what does emptiness feel like?

[ethereal]

For people who have experienced it, what does emptiness feel like? Speaking from the Buddhist perspective.

I think I've stumbled onto what emptiness is, by realizing that I cannot experience it, because emptiness is not an experience. And by realizing that, I seem to actually stumble onto emptiness -- I reach this kind of non-experience experience, which seems like it is nothing and outside of space/time.

However, the state doesn't persist and I have to focus on it in order to get there. I think with practice, the state will stay, and my identity will probably also shift to this emptiness. Also I felt my normal experience "merging" with this non-experience, which I think the heart sutra comments on, with "form is emptiness, emptiness is form, etc."

Is this non-experience experience what emptiness is like?

Any pointers, or information on how to correctly practice?

[Melchior]

Mu

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by ethereal

For people who have experienced it, what does emptiness feel like? Speaking from the Buddhist perspective.

I think I've stumbled onto what emptiness is, by realizing that I cannot experience it, because emptiness is not an experience. And by realizing that, I seem to actually stumble onto emptiness -- I reach this kind of non-experience experience, which seems like it is nothing and outside of space/time.

However, the state doesn't persist and I have to focus on it in order to get there. I think with practice, the state will stay, and my identity will probably also shift to this emptiness. Also I felt my normal experience "merging" with this non-experience, which I think the heart sutra comments on, with "form is emptiness, emptiness is form, etc."

Is this non-experience experience what emptiness is like?

Any pointers, or information on how to correctly practice?

Well, words can only ever be signs pointing to a more ineffable reality, but I will offer them, distorted though they may be.

Consciousness is what we are. It is eternal, and it is the container for all potentiality.

I know many teachings say there is a beyond consciousness, but from my perspective there is not. There is only awareness of existence -- there is only "I AM". I think what many teachings refer to is simply a deeper form of consciousness which is non-dual awareness of awareness. Within that awareness of awareness is EVERYTHING that COULD potentially exist. It is undifferentiated in this state however, as all things and their opposites together reveals a sort of "emptiness" or "celestial silence". This is the backdrop of existence -- the absolute.

But "emptiness" is also a poor verbal approximation, because, as I said before, it contains everything. In this oneness, the potential and kinetic are unified. They are one in the same. Duality can only occur if a division is created. And from this state of eternal unchanging-ness, this can only occur through choice, and when it does occur, is an illusory refraction of the light of consciousness. This illusion in no way affects the absolute, it remains unchanged and eternal.

When I experience what I refer to as "emptiness" (or rather, the relative symbolic approximation of emptiness, as the real thing would be to wake up from all illusion), I feel a sense of bliss and infinite creative energy, and I feel that no "effort" is required for anything to "be", it just all become automatic in a sense.

Based on what I've experienced thus far, I believe when one "wakes up" and achieves permanent "emptiness", this world no longer even appears to exist. The refraction of consciousness forming this pattern of illusion fades away. Of course, to others still en mired in this organic illusion, everything still seems the same, but the body of the individual who "awakened" is no longer conscious of this world. Of course they will appear to be, but they are so inextricably connected with the whole that all wisdom that emanates from them is a completely automatic response -- effortless in other words.

[aphorist]

Originally Posted by ethereal

For people who have experienced it, what does emptiness feel like? Speaking from the Buddhist perspective.

I think I've stumbled onto what emptiness is, by realizing that I cannot experience it, because emptiness is not an experience. And by realizing that, I seem to actually stumble onto emptiness -- I reach this kind of non-experience experience, which seems like it is nothing and outside of space/time.

However, the state doesn't persist and I have to focus on it in order to get there. I think with practice, the state will stay, and my identity will probably also shift to this emptiness. Also I felt my normal experience "merging" with this non-experience, which I think the heart sutra comments on, with "form is emptiness, emptiness is form, etc."

Is this non-experience experience what emptiness is like?

Any pointers, or information on how to correctly practice?

Your description sounds like you've seen emptiness. It is very much a non-experience outside space/time. And you've noticed it's not an experience, yet you're still treating it as one. Looking for a state is looking for an experience. Nothing can persist forever, everything is moving and changing.

