Emptiness, Nothing & The Void
Why the void that can be imagined is not the Void.
Emptiness used to terrify me.
When provoked, I would imagine this dark, cold, lonely, lifeless expanse. A vacuum void of activity. An endless pit without any walls. Without any light. Without sound. No opportunity to escape—as this would require change, time, a beginning and an end, the possibility of something happening.
And this apparent impossibility of activity ever happening, this is what terrified me the most about imagining emptiness—that there was no way out of this dead, dark, nothingness. That it completely lacked the potential to shift, or even the possibility of potential.
Who is the One Who Wants to Escape?
The gift in this imagery of emptiness is that it exposed the fears I was identified with—the objects I appeared to hold most dear. Doing so, it revealed previously unseen contours of the ego structure to be witnessed and felt.
Who is the one who wants to escape? What fears the endlessness of the lightless pit? Who needs something to happen? What is horrified by the possibility of nothing changing? Me! I am! Who am I? Disidentify (different from dissociating), and openly observe the stream of conditioning unfolding, without judgement, preference or analysis.
The Illusion of Emptiness
Although my imaginings of emptiness were supportive as a provocation to expose previously camouflaged conditioning, with time it became clear that the image I had formulated of emptiness had no ground in reality. That it was completely illusory. Untrue. A fiction. A confusing nightmare to have woken up from.
The root of the confusion was that I attempted to imagine emptiness in the first place. To even begin formulating an image of what it is, is to take an enormous leap in the wrong direction.
It is not untrue to say that emptiness is absent of light, time and space. That the void is limitless and formless. But what happens is that the mind then gets involved, and goes, ‘well if there is an absence of light, then it must be dark.’ ‘If there is an absence of time, then it must be still’. ‘If there is an absence of limitation, then it must be vast’.
An image of emptiness is then formulated - ‘This is what emptiness is like.’ ‘This what I would expect to experience.’
The problem of course is that this image of emptiness is.. just that.. an image! And so can’t be emptiness itself. As the reality of emptiness is void of any and all images.
The same problem shows up when it comes to the topic of free will.
It is clear we don’t choose our thoughts, feelings or actions. There is an absence of choice. Which is true.
But then what the mind does is it goes, ‘well if there is no choice then everything is predetermined’. Then surely we live in mechanical deterministic reality of perpetual cause and effect… No.
Determinism is just another image. Its another fictional story. Like emptiness being dark, still, and vast.
The Mind’s nature is to operate in categories and opposites— ‘if it is not this, then is must be what it is not, which is its opposite’. E.g. If it is absent of light, then it must be dark. If it absent of choice, then it must be determined.
See the mischief here.
Reality transcends opposites. A category can never represent the truth.
Buddha’s Heart Sutra was a wonderful attempt to break the mind open to the reality of emptiness, beyond imagery, category and opposites — "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different from form, and form is not different from emptiness."
The Dao ’s infamous line — “The Dao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Dao”, cautions us about the dangers of the imagined, and the limitations of thought.
This appreciation for the limitations of the imaginal mind is the doorway into non-duality. Beyond opposites. The truth of the moment as it is.
As Ramana Maharshi once said: “Neither knowledge not ignorance is real; what lies beyond them, as beyond all other pairs of opposites, is the reality.”
Take care,
David
If you enjoy this you may also like: Caught in Opposites
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