10. Reflecting on being EMPTINESS

Hello! Welcome to this sacred space … welcome to this quiet moment …

a short reflective and meditative time together!

I’m Bill Bauman … and I’m deeply honored

to be spending these few precious moments with you.

Let’s reflect now on … being EMPTINESS!

Emptiness! What is that like?

To be empty, completely empty … to be nothing at all, absolutely nothing …

to be emptied out of all your cherished beliefs … your feelings and emotions …

your personal human identity … even your ideals and values …

in fact, anything and everything that you’ve ever identified with!

Well, let’s spend these few moments together today there—

being empty!

Let’s take a brief vacation from everything about yourself

that you’ve clung to, valued or felt connected to!

I guess the real question, when we think about being totally empty, is

“What’s left?” “Who are we?” What is life about

if there’s no ‘something,’ no ‘someone,’ no ‘purpose,’ no ‘meaning’—

metaphorically, if our internal gas tank is empty of all the ingredients

that have propelled our human engine?

To be truthful, I don’t a good or answer to those insightful questions,

because our human concepts are all about ‘somethings’ and ‘someones.’

I do have an invitation, though, one that I deeply believe will be much more helpful .

It’s this: Let’s just let go right now … let go of everything you know,

or think you know, about yourself and your world.

Let’s drop down, way down, into that empty space

that lives in the core of both of us—but especially you.

its invisibility, its emptiness, its silence.

Witness its quiet, emptied-out nature.

Take in its wordless gesture, as it invites you to make yourself at home

within the boundaries of its silent power.

What do you see, if anything?

What does it look like, if anything at all?

How does it feel being here, that is, if it evokes any feelings at all?

Maybe the real question is:

Now that you’re here, residing in your deepest inner zone,

existing in the midst of emptiness itself,

what does emptiness want of you … or for you?

What gift or gifts might emptiness want to give you?

What mighty or magical power might be hiddenly present,

expressing only in invisible and empty form?

What source of aliveness … or energy … or awareness

might be waiting for you in this most silent of resources?

Allow me to interject an extra thought about your emptiness:

It’s you! Yes, this inner empty, cave-like resource is your deepest, truest self!

It’s the bigger-than-human power behind the throne of everything human about you!

This inaudible but thunderous ‘inner you,’ this invisible but powerful core of you,

this almost un-noticeable but quantumly force-filled source of creation

that lives in you

is actually the foundational you, the essential you,

the deepest you, the quantum you!

That’s where you and I are residing right now—

in the deepest, truest, most dynamic and most source-ful

YOU! The empty you!

Personally, I’m delighted to have the honor, in his moment,

of experiencing, with you, your most precious and wondrous self—

your very own emptiness!

While we’re here, let’s open ourselves to receiving one of emptiness’ gifts,

perhaps the one that has been waiting for you today.

As I’m looking at that special gift, I’d like to share what it looks like to me.

I’m experiencing your emptiness offering you the gift of being emptiness,

of having an ongoing, intimate connection with this empty source,

of having daily access to its mysterious quantum power,

of experiencing its (and your) emptiness not primarily as an absence,

but as fullness, as source, as a treasure chest of unending possibilities.

As we are about to end our time together today,

I invite you, if you have the time, to consider staying here,

in this unique, silent state of pure emptiness.

Perhaps continue drinking in the special gift you’ve just even offered.

Maybe keep enjoying the soundless sound of pure silence.

Or marveling at the unseen gifts that invisibly fill your emptiness.

And treasuring this internal well of pure source

that you are privileged to have as your intimate center!

Thank you!