Ode To Emptiness

You say you have a Guru? Listen, your Guru is empty. Just ask him. If he, or she, is really a Guru, they'll tell you, "I am Hollow. I am Nobody. Nobody will save you."

We're waves of emptiness. That's what we're made of, waves of emptiness in a strange quark. Each cell of your flesh is hollow, your belly hollow, lungs hollow, veins, bones hollow, mouth, ears, nostrils, anus, eyeballs, skull and vagus nerve, all hollow, your skeleton hollow, all dissolving into dark matter right now.

Your hearth and home are hollow, the dome of your temple, your mosque. All the Apostles worshiped the hollow in the left ventricle of their own hearts and called it Issa Elohim. They tasted their own breath as the Holy Spirit, mysteriously flowing in and out of the hollow in their chests.

Hollow is the tree of life. Hollow the stem of a rose. Hollow a well, a wadi to be filled with Spring rain, a valley to be fruitful and green, a mountain hiding jewels of fire. The Great Mudra of Supreme Compassion is the gesture of rainbow stillness in a hollow cocoon.

The earth is hollow, the solar system hollow, the galaxy spinning like a top balanced on groundlessness. The cosmos is an echo in an empty bell. The edges of your body are the fractal stuff a bubble is made of.

Whose breath blows it all? The pinprick of a single word whispered by the Hollow One will pop you! Listen, all creatures are hollow: cow-pods and stars, poppies and tears, the time it takes moonlight to pass through the crystal wings of a beetle, the memory of your baby's face in the moment of your last breath, milk drops spilling from a lonely nipple, prayers for the dead, a sperm, your shout in a dream, bell chime of the red winged blackbird over a wetland, ebb-tide foam evanescent upon sand.

O seeker, clinging to your axe! O pilgrim, bent with the past and future on your shoulders! Why drag this sack full of old stories across the flowering meadow of Presence? Drop the worn handle of your father's weapon. Empty the bag of yesterday's breath. Let the universe arises in your forehead, in the palm of your hand, in the hollow of your wound, the emptiness more solid than diamond!

Art by S. Maruyama, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York