The Bliss of an Empty Mind

Although it sort of seems like I’m giv­ing away the farm, 99.5% of the work I do as a coun­sel­lor is exactly the same. And, this work matches my per­sonal expe­ri­ence as I explore and ‘work on’ myself. I’m about to reveal this secret to you, and the odd part is that I know that

Rather than jump right in, let me quote a client.

“Some of this is my learn­ing to take a sit­u­a­tion and fol­low it through from start to end (the mid­dle is a mud­dle in my expe­ri­ence — I can start and see the end, but then some­thing goes on regard­ing the mid­dle parts.)â€

Now, you’ll notice that I did not reveal the issue my client was ask­ing about, and that’s for a good reason—the rea­son is irrelevant!

For ref­er­ence, the “begin­ning†is the issue, and the “end†is the res­o­lu­tion. The mid­dle is where the prob­lem lies. In the mid­dle, the mud­dle is how much time we waste on our inter­nal dialogs – the bitch­ing, moan­ing and com­plain­ing – what I call The Drama. The mid­dle, while not optional, is cer­tainly not important.

It’s NEVER About What You Think It’s About

Pick­ing up from our last arti­cle, let me remind you of a key point. Our cul­tures and tribes have pro­vided us with a struc­ture through which to view our real­ity. From a bio­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, all there is is sen­sory data. Vibra­tions of some sort (light, sound, tac­tile, etc.) ‘hit’ us con­stantly.
Here’s an illus­tra­tion from my book, This End­less Moment, p 85–86

This sec­tion helps us to see that ‘stuff’ is com­ing at us all the time, and we are only aware of a frac­tion of it. In other words, ‘things’ become real only when we notice them.

It’s All a Fig­ment of Your Imagination

We resist the notion that noth­ing is real until we ‘see’ it. It’s one of those Zen mind games, like, “What is the sound of one hand clap­ping?†I made that one into a tee shirt:

You can buy the tee shirt by click­ing on the image!

Or, the ever pop­u­lar ques­tion, “If a man speaks in a for­est, and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?†Couldn’t resist…

In Bud­dhism, there is a dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between appar­ent real­ity and ulti­mate real­ity. It is also framed it as the con­trast between the authen­tic and the actual self. In Bud­dhist thought, igno­rance rather than ‘sin’ (right /wrong, good / bad) is the issue to be dealt with.

Ulti­mate real­ity is best described as “is-ness.â€
In Tao­ism, they say, “The way it is, is the way it is.“


The ulti­mate real­ity is: while every­thing exists,
it lacks mean­ing.
Try this: point up. Now, is some­one on the other side of the globe point­ing the same way? Of course not! There is no “ulti­mate upâ€â€”there is just the direc­tion that is “up†for you.

Appar­ent real­ity is “what is,†with your opin­ions and judge­ments attached. In other words, the direc­tion that is ‘up’ for you is declared to be the right direc­tion, and every­one else is wrong! Appar­ent real­ity is sticky, and it’s where we spend our time when we’re in our heads, judg­ing, plot­ting, and scheming.

Why Empti­ness?

This is the key issue for any per­sonal devel­op­ment schema. When I first became acquainted with ‘empti­ness,’ it was in the con­text of Existentialism—the nihilis­tic “angst,“or fear of death —hooked to the con­cept of mean­ing­less­ness. Later philoso­phers, like Mat­u­rana, sug­gested “Life is a Pur­pose­less Drift.†Bud­dhist ‘empti­ness’ has noth­ing to do with any of this.

Zen is about obser­va­tion of “what is.†Now, the ‘what is’ is the ‘what is’ below your fil­ters and assump­tions. In other words, the goal and point of Zen is to watch your mind as it meaning-makes, while not attach­ing to either the process or your assump­tions. In this way, the mind sort of slides to the side, and you peer past the mind-games to the essen­tial ‘empti­ness’ of everything.

Hey Wayne, Enough With the Phi­los­o­phy Les­son! Gimme Some Practicalities

OK, OK.

Exam­ple 1: This past week­end, Dar­bella and I attended the UpTown Water­loo Jazz Fes­ti­val. First set was a band, and the first 5 min­utes was an improv of a par­tic­u­larly jar­ring kind. Dar and love this. A 20-something cou­ple sat down near us. After 5 min­utes, they marched out. I judged that they hated the music.

Now, here are my judgements.

Exam­ple 2: Have a look at this pic­ture. Who is this woman? Tell your­self a story, based only upon the picture.

Now, can you fathom that your story has absolutely noth­ing to do with the woman in the pic­ture? The story you told your­self is totally and com­pletely about you!

Learn­ing to ‘Let it Be’

Back to the client I quoted at the begin­ning. Here is my edited reply:

Next Arti­cle, we’ll look at the four prin­ci­ples for deal­ing with the issues that arise — Recog­ni­tion, Accep­tance, Inves­ti­ga­tion, and Non-Identification (R.A.I.N.)