Sunday Reflections — The path of emptiness
This week, Sunday Reflections walks the path of emptiness:
“Emptiness is the starting point — In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all your preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty.” ~ Bruce Lee
“As humans, we don’t deal well with emptiness. Any empty space must be filled. Immediately. The pain of emptiness is too strong… A single moment with that empty spot causes excruciating pain. That’s why we run from distraction to distraction and from attachment to attachment.” ~ Yasmin Mogahed
“One of the functions of thought is to be occupied all the time with something. Most of us want to have our minds continually occupied so that we are prevented from seeing ourselves as we actually are. We are afraid to be empty. We are afraid to look at our fears.” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Become totally empty. Quiet the restlessness of the mind. Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness.” ~ Laozi
“If we are not empty, we become a block of matter. We cannot breathe, we cannot think. To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out. We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change…” ~ Nhat Hanh
“If I could give you only one advice, I would say: Don’t identify with anything. Be completely empty — no one. Be no-body and see if you lose anything but delusion.” ~ Mooji
“The emptiness I speak about is not the emptiness the mind imagines. It is not blank. Your body can continue expressing in a natural way. Intelligence is there. Emotions can come. Everything can play, but inside there is total serenity and peace. No planning, no strategising, no personal identity is there. Just the space of pure being. It is what we are, but we dream and believe we are not.” ~ Mooji
“The highest truth is to delete, not to add. To get rid of the things you believe in now. So empty yourself out totally and completely. All of your ideas, your feelings, all have to be emptied out of you. When you become totally and completely empty there is nothing you have to do to fill it up again. Emptiness is realization. Emptiness is Brahman. Emptiness is the Self. Emptiness is your real nature.” ~ Robert Adams
“When you have emptied all content — thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes — when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space… Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that’s what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.” ~ Rajneesh
