The Nothing That Heals Us

It's the end of daylight savings time on the east coast, and it just about always seems to be dim. Each day is largely dark, and cold, hinting at the uselessness of endeavor and the insubstantiality of what we ordinarily run around seeking. It's a good time to be depressed.

This is the way we conventionally view what Buddhists call emptiness, and mystics of many traditions call nothingness or the Void. A really murky day, pointing to the uselessness of it all. But at the heart of personal, transformative wisdom, this emptiness isn't a cold, depressing problem, leading us down to nihilism - seeing emptiness is liberation. It brings us right through the seeming solidity and oppressiveness of our ordinary concerns, into a world where reality is shimmering, translucent, vital, while also being insubstantial, fleeting, and evanescent.

In speaking of the unalloyed, direct knowing of profound emptiness, the Buddha said, "Oh, Bhikkus, (mendicants) there is the unborn and the unconditioned. Here the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire have no place. The notions of length and breadth, the subtle and the gross, good and evil, name and form are altogether destroyed. Neither this world nor the other, no coming, going or standing, neither death nor birth, nor sense objects are to be found here."

In our human lives, experiencing this kind of profound emptiness means that like a candle flame gets blown out, our separateness and suffering are blown out. Not our capacity for love, or kindness, or clear seeing, or relationships, or work, or choosing soy ice cream in the grocery store over the dairy kind.

And the experience of this profound, liberating emptiness isn't meant only for those who lived long ago in far away places, sitting in caves and at the roots of trees. It is beckoning right here and now. I thought of that right away when looking at Joan Konner's book, You Don't Have to Be Buddhist to Know Nothing: An Illustrious Collection of Thoughts on Naught.

I first met Joan when she was working on the Mystery of Love, a PBS documentary. From love to nothingness, in a few short years. That makes sense to me. In Buddhism we would say that when we perceive the transparency, the insubstantiality of life, we grow in wisdom. When we perceive relatedness within life, the interconnectedness, we grow in love. One never excludes the other.

In her book Joan has put together a collection of quotes from writers, philosophers, artists, musicians, poets, mystics and folks like the rest of us, all about, well, nothing. It is so much fun, along with being provocative and illuminating, to read. Everything is there, from Paul Valery, "God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through," to Emily Dickinson, " 'Nothing' is the force that renovates the World," to Oscar Wilde, "I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." Almost every page invited me to take a few risks in perception, and step out of the strictures of feeling this day to day reality as all too solid.

In our society we are taught to badly want this and want that. But no matter what we get, it is never enough because it doesn't last. So the search for new experiences goes on and on. We look for new intellectual experiences and sexual experiences and cosmic experiences. Over and over. We even see people willing to destroy their bodies, their minds and their loving relationships--destroy their lives--for a new experience.

Even if a pleasant experience could endure, we could not bear for it to go on and on. Who could watch the same movie over and over without wanting a break? Who could listen to a sweet sound that never stops? Yet commonly when we seek rest from one experience we do so, ironically, by seeking another. It is possible to find rest even from the constant tedium and pressure of changing experience through knowing the difference between bleakness and what is meant in Buddhism by emptiness.

May the consideration of nothing free you from anxiety, dread, and all unhappy things. It's right here.

 

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Comments

[seekerjoy]

Sharon - Thank you so much for giving me permission to embrace the day.

[Angie Cordeiro - Huffpost Blogger]

"Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabitable spots multiply on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom, and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily...." HPB

Take good care and REMEMBER to breathe deeply.

[MinerSam]

This is so finely written Sharon


From a "solid" one as me come concerns about the duka of so many in our country right now,
today.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs -- if not enough food, maybe not enough concentration -

And even just lack of the 2 Basic Human needs due to no job i.e.
(1) Sense of competance because of no job or (2) Affiliation.
So If no warm dwelling is anata a luxury or grist for the mill.

Belinda Gates was just on Charlie Rose excited about their work with the people of Africa
(realization that people have no shoes........at a late stage for her and him........
I wanted to say: Where are the millions of people who lost their homes staying?
...Or the Baby Boomers who will work till 81 because Bill Gates keeps selling his stock
which caused it to tank for 10 years.

[MinerSam]

To be fair I went back and saw the rest of Belinda Gates' interview where she did
speak of their contributions in the US educational arena.

In any case, sounds like the food banks have a shortage of Protiens. Rice and Beans are a complete Protien.

Cans of Refried Pinto beans (read the label for no junk) can be very good.
And unless you can get Deradune Basmati, Traider Joe's 2 LB bags of Jasmine Rice

Yellow Lentils are easy to cook. And Garlic makes it appealing.
Rice = 2 Parts water (no stirring).
Beans=3 Parts water (no salt until the end).

Cost of college education seems to continue to rise. There was a building boom in colleges 2001-until the bust.. And in their last of 4 tax cuts Republicans cut student loans impacting 400,00 0 eligable young people...in order to give an extra 19,000 in tax cuts to the over $1Million a year group.

Feeling the emotions pain, sorrow, fear, joy -- heart belly -- in friendship...may allow joy to predominate. Anxiety is just fear

[Conk]

Who coined the word syncronicity? Jung? Anyway, this story popped into my focus while reading the book The Secret of Instant Healing, by Frank J. Kinslow. Very topical for me. Thanks! Mr. Kinslow talks about this very subject, nothingness. In his context it is the awareness from which all things, thoughts, emotions, etc. spring.

He starts with a simple exercise. Close your eyes and let your thoughts come up without controlling them. After about 15 seconds, ask yourself, "where will my next thought come from"? Then notice the stillness and quietness you encounter briefly while waiting for that thought. That is the nothingness or awareness. If we learn to stay in touch with that awareness or higher self, then our lives are enriched and enhanced damatically.

[Arithrianos]

The proper experience of emptyness makes everything new, all the time. Since the "i" that is now is not the "i" of a second ago, there is nothing BUT newness, but this is frightening, so we use lables to make it seem as if there is such a thing as sameness, such a thing as solidity. Every experience is a brand new experience from all sides, the myth of sameness is what produces depression and the search for "excitement" and "newness". Since all is flux, all is constantly new, there is no need at all to look, it is all right here, like what you said, in fact this is why ego is so painful and confining, it is a patchwork of techniques to hold together what cannot be held together, and so produces the stress and strain experienced as suffering.