Meg Evans

Meditating on emptiness can be unsettling. Because our busy modern-day culture associates emptiness with lack, loss, and not getting things done, the idea of voluntarily inviting emptiness to pay a visit—even if it’s only for a few minutes of meditation—can get scary. Sometimes it feels like walking out into the desert alone, with nothing but sand dunes and clear sky in every direction, and having no landmarks to find the way back.
 

All those busy thoughts flitting about in our minds have become so much a part of our identity, how can we possibly just set them aside and then reassemble ourselves later? Won’t all those balls we’ve so carefully kept in the air come crashing down? Meditating on an imaginary scene, such as a quiet bike ride or a walk in the woods, seems easier. That gives the mind a peaceful focus, but the background mental chatter still goes along for the ride, if more quietly than usual.

Although contemplating emptiness can be scary at times, I suspect that’s when it is most needed. Today’s world is so full of noise and random stuff everywhere, we might believe that is the normal way of things if we don’t pause to reflect. Emptying the mind of clamoring thoughts and worries doesn’t really mean nothing is left; rather, it makes space for awareness of life’s smaller details—such as what breathing feels like.

Even in the desert, it’s not really empty. A hiker would notice such things as gentle breezes, insect sounds, a hawk soaring far aloft, sand shifting with every step, a snake sunning itself on a rock, and a cactus at the edge of a dry gully. The world is full of spaces that only seem empty until we take the time to look more closely at them.

If peace could be held in the palm of one’s hand, what would it feel like? I sometimes meditate on this question, imagining that I am holding peace in my left hand (because it’s nearest to the heart). This is a stream-of-consciousness exercise focusing on the sensations, images, and words that come to mind, however randomly.

It might go something like this: Peace feels soft. Although peace fills the hand, there’s almost no weight to it. Like a handful of fluffy little cotton balls—or maybe cotton candy. Pink cotton candy, like soft pink clouds at sunrise. Or blue like the sky.
 

But peace is not sticky like cotton candy. It shapes itself to the hand and stays in place naturally, so there’s no need to keep a tight grasp. Peace won’t run away either. Like a friendly puppy, it wants to cuddle up and stay close—best not to squeeze too tightly!

Peace glows with a happy light, giving a pleasant warmth that travels all through the body and radiates out to the Universe. Peace is for sharing—it doesn’t need to be hoarded because there’s always more where it came from! Sometimes it dances too, just for the joy of existing—like the Snoopy Dance, maybe, with that cheerful piano music playing.

Even after ending the meditation and letting the images fade, peace is still there invisibly, as though it evaporated into the surrounding air while leaving a fresh, natural scent—like a summer afternoon when a gentle, cleansing rain is about to fall.

Do you have particular meditations that you do regularly? I’ve decided to share one of mine after reading the Meditation Mondays series on the blog belovelive, which is always full of lovely photos and inspiring ideas. Its author, Liz, says that “regardless of who we are, finding ways to get in touch with our souls, in whatever way works for us individually, is something that can make life much more rich and bring us a deep sense of peace.”

Sometimes when old negative emotions from long-ago events surface, I work through them by doing a meditation that I call “Recycling.” First, I imagine myself walking along a peaceful forest or prairie path, surrounded by nature. The scene changes each time I finish working through one topic and begin another. Recently I’ve been picturing my starting point as the path shown in the photo below, which I used to illustrate one of my blog posts last month.
 

The path leads to a riverbank that would be a lovely place if it hadn’t been littered with plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and other trash that needs to be picked up and recycled. Each bottle or other item of trash has stagnant water inside it, so I have to pour that out before taking it away for disposal. The stagnant water looks icky, and sometimes a cold rain starts falling; but I know that I am making at least a little progress toward getting things cleaned up.

While disposing of a piece of imaginary trash, I consider an aspect of the troubling situation. Let’s say that someone involved made an unkind remark. Setting aside my previous judgment that the person was nasty and hateful, I think about other possibilities. Maybe the person felt angry and defensive after having been a target of someone else’s bullying and, as a result, misinterpreted my words. Or maybe I was the one who misunderstood something in the conversation. If the remark was indeed meant to be unkind, the person might recently have lost a job or had a death in the family.

Just reflecting on the fact that there might be other explanations can go a long way toward taking the sting out of the memory; and it also helps to make clear, through this very simple imagery, the burden that results from carrying around old grudges.