Lojong Emptiness

(Photo Credit: Melissa Askew)

“The tandem of a ‘don't’ slogan and ‘all activities’ encourages us to come out of our materialistic daydream, come back to the body, and open the heart. Because we have time available to us, because we have this curriculum and this framework known as the three turnings, I want to encourage us to come to this task - this practice of opening our hearts into the world - in a gradual and a developmental way.”
- Neil W. McKinlay, Unit One Live Talk

Late afternoons typically look like this: I shop for groceries, tidy the kitchen, cook dinner, then wearily flop onto the living room couch. Yesterday offered little variation from this routine - except for the instant I caught myself grumbling about the sofa. It was, I moaned in my thoughts, ‘too hard, too short, and placed in a lousy location.’ At which point this unit’s first slogan appeared. “Don’t ponder others” it counselled, setting off a sequence of events that lasted only seconds.

Seeing what I was doing - which is, as we’ve discussed, the main point of these ‘don’ts’ - encouraged something to release. This wasn’t volitional; it seemed to just happen. Tension unwound, heart-awareness opened, and that ‘couch’ underneath me vanished.

Suddenly there was no ‘couch’. In it’s place, was a flurry of vaguely linked sensations. ‘Texture’, ‘presence’, and ‘support’ might point toward a few of these. So might the phrase ‘ease and relaxation.’ And ‘deep appreciation.’ As with ‘couch’, however, such words fall woefully short in describing the actual moment.

For through those fleeting seconds, there really was no ‘couch’ to be found. There really were no ‘feelings’ of the sort noted above. There was instead what Pema Chodron describes as “the simplicity and immediacy of our present experience” (SWYA | Ch 3). Experience stripped so completely of my usual add-ons and reference points that it quickly gave raise to panic.

My body jolted while laying there. Imagine a large elastic band snapping back on itself; that’s what it felt like. ‘I’ snapped back on ‘myself’ and, just as quickly as it had vanished, that couch was back in place beneath me. I lay on it blinking and confused for a moment; warmed by a subtle tinge of longing. 

- Neil