All issues and all activities can only dissolve into emptiness, for this is the origin and the culmination of all things. The purpose of meditation is to bring us to this awareness… but with this awareness we come to see that even the practice itself is called upon to become as irrelevant as any other worldly activity.
The origin of it all
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You have posed the question,
You have posed the question, if we remove all objects from the mind, what is left? Those of us who practice some form of meditation are attempting to do just that. But we are all faced with the same obstacle when we attempt to remove all objects from the mind: the mind doesn’t seem to like the idea of having its contents removed. The very idea of a completely empty mind arouses a primal fear. What is the source of this fear? And how do we convince the mind that it doesn’t have to freak out about being empty, that it can be quite comfortable when nothing is in it?
When we first attempt to
When we first attempt to meditate, the mind looks at emptiness as another idea, thus, from the beginning, making it difficult to enter into that emptiness. With such a practice, the mind finds itself involved in an activity that goes against emptiness. The mind looks at emptiness as something outside of itself, and as such, creates another struggle, another division within itself. To reach a state of emptiness is not about seeking out something external to oneself, as the state of emptiness cannot be something of the mind.
Emptiness is its own reality. It has nothing to do with the mind, since it is of the very nature of vastness, infinity. How could a mind that is conditioned and the prisoner of the known, and entangled within the realm of time reach something that has nothing to do with time? Therefore, when attempting to find a state of emptiness, the mind has to withdraw from all attempts to find anything outside itself. It has to contain itself and to see itself as it is in the present moment. Not think about what it is. Not change what it is, nor deny nor pursue any thoughts, sensations - but the mind must see what it is as it is in the present moment of its activity. As it does so, it naturally slows down. As the mind slows down, its essential activity allows emptiness to take over. Without the mind even knowing what is happening, stillness takes over. Therefore, the practice is to contain the activity of the mind within a passive awareness. As this passive awareness takes predominance over the mind’s activity, emptiness embraces consciousness as a whole. Emptiness becomes the center of everything else. One is found to be emptiness itself. As passive awareness is being practiced, all questions regarding the cessation of the activity of the mind and questions about reaching a state of emptiness become irrelevant. One is left with a completely empty bowl.
There cannot be any fear in emptiness. The fear is only an expression of the mind’s tendency to hold on to its activity. As it holds on to its activity, it can only maintain and reinforce the fear of losing all sense of direction. And this fear of losing all direction is a fear of the idea of losing itself. This fear has nothing to do with emptiness. The fear is only attached to this will to maintain the mind’s activity. Any attachment to directions or ideas about finding something or reaching something external to oneself underlie the fear of either finding nothing or being nothing. Fear does not exist by itself. It can only be a by-product of the mind’s activity.