A Tale of No-thing (Shunyata)
It came up in my zazen this morning that what I was achieving in stilling my mind and focusing on the breath was no-thing at all.
For a moment my mind seemed totally still, there was really nothing at all! No thoughts or ideas, just the breath entering and leaving my body. Then suddenly, every trivial thought under the sun bombarded my mind and I recognized I was actually getting a feeling of fear. Fear from nothing at all? There was also a fascination because I was totally observing this mental phenomenon as if it was somebody else.
During this dream-like state, I remembered the Buddha’s word for this no-thing was shanyata and this word seemed much softer and more acceptable than no-thing. The empty void I was experiencing continued behind my chattering mind and then I had a prominent thought that I had experienced this no-thingness before. I had been in this space before I was born and I am and have been OK in spite of it. And my mind stopped again and only the breathing was there until my timer signalled the end of my sitting.
This period of 45 minutes I had been sitting in zazen, had gone in a flash and will never return again. It was truly timeless. There is only now.
