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Void
ThailandTom
Veteran
I briefly mentioned this in another thread, but what is this void we feel we need to fill? Why is it there and what experiences have you had with this void?
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I think because the word 'empty' has such negative connotations.
If it's empty, it's lacking, if it's lacking, it's missing. If it's missing, we have to find it, quick, before anyone notices the gap, the hiatus, the defect, the break.....
People find it hard to sit in silence, in company. If there's a silence, it's deemed 'awkward'. People 'fill' it by saying something - anything - to fill the (silent) gap. But by filling the silence - by speaking - you're somehow the one that's at fault, because, what's wrong with you? Why did you feel you had to speak?
Funny things, voids... perfectly ok as they are, but it takes a human to spoil it....
I think I once read that the buddha said that if you hve nothing of any significence or importance to say, then shut up. Not exactly in those words of course.
Whenever we perceive a void, we think there's something we should be doing immediately, to fill it.
But if you can just go with it, and notice it, and acknowledge it, and understand that it's part of your baggage (ha ha...an empty suitcase!) bit by bit, we become familiar with it, and resist using anything we can lay our hands on to fill it, but then start to fill it "skilfully."
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.”
― Lao Tzu
Maybe this helps to appreciate the void.
I have felt that way sometimes too, but I think it is better to try to start "peeling off the layers" rather than to look for more. After all, grasping more and more things will only cover up our true nature even more. urgh...samsara!
Once accomplished/found/solved we move on to the next task/problem and on and on.
Pot, house, wheel, cup etc point out that there IS a "void", and that it has its on value, but not that/why it bothers us when we feel it.
"We work with being,
but non-being is what we use." I didn't get that at all since, if
non-being = void, it still is just that - an entity that IS a void, hollow, surrounded space, and not non-being.
As far as this feeling of "needing to fill a void" goes... do we need to fill it? Do we truly lack anything? We only lack what we feel we are separate from.
"How might we allow the Existential Void to be filled?
The first step toward accepting release might be recognizing our Malaise.
Only when we have truly confronted our Existential Void,
when we no longer believe all feelings of emptiness
can be filled by possessions, achievement, marriage, children, etc.
—only when we feel our total, uncaused, permanent, comprehensive Void
are we impelled to begin our quest for Existential Freedom.
"Once we have separated our Existential Void from our ordinary needs,
we might face another hazard—self-reliance.
We want to make our way in the world without the help of others.
So when we confront our Existential Emptiness,
our first inclination is to try to do something about it.
Later we might simply try to ignore the Void by getting involved
in our self-sufficient, value-affirming, optimistic ways of life.
"After some frustrating years of trying to fill our Void,
we might be ready for the longest step of all—the existential leap.
We cannot see thru the dark cloud;
we can't know Existential Freedom before we leap.
But if the haunting Existential Void is powerful enough,
if freedom from emptiness becomes more important than everything else,
we will find a way to open ourselves for Existential Freedom..."
- James Leonard Park
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-VOID.html
Personally, I feel that this existential void is inextricably bound up with the false concept of a separate, unchanging self. Once we free ourselves from the prison of a self-centered reality, we can leap across the void into existential freedom:
"So our most problematic dualism is not life fearing death but a fragile sense-of-self dreading its own groundlessness. By accepting and yielding to that groundlessness, I can discover that I have always been grounded, not as a self-contained being but as one manifestation of a web of relationships which encompasses everything. This solves the problem of desire by transforming it. As long as we are driven by lack, every desire becomes a sticky attachment that tries to fill up a bottomless pit. Without lack, the serenity of our no-thing-ness, i.e., the absence of any fixed nature, grants the freedom to become anything."
- from "Avoiding the Void: The Lack of Self in Psychotherapy and Buddhism"
by David R. Loy (The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology
Vol. 24, No. 2, 1992)
Alan
The topic of void is kind of 'flowing' in a different direction now :crazy:
Has anybody read anything about such a thing as a void in the sutras?
Seems to have several teachings....
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/search_results.html?cx=015061908441090246348:al1bklhbjbi&cof=FORID:9;NB:1&ie=UTF-8&q=Void&sa=Search