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The Void
ThailandTom
Veteran
in Philosophy
I have been conversing with an old friend of mine recently, a guy who was for a number of years probably my best friend, although we had a falling out before I came to Thailand and have only recently put everything behind us and started talking again.
To fill you in on our friendship, it was a very destructive one, we were out of every social group we were involved in the worst when it came to abusing substances. We would push each other and just take it to other levels. We would go out just the two of us most weekends and take 8-12 ecstasy pills each for around 3 years for example. We got up to some crazy stuff.
Anyway he ended up in Rehab once when I was in England and it failed, then he has been to another one where they actually taught meditation and life skills. He now has stopped all drugs and drinks once a week. he has even stopped smoking cigarettes. He used to smoke 40 a day, smoke weed every day all day and ended up in rehab mainly due to benzos. At his darkest period he would take around 300mg valium, 20mg clonazepam and 20mg xanax a day which is an awful lot.
Now what this thread is about is something that cropped up in conversation between us. As I said he has been taught meditation and it has helped him a lot by the sounds of things. He also has succumb to social anxiety like me but has managed to get out and do things. But we came across talk about this space, this void within us that seems as if it needs to be filled. Maybe with a job, a girlfriend, substances, what is this void? I am sure a lot of you know what I am referring to, has anybody ever observed and investigated this space at all? Does it need to be filled? Where does it come from do you think?
To fill you in on our friendship, it was a very destructive one, we were out of every social group we were involved in the worst when it came to abusing substances. We would push each other and just take it to other levels. We would go out just the two of us most weekends and take 8-12 ecstasy pills each for around 3 years for example. We got up to some crazy stuff.
Anyway he ended up in Rehab once when I was in England and it failed, then he has been to another one where they actually taught meditation and life skills. He now has stopped all drugs and drinks once a week. he has even stopped smoking cigarettes. He used to smoke 40 a day, smoke weed every day all day and ended up in rehab mainly due to benzos. At his darkest period he would take around 300mg valium, 20mg clonazepam and 20mg xanax a day which is an awful lot.
Now what this thread is about is something that cropped up in conversation between us. As I said he has been taught meditation and it has helped him a lot by the sounds of things. He also has succumb to social anxiety like me but has managed to get out and do things. But we came across talk about this space, this void within us that seems as if it needs to be filled. Maybe with a job, a girlfriend, substances, what is this void? I am sure a lot of you know what I am referring to, has anybody ever observed and investigated this space at all? Does it need to be filled? Where does it come from do you think?
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Comments
I don't think this was instantaneous however, because I occasionally struggled with an emptiness and/or desire for drugs, because I knew them as an effective remedy (or distraction) for such feelings.
I don't have the insight to say whether or not my experience of the void is true or even filled like I said. Just laying my feelings out.
Maybe that void was always there but can only be seen when one has the clarity to see it?
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I'm glad your friend is doing better.
Been, there, done that,
inhaled the t-shirt. :screwy:
The void you talk about is the need for fulfilment, meaning and purpose. That can as @EvenThird says, be through loving and being loved. It can come through social engagement. There are always things that need doing
http://m.wikihow.com/Help-Change-the-World
Your gap is my gap. This is Mahayana Buddhism at core level.
:wave:
Perhaps an inevitable human drive that serves our niche.
The space exists in the disconnect of ignorance.
Where does it come from. The problem is that when you try to fill it with something that is of the 5 skandhas, it never works because all that is only temporary, unsatisfying, ending only with just more dukkha. A person is wise when they understand this and stop trying to fill it with 5 skandhas because they know it will never work. If it will never work, there is no point in trying to begin with. But, knowing that intellectually and knowing that experientially are two very different things!
What is interesting though is that when a person really understands the "void space" can't be filled with anything, the void space simultaneously disappears and everything becomes whole and complete just as it is.
But of course, knowing that intellectually and knowing that experientially are two very different things! It's the difference between "mundane" right view and "supramundane" right view.
:om:
I think the gap/void is the human condition.
IMO.. Birth is the denial of this void,
life is the chance of assuaging that denial,
death is the expiry date on this particular heap's chance at doing that
and rebirth is just a new mix of the inertia of that denial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gankyil
Just a step beyond identity.
That void has always been there but we skillfully paper it over by indulging in our senses and creating beliefs and religions. In short, to satisfactorily answer the questions:"Why are we born? What is it all about?" The starting point for spiritual search.
Some think that the going forth & returning is just the illusion of separation & reconnection.
I was, am and always will be simultaneously enlightened with the universe?????
The longing is reliable. It is the wish to enlighten. All the samsaric things we try to fit in the void are the problem. But the longing eventually boils down to dharma practice and the wish to be free from craving.