Emptiness

I find the concept of emptiness and the process of emptying very curative. I have gathered what I know of emptiness from the Zen tradition and from Physics. My experience of emptiness entails meditatively letting go of just about everything. Stripping myself of things, places and people in my mind. This goes beyond intellectual detachment, which tends to be a compromise between comfort and discomfort. Emptying means just that. What remains mentally and emotionally is nothing, a void...not even a vacuum.

I am left with a heartbeat, respiration and the weight of gravity on my body. This experience is momentary. Sustaining it for any appreciable time takes more practice than I have devoted to it. Zen Zazen is a method some may use. I prefer to remain kinetically functional between my momentary experiences of emptiness. Walking meditation and working meditation have always suited me. My scrawny butt is less suited to sitting.

Each experience of emptiness is a new beginning. By shedding layers of attachment, emotional baggage and habit, even for a moment at a time, brings sharp light of the true blank-slate nature of the now. The now becomes mine to shape without all the dents and dings of previous experience. By practicing my experience of momentary emptiness in good times and bad, I build a special kind of mental stamina. I become attuned to the changing nature of all things.