The Mindboggling Power of an Empty Mind — A Thought(less) Experiment
In this experiment, you’ll learn what the mind is and why it needs to be empty. To receive the full effects, read slowly and visualize each idea. Tune out from distractions and use the coolest device in the universe — your imagination:
Imagine you’re holding a plain, ceramic vase. This vase isn’t empty. It doesn’t have water or anything else inside. But it isn’t empty. There’s nowhere to put flowers. You’re holding a solid vase.
The vase filled itself in. It doesn’t have emptiness. You’re holding a vase that is full of itself. It doesn’t have a hole.
What do you think about this vase? Move it around in your mind. The vase might look decorative on the outside, but without its emptiness, does it serve its inner purpose?
Now imagine you’re holding a salad bowl. The salad bowl isn’t empty. The salad bowl filled itself in. Can you eat your fill out of a bowl that’s too full of itself?
How do you feel about your salad sitting on top of the bowl? Imagine eating your salad off of a bowl-shaped plate. How does it feel?
What if we only had plates, no bowls, because our ancestors never figured out how to use emptiness?
Does this salad bowl remind you of anything?
Now let’s go deeper.
What Can You Put In A Wooden Box to Make It Lighter?
Ponder the question above for a few seconds. Let your mind wonder, then let it go and continue your thought experiment:
Imagine you’re holding an empty water glass. Firmly hold it. Feel the solid glass. Feel its weight. Feel its structure. Tap your fingers on the glassiness.
Now imagine the glass’s emptiness. Let go of the glass part of the glass. Look into it. See the part of the glass that isn’t there.
Look deeper. Feel how the part of the glass that isn’t there is what makes a glass useful. Feel how the glass needs to be empty of itself in order to serve its purpose.
Now imagine this water glass without its empty space. See the glass without its hole. Try to pour water into it. See how the glass can’t fill up with water.
Feel how the glass is full of itself.
In the next experiment, we’re about to see how the mind is like this water glass, but first, take a minute to clear your mind. Empty your mind of expectations and watch the video, or read its transcript below. Allow your mind the freedom to evolve with what shape-shifts through your imagination.
Infinite Creative,
You are surrounded my concentric circles of emptiness.
Round yourself out. Fill yourself in.
Fill in your circles until they collapse into each other and make you hole.
Let your emptiness fulfill you, for you are like a jar of living clay made to receive water.
Your purpose is in being empty, so that, like a river, new water flows through you.
A river is a glass with no bottom.
When you take the bottom out of your emptiness,
abundance pours through you.
Schrodinger's Pot
After this one, things will click, but here’s where it starts getting interesting:
Imagine you’re holding a large steel pot. Look down into it. See how the pot uses the metal to take shape. Feel the polished solidness of the metal.
Now feel the pot’s emptiness.
Look deeper into the pot, and still holding it in your hands, let go of the metal. Don’t let go of the pot. Let go of the metal. Let go of its structure.
Hold the pot’s emptiness.
Can you feel it? Can you hold the part of the pot that isn’t there? Do you see the emptiness for what it is?
Hold the whole pot again. The part that is there, and the part that isn’t. Experience how the pot needs both.
The pot needs to be solid and empty.
What does this remind you of?
Hold The Emptiness in Your Hands
The same way a pot is useful because it’s empty, our minds are useful when they’re empty. The emptier the pot, the more it can cook. The emptier the mind, the more you can be you.
An empty mind means it has the space to do its job. But when the mind is full of itself, it’s like that guy in the office who tries to do everyone’s job.
We’re about to go deep again, but first I’ll share why I’m learning to hold the emptiness, and how it makes me more of the real me.
When I’m able to sustain an empty mind, I do less, because I do more with less. An empty mind is a clear mind. A clear mind eliminates the guesswork. No more brain fog. I cut through the clutter, through distractions, and make space in my life for vitalizing experiences.
I’m able to bring more of the real me into my conscious experience because I’m learning to see my life with HD clarity. The mind clutter that made me not me — the subconscious fears, assumptions, inhibitions and lies I told myself about myself — all that falls away.
An empty mind fulfills me because I have the mental space to receive information from my own inner knowing. Like the water glass, my mind is not full of itself. My mind sees itself for what it is.
The mind isn’t what we think. Before we can empty our minds, we have to discover what we are, and see the mind for what it is.
The “Everything” Tool
Like the pot and the salad bowl, the mind is a tool. Imagine a tool designed to solve any problem the material world throws at you — this is the mind.
The mind, like the water glass, is most useful when its empty because its able to see what the moment requires of it. A clear mind is aware. Relaxed, yet alert. Ready for anything.
Instead, the mind is often full of mind stuff, which is why we think we have so many problems in our lives.
How did this happen? Why do we struggle with resistance? Why can’t our minds be at peace? Why do we feel like we always have to be doing something?
The quick answer: The mind thinks it has to do everything.
But there’s a deeper answer. To discover it, we have to understand what the mind is full of when it’s full of itself. We have to recognize the world we live in, and realize why our minds think we’re in desperate need of it.
The mind isn’t conscious. You are conscious.
The mind isn’t our only tool. Another tool is the imagination. We have many tools, but our mind tool is best described as a program in our consciousness.
The mind program’s purpose is to keep us safe in the outside world. It helps us solve problems so that our bodies can survive. Once we’re safe, we can also use the mind to be more effective in our lives, solving problems as they arise, here and there, such as planning our next meal.