It's hard, because the mind wants to focus on the side affects of the realization, which is the state it provided. But that's unimportant. To focus on sustaining the state is to miss the realization altogether. There really is no such thing as 'correct practice' but I'd say relax, and realize what you know. Then be what you know. It comes back to oneness. If you take a look really deeply, do you realize everything to be one? And then there's still a 'you' and 'them' when you walk around? If so, it's very simple, close the gap.

Every moment is a moment in which you are able to be an expression of the emptiness you are.

[Ariel Bravy]

I'm currently relistening to Adyashanti's program titled The End of Your World designed for those who are currently experiencing abiding (permanent) or non-abiding awakenings (I got it, I lost it). It's perhaps the most helpful program I've found for those of us who are in this stage of the awakening. He also goes into discussion of what happens post-awakening, something about which there hasn't been all that much written about. According to him, whether the awakening is just a glimpse or it is lasting, the ultimate reality that is seen is the same. If you've seen the truth, you've seen the truth.

Attempting to describe the indescribable is pretty tough, but the best description I could give is that emptiness is Isness, Presence, Beingness, Spaciousness, Formlessness, Undeniable Nothingness that is inextricably full of Everythingness. Everything and Nothing are inseparably One. Many have called it the pregnant void, and this too is a pretty good description. It is emptiness that is full of aliveness.

There is the feeling of losing a sense of center. With a feeling of "me," it's like "I" move through the "world" of space and time. When we're really egotistical, we might say something like "the world revolves around me."

Upon the dissolution of a sense of separate self and the recognition of the emptiness/fullness of our true nature, we lose our experience of existing in a particular location within time and space and find ourselves existing simultaneously nowhere and everywhere.

Yes a world is still seen. Even if you're awake, you still see the world. Jesus still saw people, water and wine, a crucifix. Buddha still saw a Bodhi Tree. Enlightened people still see a chair or a table. The difference is that this recognition is seen to be secondary, more of a surface-level appearance of form that is arising from the singular nameless presence of All That Is. Everything is a manifestation of the I Am that I Am. Some call this Spirit or Brahman or Consciousness or Pure Awareness or whatever else.

It is the second "half" of the nondual Manifest/Unmanifest presence. Both are seen. On the level of form, in the domain of the manifest, individual uniqueness is still seen, certainly. On the level of formlessness, in the domain of the unmanifest, everything is seen to be this same one non-thing. Every experience is seen to be an expression of the same one non-experience.

Even the experience of everything/nothing is seen to be yet another expression of the everything/nothing itself. The experience of IT is not the essence of IT. The so-called experience of awakening is strangely secondary to the presence of awakening itself. Perception and experience are not the ultimate reality itself.

Oh, with respect to the world no longer appearing to exist, this state of abiding in nothingness or the void is actually a transitionary state, a temporary swing as we move from being immersed in the world of everything and form to the world of nothing and formlessness. Like a pendulum, we can experience either the manifest or the unmanifest. Eventually the pendulum may come back closer to the middle and you can experience the two simultaneously as if you are in two worlds at once, but then that duality of "two worlds" later collapses as well. I suppose it's kinda similar as how you can experience your hands being in two separate locations simultaneously. You can experience both "the world" and "not of this world" at the same time. It's not really an either/or thing, but Truth in its paradoxical nature rarely (if ever?) is.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by aphorist

Your description sounds like you've seen emptiness. It is very much a non-experience outside space/time. And you've noticed it's not an experience, yet you're still treating it as one. Looking for a state is looking for an experience. Nothing can persist forever, everything is moving and changing.

What makes something an "experience" and something else "not an experience"? Where do you, personally, make the distinction?

Originally Posted by Ariel Bravy

Oh, with respect to the world no longer appearing to exist, this state of abiding in nothingness or the void is actually a transitionary state, a temporary swing as we move from being immersed in the world of everything and form to the world of nothing and formlessness. Like a pendulum, we can experience either the manifest or the unmanifest. Eventually the pendulum may come back closer to the middle and you can experience the two simultaneously as if you are in two worlds at once, but then that duality of "two worlds" later collapses as well. I suppose it's kinda similar as how you can experience your hands being in two separate locations simultaneously. You can experience both "the world" and "not of this world" at the same time. It's not really an either/or thing, but Truth in its paradoxical nature rarely (if ever?) is.

