Emptiness

Here is a quote from Doug Kraft for easingawake.com:

We tend not to notice emptiness because there is nothing to pay attention to. It’s hard to focus on a blank wall – there’s nothing for the eyes to focus on. It’s hard to hear silence – there’s nothing to listen to. It’s hard to notice when our minds are quiet – there’s nothing in them to think about.

So we slide over emptiness and latch onto the next thing to come along. It’s how we’re wired: we notice things more than the space they inhabit.

Lao Tsu wrote:

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
(Tao Te Ching, verse 11 translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)

There is a quiet peace within each of us, the silence of awareness, that is calling us back to itself. Calling us home to the refuge of emptiness that is always present, but usually overlooked.

All the activity of the mind: thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, relationships, display themselves within this quiet peace, without ever disturbing the peace of awareness.

Our practices lead us to the experience of this quiet peace, and the remembrance of this peace during the day, releasing the tension in the mind and revealing the peace in our heart of hearts.