There comes a moment in every spiritual seeker’s journey when life seems hollow. It is when the familiar forms and daily routines no longer satisfy the inner longing. This void being created through the emptiness is not a curse, but an invitation, rather a doorway to awakening. In Buddhist philosophy, it is known as ‘Sunyata’ or ‘Emptiness.’
Emptiness: The Gateway, not a Grave
At first glance, ‘Emptiness’ sounds bleak. But in the spiritual teaching, emptiness does not mean having nothing or being meaningless. It means that nothing holds an independent, fixed essence, as everything is interdependent, fluid, and transient. Thus, anything we cling to as solid is our identity, beliefs, attachments being upon a close examination, composed of shifting parts, conditioned by causes and contexts.
Thus, while sitting for meditation or turning inwards, the solidity begins to dissolve. Thoughts of sensations, desire lose their grip. The boundaries we draw between ‘me’ and ‘other’ begin to blur. In the spaciousness, a subtler presence emerges, as the curious awake witness that observes without needing to control. In the Zen and Chan traditions, the phrase “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” captures this paradox as everything that is to be empty, yet everything appears. Spiritual practice is not escaping the world, rather than seeing it as right.
Spiritual Practices: Turning Emptiness into Light
Navigating from emptiness to enlightenment in our daily life goes through some practices to bridge the inner void and awaken aliveness:
- Meditative Inquiry- Rather than suppressing thoughts, one needs to investigate them. Such as trying to find out their origin and reason. This is the method of emptiness meditation, a direct route to seeing through the solidity of appearance.
- Mindful Presence in life- Emptiness is not reserved for the cushion. As in every encounter with nature or any person or tasks at hand. They hold an inner space of observant awareness. Seeing the arising and passing of everything as fluid helps loosen the identities and narratives.
- Cultivating compassion rooted in emptiness- When we see the rise of ‘you’ and ‘other’ independently, empathy becomes natural at that instance. Compassion is not a duty, but it is spontaneous. The more one rests in emptiness, the more one’s heart responds to suffering with an open embrace, irrespective of the cost or the distance.
- Deity or Symbolic Visualization (in Vajrayana Paths)- In the tantric traditions, one may visualise a deity, first by dissolving its form into emptiness, then resorting to it as a way of experimentally traversing emptiness and form. This dynamic practice trains the mind in non-duality.
- Cultivating the joy of freedom- In the emptiness, rigidity falls apart. Our attitudes also get softened, our judgements become less rigid. What arises is a sense of joyful freedom, a lightness in living, not born of ignorance, but unbound clarity.
Conclusion: The Need for this Journey
Starting from enlightenment is not escapism. It is realignment with life’s deeper pulse. In that re-awakening, some things need to be considered, such as;
- The Sense of being a separate, isolated self.
- The constant mental turbulence- worries, comparisons, fears begins to quiet.
- One’s motivation for action shifts from seeking to get to offering from reaction to response.
- Meaning is no longer projected outward but arises from the source of one’s own luminous awareness.
Thus, in a world saturated with distractions, the path of emptiness is countercultural, but deeply needed. It calls us back to what is irreducible: awareness, compassion, and freedom. So, we all begin from emptiness, as nothing in truth was ever ours to cling to. When we rediscover that space not as a vacuum but as a living sanctuary, we find that we sought all along the meaning of life, not conquest or achievement, but as a continuous and unfolding mystery.
Sources Referred-
https://craighamiltonglobal.com/podcasts/meditation-changes-everything/practice-of-emptiness?utm
https://drpress.org/ojs/index.php/ijeh/article/view/30445?utm
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