The Space
It is in our capacity to choose our response that we find peace, agency, and efficacy. This is the foundation of all practice.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl left us with powerful words. As ritual involves repetition, allow me to repeat the epigraph:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This insight provides a basis for Frankl’s therapeutic practice and offers foundational wisdom for our daily practices. At the very least, commit this quotation to memory. Perhaps recite it to yourself each Wednesday.
Why?
Because all practice requires you to begin in the Space. In other words, the best way to expand your sovereignty is to expand the Space.
Remember also that Frankl developed logotherapy on the idea that human beings continuously search for meaning, where meaning is perhaps the most sacred form of happiness. In our search for meaning, however, we confront innumerable decisions. We make many such decisions in an uncontrolled manner. But first, we practice deeper self-possession in finding the Space and choosing our response. In time, self-possession, which comes first—even before the practice of the Six Spheres—can allow you to heal yourself.
This is the basis of our agency as we expand our self-sovereignty.
As Buddhist monk Phap Dung reminds us,
We see the mind like a house, so if your house is on fire, you need to take care of the fire, not to go look for the person that made the fire. Take care of those emotions first; it’s the priority. Because anything that comes from a place of fear and anxiety and anger will only make the fire worse. Come back and find a place of calm and peace to cool the flame of emotion down.
Returning to this insight periodically prompts us to choose our response.
That takes discipline.
But once it’s developed, this power is nothing less than mind control. Devote any opportunity to sit more consciously in the Space before taking action. After a while, you’ll expand the capacity to operate in the Space when doing so matters most.