Emptiness Is A Verb

 

Emptiness is a verb. I might even call it a practice, except that the "I" is the first thing to go. How can there be a practice when there is no practitioner? In the New Testament, Philippians chapter 2 tells us how Jesus "emptied himself." Commentators speak of this as a noun "kenosis," self-emptying. But in the text, it is a verb, "ekenosen."

Emptiness is not a static or passive destination, but a continuous dynamic pouring of the self beyond itself, into the depths of un-created Being; no goal in sight, just an abysmal fall into the groundless, where ever-expanding no-thingness is bliss, the motion of stillness, the flowering of wonder.

Hollowed out by this perpetual fall, our naked amazement swells into a boundless zero, and ripens into the spaciousness of pure possibility. Worlds are born from here, both earthly and celestial. This place is the silent womb of creation, yet it lies beyond creation, deeper inside me than myself.

My fall into groundless wonder clears a way for the new earth to manifest like a rainbow pouring from the empty heart. If I do not begin in self-emptiness, there is no creativity. Which is why Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his journal, "Among the great things around us, the being of nothingness is the greatest."

No creativity ever comes from holding on to concepts, beliefs, intellectual images. These must be thrown into the black fire of divine annihilation. Thus scripture says, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:31)

Of course, the "terrifying thing" is not a thing at all, but the total dissolution of thingness. And what terrifies us most is dissolving the seed of everything: the "I"-thought. The living God of astonishment is a fire that consumes the ego, yet refines and purifies its awareness, transmuting the "I" into a diamond hologram that reflects and cherishes every other sentient being as its own Self. We are not called to destruction, but transfiguration.

Åll that will be left of us is our wonder. Yet in the ashes of the "I," we will discover that wonder has a body! The wonder of the body is this breath, savoring every inhalation, surrendering every exhalation, imbibing the boundless sky into each cell, infusing Christal consciousness into each molecule of DNA.

Yes, there is nothing more fulfilling than the practice of emptiness. Is the emptiness of cosmic space not filled with stars? Our emptiness is the Motherhood of silence, and the prelude to creation. As we enter the evening season of Samhain, the advent season of Mary, and prepare for the Birth of the utterly new unknown at the Winter Solstice, I invite you to plunge joyfully, not in solemn penitence, but joyfully, into sacred darkness, the womb of light.

Image: Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, Vilna, Lithuania