The Void and Formlessness

Before the world was given form, the Way simply Is. 

You call this Emptiness; I call it the Father who sees in secret. 

Do not seek to define it, for it is the great Mystery. 

Let go of what you think you know, and your heart will become as void and as vast as the Kingdom itself.

Reflection - The Heart of the Great Mystery

(The speaker steps up, takes a slow, centring breath, and looks warmly at the gathering. A gentle, knowing smile is on their face.)

Peace be with you.

We are all so busy, aren't we? (A soft, knowing chuckle.) So very busy. From the moment we wake, the mind starts. Chattering, planning, remembering, worrying. We fill our lives, our homes, our hearts. We fill them with ideas, with beliefs, with opinions. We fill them with "likes" and "dislikes." We collect relationships, we collect possessions, we collect identities. We are professional "fillers."

We are told to "find" ourselves, to "build" a good life, to "seek" the Kingdom, to "know" God. So we add more. We add spiritual concepts. We add religious rules. We add meditation techniques. We try so hard to fill the "God-shaped hole" in our hearts, as some call it.

And yet... are we at peace? Or are we just carrying more?

This morning, I want to talk about the opposite. I want to talk about the holy act of letting go. I want to talk about the divine power of Emptiness.

I know, that's a frightening word. "Emptiness." "The Void." It sounds like a loss. It sounds like loneliness. It sounds like despair. We'd much rather have a full heart, a full life. But listen to the wisdom that arises when our two streams merge, when the Mount and the Way become one.

The text for our reflection says this:

"Before the world was given form, the Way simply Is. You call this Emptiness; I call it the Father who sees in secret. Do not seek to define it, for it is the great Mystery. Let go of what you think you know, and your heart will become as void and as vast as the Kingdom itself."

Here is the entire teaching, all in one breath. The "Way" of the Zennist—that formless, effortless, all-pervading reality—is the same thing as the "Father" I spoke of on the Mount. Not a man in the sky, but the "Father who sees in secret." The silent, unseen, unnamable Presence from which all form arises.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place you get into; it is the vastness you open up to. And the "poor in spirit" are not just those who have no money; they are those who are "empty" of ego, empty of definitions, empty of the desperate need to be "right."

Our primary affliction, the "disease of the mind" as the Hsin Hsin Ming calls it, is this constant need to define. To "make the smallest distinction," which immediately separates us from truth. We are terrified of the "Great Mystery," so we try to shrink it down to our size. We try to catch the sky in a little box.

(Pause, hold up hands as if holding a small box.)

"Got it! Here is God. God is this belief. God is in this building. God is on my side." We try to define our neighbour: "He is good." "She is bad." "They are wrong." "We are right." We even define ourselves, building a little cage of identity: "I am my job. I am my past. I am my fears. I am my political party."

And the whole time, the Great Way, the Father, the vastness of the Kingdom, just... (open hands wide)... Is. Waiting patiently. Laughing softly, perhaps, at our serious little boxes.

The text's instruction is clear: "Do not seek to define it." Why? Because the moment you define it, you have missed it. The moment you have an opinion about it, you have created a "like" and a "dislike," and you are "as far from it as heaven is from earth."

This isn't a new idea, this formless ground of all being. It is the secret whisper in all great traditions.

In the deep wisdom of the Hindu Upanishads, they speak of Brahman. The ultimate, unchanging reality. And how do they describe it? Neti neti. "Not this, not this." Is it the sun? No, neti. Is it the mind? No, neti. It is the formless source, the "unseen Seer, the unheard Hearer." It is the One. And then comes the great revelation: Tat Tvam Asi. "Thou Art That." The individual soul, the Atman, is not separate from this formless Brahman. Your deepest, truest Self is this great, undefinable Is-ness.

This is beautiful, and it is true. The Hindu path often emphasizes realizing this identity through deep inquiry and knowledge (Jnana) to achieve Moksha, or liberation from the endless cycle of form. This is a profound goal.

But what do we do, as Zennists of the Kingdom? Our path is slightly different. We don't just seek liberation from the world; we seek the transfiguration of the world. We use this realization of Oneness to empower a life of radical, world-changing love right now. When you see that the "Father" is the "Void" that holds all things, you understand. You are not in the Kingdom; you are the Kingdom. And so is your neighbour. And, most frighteningly, so is your enemy.

