This past week, I found myself at the edge of the Pacific Ocean with my toes between the sand and waves gazing vacantly into the unending blue distance, just breathing the salty ocean breeze. It was a moment of fullness and emptiness. My daughter was perfecting riding a boogie board over, through, and with the crashing waves—moments of pure joy.
The ocean seems to invite those moments of gazing. Everyone who walks into the sea, kids included, seems to take a moment to gaze, to watch the waves, to look and look farther still.
That act of gazing, without thought, seeing into the distance while seeing nothing at all, has a name in the Japanese language. It's boketto.
Boketto is gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking of anything specific. It's losing yourself in the vast unseeing horizon.
Boketto is like a cool glass of water on a hot day for the mind. It's a refreshing reset.
Every definition I've found for boketto includes the word "gazing." Gazing feels calmer, less intense than staring. Being on the receiving end of a stare can feel intimidating and intense. The energy of a gaze is gentle, refreshing, and kind. Gazing is gentle seeing.
"It's nice that the Japanese think so highly of thinking about nothing at all that they actually give it a name."
-Ella Frances Sanders
I can't think of an English word that captures or even comes close to encouraging gazing at nothing while thinking of nothing. It sort of goes against our do more to be more mentality. That's probably what makes the word so wonderful and why when I heard boketto, I instantly recognized the action and emotion.
Boketto feels contrary to the cultural preference of action and progress. It's a reminder that a pause to gaze into the distance is healing and helpful. Boketto tells me I don't have to consistently produce and be productive. Sometimes, the most effective thing is to pause and gaze with gentle eyes at nothing while thinking of…nothing. One source I read about boketto said it was a reset and refresh for our brain-which makes me think of the famous Anne Lamott quote:
"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."
-Anne Lamott
Pauses are good. Gazing blankly into the distance is an invitation we always have access to.
Boketto Blessing
Stop.
Breath.
Look.
Look wider.
Look wider still.
Lose yourself in the wideness, the eternal blue of the sky.
Let your thinking things pause.
Your soul will arrive.
Your heart will unfurl.
Look.
Breath.
Stop.
Refreshed, step gently forward.
Become a boketto practitioner this week. The wonderful thing about this Japanese phrase is no matter the place, the time, the location the refreshing, reset of gazing at nothing, with nothing in mind is available to us. (Expect driving, don’t practice boketto while driving!)
Gaze gently into the trees, sky, and back-yard flowers, across your living room, or find a photo that invites you to gaze deeply.
Recently Read:
Black Cake: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson
Black Cake is a Read with Jenna book pick. I enjoyed this book. (It gets rave reviews on Amazon, I thought it was fine, but it didn't quite live up to the reviews for me.) In Black Cake, two estranged siblings return for their mother's funeral and learn long-held family secrets and come to understand the importance of their mother's black cake recipe from the Caribbean islands.
A Book I Love:
Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers and Reflections by Macrina Wiederkehr
I've had this book on my shelf for many years. I love everything by the late Macrina. This is a book of poetry, prayers, and reflections from her practice of Lectio Divina. I love to pull it off my shelf and flip through; anything I find is usually just the right thing. It's divided into five "spiritual seasons" of wonder, hope, love, mystery, and faith.
The following is a selection of quotes and ponderings on silence, nothingness, and the gifts they hold for us. Read each quote slowly. Notice if a word or phrase sparkles for you. What is the invitation that word or phrase holds for you? Invite the the lesson to walk with you this week.
Everything that's created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.
-Wayne Dyer
“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
― Pema Chödrön
“Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other (people), nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.”
― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude