kashmir shaivism · Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (Kashmir Shaivism), one of the 112 dharanas taught by Bhairava to Devi
Vijnana Bhairava: The Space Between Two Objects
One of the most quoted of the 112 dharanas: rather than attending to any object at all, rest attention in the gap or empty space between two objects — or, equally, in the pause between two thoughts.
The theory, briefly
Vijnana Bhairava Tantra's 112 dharanas each take some feature of ordinary experience and use it as a direct doorway into awareness itself. Most of them work through an object — a sound, a sensation, a form. This dharana instead deliberately empties out the object: it directs attention to the interval between two things, rather than to either thing itself.
The method can be applied concretely (the gap between two physical objects placed in view) or more subtly (the gap between two successive thoughts, or two successive breaths). In either case, the instruction is the same: rather than following the mind's habit of moving from one object of attention to the next, attention is held in the empty interval itself. Because that interval has no content to hold onto, sustained attention there is said to open directly onto the same awareness the other 112 dharanas are pointing toward by different routes — this is one of the purest 'no-object' methods in the text.
The practice
Resting in the Gap
12–20 minutes · Seated, either with two physical objects in view or simply attending to the mind's own activity
- 1If working with physical objects: place two objects a short distance apart within your field of view.
- 2Let your gaze rest not on either object, but on the empty space between them.
- 3If working with thought instead: notice the natural gaps that occur between one thought and the next, rather than following each thought as it arises.
- 4The text calls the release of each idea a 'smooth, gentle non-observation' — not a forceful pushing-away, but simply letting each one go the way attention naturally lets go of something already finished.
- 5When you notice attention has been captured by an object or a thought, gently release it and return to the interval — the 'nothing' between two 'somethings.'
- 6This practice has its own name in the tradition — contemplation without any object as support for the mind — precisely because there's nothing here to hold onto, only the letting-go itself.
- 7Stay with this practice of resting in absence of an object, rather than trying to make the gap itself into a new object of concentration.
- 8What's found here can't become an object of thought at all, since it's the ground that makes thinking possible in the first place — so if something opens that surprises you, let staying with it be the whole response, not examining or naming it.
You might also like
Vijnana Bhairava: Chidakasha (The Space of Consciousness)
kashmir shaivismA dharana that moves the outward gaze at the sky inward — attending to the dark, spacious field perceived behind closed eyes, traditionally called Chidakasha, the 'space of consciousness.'
Vijnana Bhairava: The Experience Beneath a Memory
kashmir shaivismA dharana that uses a remembered object or place not as something to dwell on, but as a pointer back to the bare experience underneath the memory — dropping the content of what is recalled while keeping the raw fact of having experienced it.
Amritabindu Upanishad
advaita vedanta"A Drop of Immortality" — a minor Upanishad devoted specifically to training and ultimately dissolving the mind, distinguishing liberation-oriented contemplation from ordinary thinking, whether favorable, unfavorable, or object-directed.