Yesterday, I wrote about feelings having a multitude of facets to it (in comparison to emotions). One needs a bit of sensitivity to acknowledge and accept what they exactly are feeling. Once there is a clearing achieved in this area, there is a moment of emptiness. But, how can one experience that? Because every experience will evoke a sensation and every sensation will lead to a feeling. Would that mean generation of a feeling would mean losing emptiness?
Emptiness, in this context, is not a space but rather a state. As a living being, one will always have feelings going on all the time. The key is in recognising it, acknowledging it and then learning to accept the feelings – ongoingly. In that space emptiness as a state can be created. (Of course, every feeling might not get acknowledged in an ongoing process, and there are ways to achieve it – refer yesterday’s blog)
Emptiness, in this context, is not a space but rather a state.
As an eleven year old boy, I had a stage fright. I had just won a table tennis tournament at a local gymkhana in my hometown and that evening during the valedictory function my coach invited me to the stage. The one who won the tournament usually spoke, and I was aware of that. And, therefore that morning along with my preparation for the important match I had also prepared a short speech in anticipation of winning (it sounds silly now, but it was quite daunting for an eleven-year-old then).
That evening, when I was invited at the stage, I realised that I had forgotten all the lines that I had meticulously written and rehearsed a couple of times! I could, in that moment, feel my palms were cold. Ten seconds in front of the microphone, and I’m blank. It is only when I acknowledged to the audience that I’m extremely nervous, that my hands are, cold and that I feel that I’m stupid and I can’t even speak for two minutes; I had a moment of relief, of lightness. My coach simply patted from the back and said to me that you can share your experience of the game. My palms were still cold, but I was okay with that. I was able to genuinely share the moments of the game, acknowledge my coach, my friends and even the opponents with whom I played.
An emptiness achieved after a clearing allows one to fill up that state of being with any possibility that one wishes to create.
It is only now in retrospection that I can identify that moment on stage of achieving emptiness (emptiness in not going blank, but emptiness in acknowledging my situation when my coach patted on the back). One thing happened that day was my so called ‘stage fright’ was put behind and I was able to see that it’s not real. An emptiness achieved after a clearing allows one to fill up that state of being with any possibility that one wishes to create.
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