In modern times, admittedly, planning meals is easier. Except…sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I’d prefer hunting and gathering over scrolling through Seamless like its Netflix — (is it “Netflix and chill,” or “Netflix-then-browse-for-30-minutes-and-switch-to-Prime-or-Hulu-and-chill-while-I-flip-through-social-apps-on-my-phone).
See that? How the mind just took me for a loop? One second I’m talking about what the mind is, and next second I’m falling for its tricks.
Free association is a never-ending train of thought.If we’re not paying attention, the mind will take us for a ride any chance it gets.
A Slippery Beast
Once we understand the mind, and what it does, we can play with it. The mind is great ally, especially when we have fun with it, like I did with that Seamless bit above.
The reason it’s so easy for us, the users, to become the used, is because the mind is a slippery beast. In a thousand sly ways the mind misdirects our attention, and without realizing all the slick transitions, we move through our day following the breadcrumbs of impulse, distraction, fear and desire.
How many times a day does the mind suck us in? How much of our day do we spend fully present?
For me, the reason I go “unconscious” throughout the day is because I let the mind distract me. It’s like a contract I didn’t know I signed because I didn’t see the fine print (let alone read it). One minute I’m opening a book, and next thing I know I’m snacking, starting a Hulu binge, and taking a random tour through the Tik Tok black hole — at the same time.
I do these things to distract myself from feeling a different kind of black hole deep in my gut that makes me feel like I’m empty. Not the empty we’ve been talking about. No, the false empty. The negative empty.
The Great Deceiver
For me, the “negative empty” is, in truth, the feeling of being “full.” I feel empty because I’m too wrapped up in my mind. My mind is too full of itself.
When the negative empty consumes me, I get lost in my mind stuffing, and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m too distracted by emotions and thoughts — anxiety, stress, frustration, anger — which all compounds within, and begins to implode.
All the fears we ignore and don’t look at collapse into denser and denser energy stored inside our bodies, becoming those black holes that give us the impression of feeling empty (empty is exactly what the mind wants us to feel).
When we feel “empty,” the mind triggers us to fill ourselves up with stuff: food, media, facts, sex. Meanwhile, as we unwittingly fall for the bait, the mind hides the truth.
The truth is, our constant distractions suppress our fears and discomforts. The feelings we suppress become repressed, and accumulate, resulting in burnout, depression, anxiety, illness or the like. Sooner or later, the body breaks down under constant stress and busyness.
The bigger truth is, there’s no such thing as negative empty. Zero can’t be negative. You can’t have negative nothing. It’s not that we’re “empty.” It’s the other way around. Our minds are stuffed and our brains can’t take it anymore.
The brain doesn’t crave new phones or more apps. Our brains might be addicted to the stress-induced chemicals the mind stirs up, but deep down, we crave clarity. True emptiness. We crave the fullness of an empty mind.
The Light of Awareness
The same way that clogged intestines can’t digest food properly, a clogged mind can’t digest its reality. The mind gets clogged, full of itself, because it’s not designed to be used all day. Yet here we find ourselves, living in a world that stimulates the mind all day, every day.
Driven by our minds, we created this world, the mind’s modern playground, and now our minds are dragging us around all day, like an Uber driver that takes you on all his errands before dropping you off at your requested destination.
The mind is clever. Brilliantly, it helps us move around in the dark, building bigger fires, better shelters, smarter cities — but the mind isn’t wise. If we give the mind control, it doesn’t know when to stop.
The mind loves the dark because in the dark the mind is useful. The mind is so clever, though, that it can deceive itself. If it stays in the dark too long, the mind develops an identity known as the ego. Alone in the dark, the ego rules. The ego thinks it is the user, and takes over. It rules the body like a prisoner who built his own prison, and now calls himself king.
But we exist beyond the mind. We are not our egos.
To achieve wisdom, we must empty the mind and remember our true nature. Through an empty mind, the light of our awareness sees what is. We discern, and step by step, take effortless action.
Beyond the mind, we are limitless. We are free. We are conscious.
Mindfulness Begins With Emptiness
Emptying the mind is a different journey for each of us, because we all have different mind stuffing, but here is one last thought experiment to light the way:
Earlier, we saw how the emptiness of a water glass helps us drink water. How the emptiness of a pot helps us cook food.
Now look around. See examples of how emptiness creates usefulness in the world around you. See how people and things use what isn’t there. Stretch your imagination. No example is too stupid or abstract.
If you need inspiration, here are some spoilers:
- Through an open, empty mouth, we feed and fill ourselves.
- Through the emptiness of a room, we shelter ourselves.
- Through the emptiness of clothes, we dress ourselves.
- We walk through an empty space in the wall called a door.
- We look through empty spaces in walls called windows.
- Holes are useful (empty spaces full of use).
- Bubbles are fun.
- In writing and art, beauty is often found in what the artist leaves out.
- In a meaningful conversation, it’s often the deep silences between people.
- Holes are also great for making wooden boxes lighter (but wooden boxes also don’t like fire or termites).
- The empty sky lets birds soar and clouds wander and rains fall and trees grow.
- Finally, physics. What does the emptiness of matter (the illusion of solidity), tell you about our minds and the reality we live in?
- Do you see how emptiness creates possibilities?
- How possibilities create realities?
- How nothingness gives rise to everything?
- And how, like the mind, trying to do everything results in nothing?
