The Emptiness That Can't Be Filled
El Vacío Que No Puede Ser Llenado
A question about a recurring sensation of emptiness that nothing in life seems able to fill, and the difference between giving up and true surrender.
The Emptiness That Can't Be Filled
A question about a recurring sensation of emptiness that nothing in life seems able to fill, and the difference between giving up and true surrender.
I was in a great state before this meditation, and this meditation kind of blissed me out. I was going to ask you a question, but I'll ask it when it's present. Forget it. It's not present.
It's good when you can blow your own mind and I'm not needed. That's actually the translation of nirvana: "blown out." When you can blow your own mind, you're on your way.
The meditation was so vivid, and it connected to an experience I was visiting last night. I realized that in certain moments I visit this sensation that feels like emptiness. I label it emptiness. But then the only reason I label it that, I realize, is that I go very quickly into scanning what can fill it up. What is missing that could fill that up?
I go very quickly through what's wrong, what is not okay. It's as if I go through a checklist: Am I hungry? Am I not in a relationship? Is it the job? And then I realize it exists in another dimension. Nothing that exists could ever fill that up.
So I realized this exercise just takes me away from staying with it. I don't know what it is, but it's like an emptiness. Could you talk about that emptiness that can't be filled with anything?
It's a treasure, but we need to go there and taste it more and more deeply to recognize it for what it is. Then it will change from something unpleasant that needs to be fixed into something that's blissful.
What changes isn't the experience, because it's not an experience. When you say it's like a sensation, the sensation by definition is not emptiness. You're probably referencing some kind of anguish or pain, but it's an interface with something deeper, which is true emptiness. True emptiness has no form, no shape, no color, no flavor. No description.
So say that again. How is it that something like that can be known?
Knowing what has no form
It can be known because it's what you are. The only things you can know that have form are exactly what you're not. What you experience, by definition, cannot be what you are.
That's clear. It is interesting, because I am. In the meditation, I think you were referencing this. At times you just felt, "This is as good as it gets." I feel that when I visit that place. I no longer run into life seeking for what could fill that up. But at the same time I know something is missing. The mismatch makes me feel, not hopeless exactly, but it's like a "this is as good as it gets" situation. There's nothing to do. Can you speak about that again? Because it's very clear that absolutely nothing out there can fill it.
Surrender is not a choice
When that efforting to fix gets fully frustrated, something else will open up. But it is coming to a place of surrender, and it has to be a true, deep surrender, not a giving up. A giving up is a choice. Surrender is not. Surrender is a universal event, a happening.
I think I understand the difference. What the mind is doing when it gives up is saying, "This is as good as it gets. There's nothing to fill this up." So it gives up. But it's not surrender.
It's something else that the mind is doing. That isn't giving up. It's just the mind talking. Giving up would be to stop looking.
To stop being curious, you mean. It is subtle, because at the same time it's not like a storm or a dissatisfaction or an existential crisis. It's just this. So I understand why giving up could look like "this is as good as it gets, so okay."
Don't stop until you find. And when you find, you won't have questions. Something there just goes. There is a very, very deep satisfaction, no matter what is happening. And that's already here. It's just veiled. It comes from a place that is present but in the background, small. It moves into everything, into the foreground, so that it's no longer hidden.
The movie screen
It's always here. You will recognize, "Oh, this was always what this is." It's like walking toward a movie screen in a theater with a film playing. You get closer and closer to the movie. You see all of the characters, you can focus on everything that's happening, the details. You can see the skin of the hand of a character. Then you touch the screen, and you realize, "Oh, this is what it always was. This is what I was always looking at. It was this screen."
Thank you. I feel it in my chest.