Emptiness: Opening to Simplicity and Silence

“Life is actually really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” -Confucius

There is an ancient Zen Koan where someone hands you a bowl and asks you “What is the most important part of this bowl?” Without giving away any deep and esoteric spiritual secrets, the generally accepted answer is, “The empty space inside.”

In art, negative space is the blank canvas around the subject, and it’s just as important as the painting itself. It’s integral for balance, and it frames the image. In music there is silence between each note, chord or phrase – the silence separates the intervals even though these periods of silence may be so quick as to be almost imperceptible. Each discipline has components of “what is” and “what is not” to define it – sound and silence. Something happening and emptiness - and this process is how we identify anything, in psychology it might be called the delineation markers – those things which allow us to identify where something starts…it’s border.

In other words, the negative space defines the positive space. We have a lot of trouble with silence, simplicity and emptiness. When there isn’t something to do, see, watch or otherwise engage us – we run the risk of projecting ourselves onto whatever canvas is at hand. Sometimes that’s terribly uncomfortable.

Years ago (the late 70’s) I had the opportunity to work with John C. Lilly (1915-2001) the pioneering neuroscientist and psychoanalyst at a “Think Tank” I was involved with. This was perhaps the heyday of the “altered states” movement and the use of isolation tanks (sensory deprivation environments). The idea was to go into a space completely void of external stimuli so that your mind “filled in the blanks” or projected itself onto the empty canvas.

The challenge of these experiments was that sometimes our mind is filled with very dark things and the process can be scary to people. I’m not talking about demons and monsters, but about general fears, loneliness, or the awareness of our own mortality. We may have guilt, shame, the pain of failed relationships – or no relationships, the fear of not living up to someone’s expectations. All of those are the kinds of things that can get projected in an isolation or sensory deprivation environment.

“Simplicity means doing everything without an ulterior motivation.” [from Wounded by Love]

Simplicity is a form of empty canvas – and when we simplify, we often open up vast reaches of ourselves that had heretofore been filled with stuff – with ideas, with clutter (mental chatter or material stuff). The clutter distracts us so we don’t see or experience the fear that wells up from ourselves. We want to be distracted. As a church musician I have years of experience filling in empty space lest people get anxious. Or, as may have often been the case, lest I got anxious.

So what’s changing for me? I’ve had an attraction to the simple for years. My fondness of all things Zen reflects, at some level, a deep awareness of the extreme power of the simple. But that awareness wasn’t often reflected in my life, and, frankly, on many levels still isn’t. 

But I feel a call…or a pull towards simplicity (and silence) that is stronger than before. Maybe it’s because I’m slowing down, or physically aren’t able to resist it at the level I could before. Or, I would like to think, don’t want to resist it as strongly. I’m becoming OK with the concept of simplicity.

Maybe some of the demons are dissipating (finally) so that whatever is projected isn’t too horrible, uncomfortable or awkward to deal with. Maybe I’m becoming more comfortable with myself. Maybe all of the above, or none of the above. I suppose the why isn’t important, but I’m becoming more comfortable with silence.  

Like the negative space of art, and the empty space of music - the same can be said of our lives – the empty moments when we consciously choose to just breathe and be emphasize the moments when we choose to act. And yet allowing ourselves this simplicity is a real chore.

Instead, we complicate life with constant doing and plotting to avoid the experience of sitting with ourselves and accepting the moment as it is. We stay busy to avoid confronting the dissatisfaction that can’t ever be filled with more stuff, noise or clutter – it can only be filled from within with the knowledge that right now we are complete.

Simplicity is chipping away at the endless pile of more to emphasize what really matters to us individually. How can you create some open space for yourself today? And, if you can – are you brave enough to live into it?