True emptiness is not the denial of feelings, but the womb of feelings, the mother of compassion. Just as star pollen spills from the black hole at the center of a galaxy, so our feelings blossom from the loam of true emptiness. To this stillness we return, nourishing the roots of emotion.
We need not cultivate emptiness by any effort of negation. True emptiness is already here, as the blue sky is here, vast space surrounding every cloud, whether it holds the storm or the gentle Spring rain. True emptiness is the total release of every effort to control the mind. Let this little storm-cloud billow and whirl, let feelings happen and pass. Abandoning control is innocence. Innocence is returning. Returning is awareness. Awareness is hollow.
There is a silence not imposed by suppression or authority. This silence is the fragrance of true emptiness, permeating the whole garden of feelings. Without silence as a measure, how would we know what we feel? Silence is the witness, the one who says with unshakable lucidity, “I know this is love, not mere infatuation. I know this is anger, and I have a right to feel it, to taste and digest it, then let it go.” True emptiness sees that feelings are just energy dancing, neither right nor wrong, but waves of consciousness in the ocean that I Am.
When asked, "Does the Awakened One have emotions, or has the Awakened One transcended emotions?" the Buddha gave the teaching of the Four Immeasurables. These are the feelings in a Buddha's heart, yet all of them are rooted in Sunya, true emptiness. These Four Immeasurables are Metta, universal compassion; Karuna, feeling sorrow with all who suffer; Mudita, feeling joy in the joy of others; and Upeksha, non-attachment, the silent witness. For silence is also a feeling, the subtlest of all, in the ripe core of the heart.
Buddha's teaching is not esoteric. It is too innocent, too simple, too marvelous to be hidden. In fact, it is not even a teaching, but the radiance of no-thought, the all-pervading clarity of Love.
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