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Presence
Monastic and Teacher Judun of Longya [Zhangkong] -
Monastic: What tangible thing did the ancestral masters receive upon achieving the peaceful state?
Zhangkong: It is like a thief who enters an empty room.
*Translation adapted from Gudo Nishijima. Master Dogen's Shinji Shobogenzo: 301 Koan Stories.
[W]ho, though he [Christ Jesus] was in form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be clung to,
but emptied himself,
assuming the form of a slave,
and appearing in human likeness ...
*Philippians 2.6-7, New Testament
* * *
Emptiness is regarded as nothingness, an absence, so a frightening foe. Emptiness is seen as a lack. We fill up space to feel secure. We fill up ourselves to solidify our sense of solidity. If I am empty, am I anyone? Or nothing?
Filling up our schedule, we feel we have demonstrated we are worthy, not lazy, so responsible. Sitting somewhere quietly is not enough. Doing nothing is laziness. We certainly cannot meditate, for we could be doing something useful instead, accomplishing something.
* * *
The monastic asks what the adept ancestors gained when attaining "the peaceful state." This state is one of receptive, serene detachment, open and spacious.
Nature teaches us about this peaceful state. The sky is peaceful. Storms can pass through, and when they pass, the sky is as it was, for it has not changed its nature. And the sky does not need anything other than the sky to be the sky. Likewise, the sky is spacious. The storm can pass through only because the empty space provides room for the storm.
Tao Te Ching 11 provides everyday images of the importance of space for functionality -
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
* * *
The emptiness and spaciousness is, however, not nothing. Space is not nothing. Emptiness is not nothing. The sky is a presence. The sky has its own isness among the isness of all other beings.
Spacious emptiness hosts whatever passes into and through it without discrimination; yet, it does not manipulate others to receive. Whether with a visitor or not, it is full itself.
The nature of emptiness is like pouring a liquid into a glass and drinking it. The space does not grasp to be filled. And you do not drink the space. Yet, without the space, there would be no glass to drink from.
So, the peaceful state one grows into through spiritual practice, above all silent contemplation, is not a mere absence; it is a presence. It is a presence that welcomes the absence of what obstructs its natural openness and clarity.
In silent contemplation, this presence, that is spacious emptiness, can be a challenge, for it feels like deficiency. The sense of scarcity registers in the body as boredom. Thus, silent contemplation requires one to come to acceptance of the boredom; then, one discovers the boredom is a passing state within presence itself. One comes to experience presence as emptiness, for it is fullness, as says Tao Te Ching 45 -
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
* * *
Emptiness being a fullness, ownership is foreign to nature. Ownership obstructs the natural, fruitful spaciousness. Spirit's fecund emptiness - Spirit being All-Potency - allows the entire world of phenomena to arise and return to the Fount. Therefore, all nature participates in the Source with no separation from the Source. Anywhere along the river, you see the river, you see the Headwater.
How amazing, therefore, so many search for God! Yet, what many call "God" is the source of the search, the search, and the end of the search. Spirit is the spaciousness sourcing the search, for likeness is attracted to likeness. And Spirit is included in the search for Spirit. Thus, God is as near as the search for God, even as you are as near as seeking to find yourself.
Hence, this emptiness, this peaceful state, which the monastic refers to, is one of ease. Today, many would refer to the Flow. The river is not trying to flow; it is the flow. Accordingly, while the river flows, even when a busy torrent, the river is at ease. There is no place the river is but where the flow is. If the river tried to flow, it would impede the flow; thus, it would impede itself.
So, in silent contemplation, one emerges into this natural ease. At this point, all techniques drop. One is no longer trying to meditate. In this natural ease, one is not in meditation or doing meditation. Hence, silent contemplation is a practice that guides one toward a life of natural ease.
Silent contemplation, as any form of intentional being-in-quietness, is an emptiness fecund, an act of solitude. Tao Te Ching 42 does not see this solitude as a loss; rather, it encourages us to welcome it and let it work for us. And while many talk of oneness, one can only come to realize and embody this through intentional aloneness and quiet -
Ordinary people hate solitude.
But the Wise make use of it,
embracing their aloneness, realizing
they are one with the whole universe.
* * *
The Christian New Testament refers to this wisdom of natural ease as "walking in the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit." Here, walking walks; you are the walking, the walking is you. The walk and you arise from the spacious nothingness and return to it. There is no sense of possession or grasping. Moment to moment, step to step, ever new, a rebirth.
Likewise, what appears to be an early hymn and quoted in the Book of Philippians, speaks of Christ Jesus: "[h]e emptied himself." This emptying allowed the form of a slave to appear, a form in which Jesus could serve most effectively.
And this walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and the self-emptying is possible because of the Formlessness from which form arises and to which it returns. And all phenomena, seen and unseen, originate from the one Presence and return to it. There remains a shapeless emptiness in which shapes appear, a spaciousness from which all things, assuming form inside relative space, arises.
* * *
When the thief enters the empty room, what is there for them to take? Nothing. When you receive the restful, quiescent presence of emptiness and spaciousness, what is there for you to get? Nothing. Grasping for more relaxes, contentment arises. How blissful ! to rest wakefully in the openness where there is nothing anyone can get, yet in which you feel the fullness of presence - you feel at home.
* * *
(C) brian k. wilcox, 2026
*Translations from Tao Te Ching in Stephen Mitchel. Tao Te Ching.
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