lives.
It only takes a microsecond of awareness in the space between our thoughts to change the course of our actions. Awareness grows with practice and the space becomes greater allowing us to grow and ultimately escape the cycle of unexamined stimulus and reaction.
Agency in our lives, as interdependent human beings, rests in our ability to “mind the gap”.
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