Emptiness Talk 2

Emptiness can be the result of not being challenged to the capacity you are capable. ..or not feeling satisfaction in your job, career, friendships. Are expectations too high or too low?? To change outcome of emptiness feelings, one must fill vacuum with other feelings which are stronger; such as, contentment, gratitude, strength, and inner peace.

This is not the emptiness that is at the heart of everything we are and everything we experience. It is my lack of ability that I'm bungling this talk of emptiness. Afterall, I'm attempting to describe something that is not capable of being accurately detailed by words and thoughts. Emptiness is something inherent in everything. The same emptiness that exists within a rock is present within myself.

Human beings attach all sorts of labels to cover up our inherent nature. Our inherent nature is not one of permanence. It is not something you can actually single out by itself apart from anything or everything else.

If we are our jobs, our careers, what happens to all the millions of people that have lost their job or their career during the Great Recession? What happens to all those unemployed and unable to find work? Are they any different than they were before the job loss?

If we are our families and relationships, what happens when family members die, friends perish or loved ones move away? Are we then not ourselves when we're alone or when we're the last survivor of a family?

Look at yourself. What is this thing called me? If it's in my hands, those can be cut away from my body. Am I a wholly different person because I lost a limb or lost use of a limb? People have organs removed or replaced with other people's organs. Are they now less human or more than one human being?

Are we the way we feel about our life or are we somehow beyond that? The way we feel fluctuates wildly within every moment for some. How can that be a basis for finding what constitutes this thing I call me?

Lets get out of this human terrain, and look at the universe as a whole. Many stars die or are born all the time. Is the universe any less the whole than it ever was? Planets crumble and come together. Is there any more mass or less mass in the universe?

The vacuum you are talking about is the concept of emptiness. It is at the heart of you and me and at the heart of our existence. As human beings, we want to hold onto this idea of what me is. Our ignorance about our real nature is the primary source of all our suffering.

This concept of emptiness is very challenging to discuss, but it's a worthwhile discussion to have. Please challenge it. Question it. I want to be challenged and I need to be questioned, especially about this. Keep the comments coming. It is only through direct experience that we will ever know emptiness.