When Emptiness Still Feels Like Something
Cuando el vacío aún se siente como algo
A student shares a powerful experience of seeing through the illusion of the seer, then asks about a subtle confusion: if everything is empty upon investigation, why does experience still seem to persist as "something."
When Emptiness Still Feels Like Something
A student shares a powerful experience of seeing through the illusion of the seer, then asks about a subtle confusion: if everything is empty upon investigation, why does experience still seem to persist as "something."
I've been watching quite a bit of your YouTube channel lately, including the older recordings and meditations. A few days ago, I watched one of your older recordings where you were speaking to somebody about seeing. Does hearing require a hearer? Does seeing require a seer? And suddenly it almost zapped me, like electricity: no, it does not. The reaction was pretty overwhelming. First there was just a burst of crying.
Hmm.
Then the crying turned to laughter. I couldn't stop laughing for two days, I think. Sometimes the laughter would turn to crying again, and there was also this feeling that it's all the same: the laughing, the crying. But it was just so intense. I was ordering at a Starbucks drive-through, and even that felt funny. There were some thoughts like, "I must look crazy," and yet there was not a care in the world.
I have to admit, getting Starbucks is a little bit crazy.
It just seemed crazy. It's sweet, innocent, and nuts at the same time, that we believe in the seer so much.
And that's a beautiful thing as well.
The believing, or the seeing through it?
Both. The experience of believing in the seer, and then seeing through it, which is what it looks like happened.
The energetics of it were just, holy cow. I just wanted to share. And it was interesting how crying and laughing, seemingly opposite, were really just flowing into each other, all the same thing.
The space between crying and laughing
Yes, it's just that. Did it happen that there were moments where you couldn't tell? When you're really clearly crying, it's clear. When you're really clearly laughing, it's clear. But when it's moving in between, you don't know if you're crying or laughing.
Exactly. It's tears anyway. And I was meeting with my mother that night, and she didn't get it. I was trying not to explain or push it on her, just trying to describe what I was feeling. I could see her reaction was like, "Back off." But that lightness and laughter, it was just there. The next day it turned more into peace, became still. It subsided, but it was quite something.
It's beautiful. I'm really glad. Just let that unwind on its own.
Is that what they call the cosmic joke?
I know what you're describing. I've experienced it. I think what you're describing is what is referred to by that phrase, though I don't usually use that language. I think "cosmic joke" means something that seemed so difficult and serious, and then suddenly you see through how it just never really was. There's this release, the laughter, the well-being, and the emotional release like the crying.
It was the release, yes. Wow.
Emptiness that still seems like something
I have two questions. One is about the experience of the meditation. I felt that I could follow it very clearly. It matched very clearly to my experience: the moment I turn my attention and look closer, I can only find emptiness. For example, I was looking at the sensations in my body. I was a little contracted yesterday. But even when I wanted to go there and look closely, work closely, and just focus on that one sensation, it was very obvious: there is nothing, yet at the same time, the experience is there. So I was like, yes, it is true that it's completely empty, and the experience is there too, which is paradoxical, I suppose.
But I haven't forced myself to ask questions lately. I find myself a little bit at the other end of what I understood another student was describing earlier. It's more of a, "Well, it is what it is, and there's nothing to do about it." But it feels deflated, not alive and exciting. It's more like, "Whatever, it is what it is."
This is fascinating. It is fascinating to look at my experience and find the truth in these things. But at the same time, I'm curious about the lack of excitement about it.
You said something in the beginning. I'm not sure if it's related to this, but I think that's where I would go. You were talking about the contraction and said something like, "I went into that, and then there's the emptiness, but there's also the experience." Can you say more about that?
Right, because I forgot to mention the question that did come to mind at that moment: is this empty or not empty, in the end? I did look at it, and this continues being experience. Even whatever is experienced as emptiness. That was my question, because it's a very clear experience of something that is not there. But then I get confused, because if I'm experiencing it, it's still a something, right?
Dissipating on approach
If I could describe it: it's as though I turn my attention to, say, a little contraction in my back. You know when you have magnets and you push them together the wrong way, and the thing just repels? It's almost like that. You're going into it, but the more you go into it, the more you realize that whatever is happening is more on the periphery. So you go there, and it's the same: you move toward the center, and there is nothing in there.
And what do you mean when you say, "but there is experience"? You were talking about this in a way that's really significant.
There is experience in the sense that I cannot locate it, I cannot go to the center of it, but things are happening in my experience. It's just that I cannot find the center of it when I turn to it. I could see that there is something I call a contraction in my back. When I turn to it, there is nothing to it. But there is an experience somewhere in the realm of my awareness.
The assumed reality beneath the emptiness
I think you're still seeing something as real. I think your question was right: is it empty or not? That's exactly what you're looking at. And the flatness might be related to this, because it's coming up in this conversation, and this is what you're investigating.
What you're saying is: "There's something there. I look at it, there's emptiness. I look again, there's nothing, but there's still experience." To me, that's a direction I would recommend you inquire into further. When you say, "But there's something there," I think in your mind that means there's still some objective reality to it.
There is some objective reality, and that being the experience itself. What do you mean by that, as opposed to what?
As opposed to the idea that, if you're not perceiving it, it's not there. Or for example, the matter-likeness of things, the objective solidity of things.
So what you're saying is not to confuse emptiness with the lack of matter-likeness of experience. Emptiness is not just the lack of matter-likeness.
It's the other way around, actually. What I'm hearing is that you can see the emptiness, but you still think there's something there.
It is interesting, because it's not there in the same place. It's just that in my experience, there are still things happening. When I go to it, it dissipates. It's not there. That's exactly the thing: it's not there. And yet in my experience, things are still happening.
That's where I suggest you keep looking, because I think there's still a mental reality, something assumed to be real, that is actually mind. It is an overlay, where there is still some assumed objective reality that you are investigating, getting close to, observing, and seeing as empty. But then the non-emptiness of it moves a little further away, to some other layer of mental reality where it can't be seen. All of experience is completely empty.