Hi A.,

I don't want to judge but emptiness isn't a precept or a quality of perception. With respect to perception, it is basically a realization that perception itself is driven by clinging, and that clinging is driven by perception. That is, that clinging and perception co-arise, so neither has any real and lasting essence.

If you want to explore emptiness in your meditation, I'd suggest checking out the book "The Seeing the Frees" by Rob Burbea. Rob gives some meditation exercises for cultivating insight into emptiness. Rob describes the kind of experience you relate as one step on the path to realizing the emptiness of the perception/clinging co-arising nexus. I just reread the book after a couple years, and was struck by the quality of Rob's instruction and his deep insight.

Hope that helps.

Hello, Senor Mendez, and welcome to DhO! You've picked a marvelous place to dive in, I must say, with this question. "Is this emptiness?" as question, koan, or mantra, will keep you interested for eons, in my experience.

Strikingly, in Daniel Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, the first edition's chapter 28 was entitled "Was That Emptiness?" In the second edition, that chapter ends up being chapter 32, now entitled "What was that?" Daniel explains: "I changed this chapter's title from 'Was That Emptiness?' since I have realized that 'emptiness' is a loaded term that is variously interpreted in different Buddhist philosophical systems. These interpretations are then refiltered, distorted, and misinterpreted by some of those who study and expound on these tenets. Adding to that, the generally negative connotations in English of the word 'emptiness' increases the confusion, which is why I have changed the chapter's name for this edition."

I would recommend reading that whole chapter in MCTB2, for starters. It will put your question in excellent context.

I would also take heart from this, from the same chapter: "The first and perhaps most important point is that from a certain perspective it is not an important question if you are practicing well and will continue to practice well, as good practice moves things along."

Speaking personally, and pragmatically, I would say that in a broad sense, "emptiness" is something we begin to get a sense of through the assiduous observation of the Three Characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and no-self, anicca, dukkha, and anatta, in everything that arises. It may be going too far to suggest that "emptiness" is what begins to make us truly and deeply miserable, terrified, etc., at the entry into the "Knowledges of Suffering," the dukkha nanas of the Dark Night. The entry nanas there, "Dissolution," sort of implies this: what we believed to be solid and reliable melts away, and it freaks the fuck out of us. In this same vein, from one angle Equanimity would be achieving some viable degree of acceptance of what has dissolved, an acceptance that deepens into peace with "emptiness." But that's just my two cents worth.

Again, welcome to the sangha here, and may your path through emptiness, by way of emptiness, to arrive in emptiness without ever having departed from it, be full and rich and fruitful.

love, tim

Hiya A,

At a guess and based on your brief descriptions, this sounds more like either Knowledge of the Arising & Passing Away or possibly Knowledge of Equanimity territory.

It'd be helpful to know more about the specifics of your practice and what you were doing prior to the arising of this experience.

Sounds a bit like soft fifth jhanic state. From MCTB Ch 28 Formless Realms: