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I find myself in another existential episode. With its prevailing signature pattern: a felt emptiness in the heart center; a collapsed chest; a diffused mind; feelings of lostness and dullness along with its anthem, “what’s the point?”

It’s unmistakably me.

Sigh.

But what if I’m not me?

A flicker.

Round and round, I have been invited to sit with this particular emptiness. Each time round, there is a little more capacity to contemplate this void instead of collapsing into depression. The turning of the old wheels produces an inertia, while steadfastness and objectivity are here to persevere despite the discomfort with the seemingly missing affect. Where are the usual suspects? The recognisable emotions and images are not here to help me make sense of things, but this may actually serve to be helpful. I am left to sit with open space and not be occupied by the predictable drama.

Something feels subtly different from previous rounds. There is sufficient presence and space to support me in this exploration. I can look at this “me”.

If everything is truly inherently empty, meaning is irrelevant.
From this view, the idea of a loss of meaning is incongruent, since meaning is not a part of the essential whole.

Can I hold this space, this opening, long enough for my exploration? Doubt gradually seeps in to close the gap.

Breathe; add a little more fire; enhance my sensory focus on my core.

What is here? The breath is here. There is still subtle energy flow.
What is empty then? Things, events, and concepts. Whatever my attention lands on.

Can I just be without making any meaning?
But what will I be then?

Still water. A clear, faithful reflection. With neither inside nor outside. The worlds meet as one.

The search for meaning manifests as a need for direction, for what to do next. What’s the pre-conceived notion here?

The need to know—if I don’t know what to do next, how do I act? Herein lies a belief that knowing has to precede acting. Is it true though?

The river flows toward the ocean without knowing its way. The infant cries without knowing it is hungry.

The absence of meaning does not mean the absence of experience or life. There is still the arising. Something will happen when it needs to.

The arising…. There is the arising and there is the meaning we place upon it. The arising…the meaning made of it…generating the next arising…overlaying the next meaning…an ongoing cycle. It is the meaning we placed upon the arising the creates unnecessary suffering, isn’t it?

Exhale.

Can I place my trust in the arising, and see through the meaning I had placed upon it? Not avoiding anything. Instead, experiencing all and seeing right through to the essence of things.

An arrow-like vision.

What will happen? I want to see. The adventurous spirit is evoked. The carriage of the heart is pulled. The chest, previously empty, is now infused with curiosity and excitement. And even this is a layer of meaning I have placed on the felt expansion and lift of my chest. The belly tightens and holds its breath like how it does during a roller coaster ride, because the mind knows not when the drop will come.

Scary. It sure is.

When the egoic shell is exposed, the result is a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness. A feeling may be real but it does not have the power to make real. The feeling of emptiness does not make life empty. It is not life that is meaningless. It is life from the egoic view that is meaningless, since there is truly no point in the ego’s existence. And how interesting that life can still continue from this point on. The ego is not all of life then. What or where is the point truly?

Without the egoic view, the veils part to reveal a truth of life: it is uncertain; it is a mystery. Being so used to knowing before acting, the usual concerns come on: If I don’t know who I am, how will I do, how will I write?

And guess what’s real and undeniable?

Words are still being written. The inquiry still continues. The adventurous spirit emerged in that emptiness.

I exist, with nary a doubt.

🍯 The Dandelion Notes ~ Writer’s Fund

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New to The Dandelion Notes?

Hello & welcome — I am glad you are here. I am Rosslyn Chay, facilitator, healer, poet—each of these, a very human attempt to mend our fractured relationship with our nature and free the truth of who we are from the weight of our history. The Dandelion Notes are field notes on my attempts.