The Fear of Emptiness
El miedo al vacío
A student shares how a meditation revealed that what truly frightens her is not the fullness of experience but its emptiness, and the teacher explores why this recognition is the precise doorway she needs to walk through.
The Fear of Emptiness
A student shares how a meditation revealed that what truly frightens her is not the fullness of experience but its emptiness, and the teacher explores why this recognition is the precise doorway she needs to walk through.
Something keeps moving me, and it kept coming up during the meditation and in the earlier conversation. It really moves me. There was a part in the meditation where you were talking about vulnerability, about being completely with it. At some point you began visiting what it is that feels like "too much." Is it too much beauty? Too much wonderment? As you visited this, I was feeling how that could be too much in its entirety. It was so beautiful. I didn't feel a sense of overwhelm around it, just this fullness. How could there ever be too much of that?
But then you said, "Or is it too empty?" And maybe you used another word. Then I felt very afraid and realized that what frightens me most is the emptiness, not the fullness. "It's too silent," you said. And yes, in the absence of everything, I seem to be terrified by that silence and emptiness. It really moves me. So I'm sitting with it and just sharing to see if you have something to say.
That is your door right now. Those words point to something that is not the words. You know it in your experience, and in a sense, it is the nature of reality.
I think what you just said is right. It's as if I know it, and yet this feels like my last battle. "No, you can't be empty; it's full!" And at the same time I do know it, and there's nothing wrong with it, but I still want to battle that.
One hundred percent. And it is your choice how long you want to battle that. How long do you want to fight reality and claim to know how it is?
The battle against seeing
The other day you were talking with someone about the importance of how we live with what we see once we see it. And I think around the same time you asked me a question: "See how it's not only that there is a transparency in the eye; there is a transparency in everything." And I was like, "No. Enough with the eye, enough with everything, no." I feel the battle. But today I was really moved. Sometimes it's a resistance, but today it was more of a fright. Because all the other words you used to point to it made clear that too much beauty, too much wonderment, can never be overwhelming. It is absolutely mind-blowing, heart-opening, everything. So how can that be, at the same time, nothing? Empty?
You have become comfortable with one perspective. You journeyed with that perspective long enough that you are okay with it. But any perspective is a position, a view. It seems clear that the door now is the alternative view. Then you can see that they are the same. There will be no view or perspective, because in one sense I can look at the emptiness, I can look at the fullness, but it will be obvious that they are the same thing. Not, however, without first seeing what is difficult for you. There is something fighting for that position, and in a sense it is fighting for its life.
It really is. I always bring up my Catholic upbringing, not because I'm Catholic, just the upbringing, but I think it has to do with these collective images of whatever I created as the kingdom of heaven. There is an existence to it, a beingness to it. So the notion of emptiness...
That's the door. In general, it is often necessary to first journey with the fullness, to become okay with the fullness, before we can recognize the emptiness. Otherwise, it can be too much.
The withdrawal
This might not have anything to do with it, but it's funny. I've been noticing these little coincidences. For the most part of my life I considered myself an introvert, a bit of a recluse. But lately I've been feeling how reclusive I am in my own home, with my time. I absolutely adore going into the fullness of life when I step out. It's important for me that there is movement outward. It has challenged me: maybe I'm not as introverted as I thought. I actually want to be with people, surrounded by noise and life. I don't know if it has anything to do with this, but it's something I've been noticing.
It's very much like an addiction. The comparison is so clear. There was such a dependence on experience, and now I see that dependence is what keeps me stuck.
What you've described and expressed is, in a way, the process of withdrawal.
That's it. That's what I'm trying to describe but couldn't find the words. It's like, "Where are my cigarettes? Where are my cigarettes?" "No, they're bad for you." "Oh yeah." These inborn habits. It's powerful, but the pain is so great that it's actually helpful, I guess, to feel the pain.
Nothing helps, and that is the blessing
At some point nothing helps. Thank God for the power of pain, but nothing helps it. That pain ultimately is a misunderstanding of what we are. And thank God nothing helps it, because for most people the driftwood of peace you described is good enough. But for some of us, the pain is just too great and nothing fixes it. Only the true recognition is good enough. And as you said, it is a blessing. It can be felt as a curse as well, I know that. Like, "Damn, why can't I just be okay with being a little bit asleep here?"
Exactly. It's so easy to just slip into that, and then it's so painful when I recognize that I just did it again.
It's good enough that it doesn't work. "Damn, why can't it just work for me to be a little bit asleep?" You want the real deal, and I commend you for that. The full enchilada.
It's like being suspended between seeing what's off but not finding a place or a way. I don't even know. Maybe it's only what you just described: the peace that's always been here, because there's nothing. Nothing does it. Just nothing.
No place to rest
There's no place. I don't know why all the Christian quotes are coming, but I think they will land well for you. "The son of man has no place to rest his head."
Yes. "The son of man has no place to rest his head."
To put words to that beautiful phrase: it can be experienced as a curse. But once you see that resting one's head in that way is always going to be a substitute for the real thing, then it is a blessing. You realize you have no head. No need to rest it anywhere.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.