“For the past few weeks, I’ve been in Patagonia, Arizona, doing a health retreat in the high desert. Mountains, mesquite and cottonwoods, raw food that needs to be chewed 30 times per bite, dry heat and monsoon showers, walks, rest. As I’ve moved through days focused on simple things (if you want a good exercise in patience, try chewing every mouthful thirty times!), I keep contemplating one of the most basic and powerful of all the practices I know for recognizing the Self.

I’m talking about the Pause Point, the Gap, the space that naturally occurs at the beginning and end of every activity in life. These natural pauses (I’ll get into what they are in a minute) are hard-wired meditation opportunities, doorways in the flow of experience. They happen constantly, over and over again. At these Pause Points, the out-flowing mind is invited to turn within, fold into its own source, and inhabit the Presence at the heart of reality.

But if you’re not looking for them, you usually miss those moments. The pressure of one-thing-after-another, the unconscious chattering of the interior monologue, keep us hurtling past the pauses.

Why is this a big deal? The great text of Vedanta, Tripura Rahasya, calls these pause points ‘fleeting Samadis.’ Samadhi is the Sanskrit name for the state of absorption in the Self, the real source of the mind, the ever-present such-ness that is our deepest truth, and that connects each of us on the deepest level. Samadhi is one of the biggest deals in yoga. In classical meditation practice, it’s a goal that meditators aim for, and its considered rare and hard to attain. The paradox, though, is that through the Pause Points, Samadhi is totally accessible–if you have the subtlety to notice. Every time a Pause Point presents itself to you, you have an invitation to go into a deeper reality, to rejuvenate yourself at the wellspring of your own Source. Yes, it may only last an instant, then dissolve with the next thought. But with practice and awareness, you can become adept at using those instants to touch the primordial bliss of your true nature, the ever-present Self.

Where are the Pause Points?

There’s a potential Samadhi present in the moment just after waking, when you first come to consciousness, yet haven’t yet identified who and where you are. You’re awake, but there are no thoughts. The day hasn’t rushed in yet. You haven’t collected your customary identity markers. You’re just—present.

There’s a Samadhi lurking in the moment of adjustment when your gaze moves from focusing on something close by, to focusing on the horizon. If you would let yourself attend to the process of moving your gaze, you’d find that moment of open spaciousness in between the close object and the distant one.

There’s the powerful opening into spaciousness between one thought and another, the space where a thought dissolves back into the mind, before another thought arises. And in that space, if you can notice and stay there for a second or two, you’ll catch the pure vibrating energy of pure Awareness, right in the midst of your thinking.

And of course there’s the most intimate and accessible of all these fleeting Samadhis–the space at the end of the inbreath and at the end of the outbreath. You find it in meditation by following the inbreath to its end point, then holding the breath for just a second or two–and focusing on the emptiness that appears for just a moment.

These last two Pause Points are formal meditation practices–in fact, famous ones. But once you start training yourself to notice, you’ll find that all sorts of unexpected Pause Points show up spontaneously through the day, in moments when the last thing you’d expect is stillness.

Often, when I’m working on a deadline, or preparing a class, and feeling strong time pressure, I’ll walk outside to stretch, or just walk from one room to the other. The energy of that intense focus will still be fueling me, but my mind will have taken a brief vacation from the task. Such a moment will often bring a heightened awareness of Presence. My mind, suddenly released from the confines of focused attention, will expand and let go, and there will be an opening into stillness. A moment when the mind is just absorbed in itself. A fleeting Samadhi.

If you take some time to look into your day, you’ll discover your own natural Pause Points. You’re walking to the subway, or getting out of your car, and you take a moment to look up at the sky. You’re about to eat, and you let yourself sit just for 30 seconds, connecting yourself to the food. Or you sit for just a moment after eating, and let the food settle. Sitting at your desk, or talking to someone, you pull your attention back and focus on the space around objects and people, becoming conscious of how much spaciousness embraces the solidity of objects. And in that recognition–let your mind release and expand.

That’s the gift of the Pause Points. They are there to open you into spaciousness right in the midst of a tough day, when your schedule is crammed and your mind is tight or worried or just busy. Sometimes, its enough just to notice the spacious context of your experience. To inhabit that spaciousness for a second or two. To let it swell up, if only for a moment, and embrace you. To let yourself be, just for a second or two, in retreat.”

Sally Durgananda Kempton is a well-loved teacher of meditation, philosophy and contemplative practice. Besides teaching workshops, retreats, and teleconference courses, she writes the Wisdom column for Yoga Journal, and is the author of The Heart of Meditation, considered by many to be an indispensable meditation text.