I don't exactly see it as an "either/or" thing either. It's more like the moon, when the sun is out, it is just completely overshadowed by the intensity of the sun.

In the absolute, as I understand it, there is no difference between the manifest or the unmanifest. Those distinctions don't apply anymore in that state of being. As long as there is a distinction, unity has not been achieved.

From my perspective, the world only appears to exist because we are seeing it out of context with the whole. In the context of the whole, it is like a piece of ice floating in the ocean. The ice melting is like waking up, it becomes undifferentiated from the rest of creation to the point where the "old interpretation" of it's existence as separate doesn't even apply anymore. It doesn't mean the substance that made it appear has gone away, per se, but specific "form" has.

The intangible contains the tangible within it, but the tangible can only be seen when it is seen out of context with the intangible. Or, at least, that is how I see it.

[aphorist]

Originally Posted by Anagogy

What makes something an "experience" and something else "not an experience"? Where do you, personally, make the distinction?

Anything we point to of time/space is an experience. Realization is beyond those bounds, it's the container of those bounds in a way. Experiences come and go, the 'emptiness' is all that is ever there.

The pointer to the OP is to not focus so much on the experience because to think in terms of experience is to be bound by space/time. That is duality, confusion, suffering. It's where the OP's question comes from. Realization isn't really about a moment, it's about realization (it really is hard to talk about 'non-duality'... hah, or maybe I'm just bad at it). The mind wants to think realization happened within space/time, but eventually even that is seen through.

If you know yourself to be free, just be free... right?

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by aphorist

Anything we point to of time/space is an experience. Realization is beyond those bounds, it's the container of those bounds in a way. Experiences come and go, the 'emptiness' is all that is ever there.

The pointer to the OP is to not focus so much on the experience because to think in terms of experience is to be bound by space/time. That is duality, confusion, suffering. It's where the OP's question comes from. Realization isn't really about a moment, it's about realization (it really is hard to talk about 'non-duality'... hah, or maybe I'm just bad at it). The mind wants to think realization happened within space/time, but eventually even that is seen through.

If you know yourself to be free, just be free... right?

Okay, I see what you are talking about now.

I just get confused sometimes when I hear people talk about things that are allegedly "beyond consciousness". I see experience and consciousness as synonymous. One cannot exist without the other. If something is beyond our ability to be aware of it, it might as well not exist from my perspective, because it will never be known, if there is no "knower".

But I see you have your own way of defining emptiness (which is fine by the way), but as I'm sure you are well aware, we all have our own contexts to transcend. My mental dictionary is not your mental dictionary, in other words, so your clarification is helfpful .

[Ariel Bravy]

Originally Posted by aphorist

Anything we point to of time/space is an experience. Realization is beyond those bounds, it's the container of those bounds in a way. Experiences come and go, the 'emptiness' is all that is ever there.

The pointer to the OP is to not focus so much on the experience

Right. Experiences are temporary. Experiences are not the permanent eternal presence of what you are. The ego would hope for a single everlasting experience of presence or joy or bliss or love or happiness or enlightenment or whatever else, and that must be what the goal is. But it's really not.

It's about seeing what you ARE, the spaciousness that gives rise to all experience. The silence that exists prior to experience, during experience, and after experience. You are the unchanging presence that manifests as all that changes. You are BOTH all that changes and all that doesn't change, but the mind wants to seek to make a particular changing experience not change, thereby invalidating the change that is inherent to the very nature of experience.

What changes changes. What doesn't change doesn't change.

Awakening is about seeing yourself as what you really are and allowing all aspects of the Self to be itSelf, not about trying to make something be something else or needing something to show up a certain way.

[Mato Kinze]

Originally Posted by aphorist

... everything is moving and changing.

Except emptiness. In fact, "emptiness" is the exact and fundamental opposite of that supposition.

By its very nature, emptiness is timeless because it is changeless. It is changeless because it lacks anything that can change.

"Experiencing" emptiness is to experience oneself as a completely separate and detached entity with absolutley zero distractions or comparisons by being in a state that is both infinitely large and infinitely small - by having a single-point awareness.

I very much agree with the words used by Anagogy. They mirror my perceptions and experiences.