It is a phenomenon that is known by all human beings and therefore it is worth its while to be explored here.
K has also talked a lot of it but ofcourse that doesn’t mean that the human mind has freed itself from it.
The only sensible thing I dare say is that emptiness is like a hole that we can never fill. It is even so that the more we are trying to fill it up, the more persistant it seems to be. Needless to say that we have found our ways to do so.
I read K, i know what he is saying about it, but I’d like to discard it and do my own exploration.
If you are interested at all, plz join me in the exploration.
Where does it come from? Who creates it?
Does it have a purpose? What is it trying to tell you? Is it part of life?
Sounds like you are talking about the “feeling of emptiness” that is mentioned in popular culture.
Are you saying we all know what specific feeling this expression is pointing to?
Is it a feeling of sadness and condemnation about our own capacity to feel? about our own sensitivity?
Salmon are driven to return to their geographical homes by powerful unseen forces. Maybe humans are similarly driven (by emptiness) to return to their primordial spiritual homes.
Perhaps it would be interesting that before starting the exploration, you clearly state what “emptiness” you are referring to, since there is the emptiness taught by buddha (and others, k among them), and then there is that uncomfortable feeling for most of us of “feeling empty”.
Also, if it is the latter, I would suggest changing the topic title from “emptiness” to “feeling empty”.
Anyway, just some suggestions.
Again, and I am sorry to insist, what “emptiness”? the one taught by Buddha, or the “emptiness” of “feeling empty”?
I’m with Douglas, Jobuys is talking about feeling empty, lonely, incomplete, lost. The emptiness of the existential void, not the emptiness of Buddhist sunyata. More like dukkha in Buddhist terms.
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Thanks Rick (Mac)
So let’s get started… Feeling empty of what?
So, the feeling of emptiness is not a desire for more emptiness - I’m presuming the primordial spiritual home is full of sparkly stuff and tickly experiences?
How is this different from the usual judging and condemning what I imagine to be my current situation, and wishing for some imaginary perfect situation or state of mind?
I’m a big failure, if only I was a rock star/dalai lama?
Is the word “hole” the label the mind gives to a feeling that is not completely disconnected from the (vast) emptiness? The mind is limited, it senses the infinite in a limited way.
The infinite emptiness is a hole to the mind, like an imperfection that needs to be covered/filled. The infinite can’t be filled.
Either what @crina and @rickScott are proposing is correct, or we are making associations based on our past experiences with the word “emptiness” (how those familiar with vedanta/buddhism have been conditioned to react to the word)
How can we tell which it might be?
Sorry, guys, I am not referring to any state K or the Buddha mentioned.
Maybe the void might be a better word to discribe it ,since we also use the word a-void , to go away, to escape the void.
Another word that springs in my mind is nothingness.
So we have already three words that refer to a state of mind and I am not sure wether this is helpfull at all.
Do i make it too complicated?
:
Nothingness
Void
Emptiness
One more word !! 
Vacant !
The mind can’t stand to be vacant.
Vacant is a good word I think.
Cause in it is implied there is an impulse/desire towards its opposite: to become occupied/filled.
(vacant also suggests a limited space )
Maybe the notion of being driven by emptiness to return home is a spiritual fairy tale. Maybe it’s true, the universe gives birth to a sentient being whose raison d’etre is to return to the universe. It’s unprovable either way. It’s a way of understanding what it means to be human that resonates with me. A story I like.
All these words are used by Buddhists for their models of objective reality.
But I think we have got the gist, non?
What some people seem to be saying is that this feeling of emptiness is a difficulty we have with reality as we perceive it, and maybe also reality as it is.
How does emptiness drive us to return home?
Is the feeling of emptiness significant? Rather than angry, or sad?
For me, the feeling of existential emptiness has a distinct flavor, it’s different from angry or sad.
Sure - but is it directing us in a particular direction?
Yes, indeed. I find the feeling of emptiness very significant. In the sense that it points out to sthg, sthg i didn’t know it existed at all.
Surely I know the feelings of anger, anxiety, loneliness, etc but this was and still is different.
So, i think we should approach it differently from what we used to do when dealing with “common” feelings.
I suggest that we should deal with the subject with great care and above all put aside all we might know about it.
Is this possible at all, I am asking?
Not to stay in the field of knowledge and explore anew?
Let us ,at least, do it as an experiment and see what happens. Are you in?
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