Breaking the Bubble of Self: Focus in Kabbalah and Prayer

Sitting in meditation or in prayer raises a real question: what should one focus on? When a point in the heart has awakened, there is a sharp distinction between sitting quietly and observing oneself and true contemplation.

Self-observation, even while inserting qualities like forgiveness or acceptance of others, remains a cycle bound by the limits of one’s own consciousness. Nothing breaks out of it, not even thinking of all humanity, since it remains constrained by the will to receive for oneself. Even a genuine wish to do good can fall under wishing to do good for oneself. The Zohar says it clearly and plainly: those who study Torah and deal with the light can still be doing it for themselves.

Sitting quietly and looking at oneself can give real intelligence about how the ego works and where it causes suffering, but this remains work for oneself, mediating between lower and higher self while still inside the space of self. Breaking out begins with knowing that this is what one is doing. This is especially important in our generation, when stillness, joy in breathing, forgiveness, and release from hatred and resentment can all feel very good, while one is still in the same prison, only with a better view.

Even flying to the edge of that space leaves a person locked inside it. The work cannot begin until one becomes fed up with meditating on oneself. The first meditation, then, is to become fed up with meditating on oneself. This is an important state.

This opens the way to Rabbi Nachman’s Hitbodedut. Kabbalists have also used modes of meditation involving letters, words, and sound, particularly in the work associated with Abulafia. But in Rabbi Nachman’s Hitbodedut, the orientation is toward the recognition that there is no one else but Him. The aim is to make holes, even very small ones, in the bubble of self. It is no longer “none but me,” but “none but Him,” present in every minor detail.

This is the difference between meditation and contemplation. Contemplation is a different mold of perception. It means recognizing that one has nothing of oneself and that everything is from Him. This is why the recommendation is usually not simply to sit, but to walk in nature, or, if that is not possible, to stand in a corner of a room and open a dialogue—not with oneself, but with something outside oneself that one wishes will enter.

Meditation can mediate between different inner states and bring relief to the suffering self. Contemplation engages Bina, a different intelligence. It is a request to be included in Bina, and through this to be included in the root of our spirit. The root of our spirit is included in the Shekhinah—in a group of spirit, in a body of spirit that is never the self alone.