This brings us to another great tradition, that of the Islamic Sufi mystics. The great poet Rumi wrote, "Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

What are those barriers? They are our "forms." Our definitions. Our opinions. Our "self." The Sufi path speaks of fana, the 'annihilation' or 'dissolving' of the nafs, the small, grasping ego-self. It is a dissolving of that self into the great Oneness of the Divine, Tawhid. There is a story of a lover who knocks on the beloved's door. "Who is there?" calls the voice from within. "It is I," says the lover. The door remains closed. He returns after a year of burning in the fire of separation. He knocks again. "Who is there?" "It is You." And the door swings open.

This fana, this sacred dissolving, is precisely what our text means: "Let go of what you think you know, and your heart will become as void..." It is an emptying of "I" so that "You" can enter.

The Sufi path is often one of ecstatic devotion, of poetry and dance—a passionate, fiery pursuit of the Beloved. It is the path of the heart. My Zennist path, perhaps, is a little quieter. It is the "Way of Non-Preference." It is less a passionate chase and more a simple stopping. A gentle noticing that the "I" we are trying to dissolve was never truly there to begin with. It was just a collection of thoughts we clung to. (Smile.) We stop. We breathe. We let go of "like" and "dislike." And in that stillness, in that "poverty of spirit," the door is simply open. It was never locked.

But, (lean in slightly), this is so very hard for us. Isn't it?

We live in a world that hates the void. It hates silence. Our entire modern life is a conspiracy against the "secret place." The moment you have a sliver of emptiness, a "void" in your day, what do you do? (Mimic pulling out a phone.) You fill it. You scroll. You read the news. You check your messages. You fill the silence with noise, the stillness with motion, the "not-knowing" with endless, endless opinions.

We are terrified of being alone with our own "vastness." We are afraid that if we "let go of what we think we know," we will be nothing. We are terrified of the "plank in our own eye," so we become obsessed with the "speck in our brother's eye."

This, my friends, is what I called "laying up for yourselves treasures on earth." And I wasn't just talking about gold. I was talking about opinions. I was talking about identity. I was talking about righteousness. These are the treasures that "moth and rust destroy." They are the house built on the shifting sands of "like and dislike."

The invitation of the Father, the invitation of the Way, is to "go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place." That "room" is your own heart. "Shutting the door" is letting go of the world of form and opinion. And the "secret place" is the Void.

It is not an empty, dead void. It is a living Void. It is the silence that holds the music. It is the space that holds the stars. It is the Emptiness that is full of potential. It is the womb of God. When you rest there, your heart becomes "as void and as vast as the Kingdom itself."

And from that place—from that vast, open, undefended heart—you can finally live the "Higher Ethic." You don't "love your enemies" because a rule told you to. You love them because, in that vastness, the distinction between "you" and "enemy" has dissolved. It is "Wisdom in Action." You see the "speck" in their eye, but you feel it with the same compassion as the "plank" in your own, because you see it's all one great seeing.

I know what you're thinking. "Jesus the Zennist, that's lovely. But have you seen the news? Have you seen the world out there? It's on fire."

Yes. And it is always on fire. This week, like every week, the world is full of "form" at its most painful: war, division, disaster, and suffering. And the world screams at you, "Pick a side! Be outraged! Fear this! Hate that! Cling to this form! Destroy that form!"

This is the ultimate test.

The Zennist response is not to be passive. It is not to "check out." That is just another preference, another form of aversion. No. The practical application is this:

When the world demands your reaction, first return to the Mystery. First, let go of what you think you know. Let go of the rigid 'right' and 'wrong.' Feel the "disease of the mind"—the anger, the fear, the self-righteousness—and just let it be, without clinging to it. Find the plank in your own eye. Find the void, the "Father who sees in secret."

From that stillness, from that vastness, an action will arise. But it will not be a re-action. It will be a true response. It may be an act of profound peacemaking. It may be an act of radical mercy. It may simply be the act of not adding more poison, more opinion, more "like and dislike" to the world.

This, my friends, is the "narrow gate." It is easy to join the angry mob. It is the hardest thing in the world to stand in the stillness of the Void and respond only from love.

So, I invite you to let go. Let go of one small opinion today. Let go of one definition of yourself. Let go of one "like" or "dislike" you hold onto so tightly.

Make a little space. Be "poor in spirit."

The work is not to become something you are not. The work is simply to un-become all the things you think you are.

Let go. And you will find that what remains... this vast, open, silent, loving Void... is the Kingdom itself. And it has been here all along.

Peace be with you.