Being Connected with Emptiness

The Buddha's teaching from the beginning

was connected with emptiness.
The middle way is empty of two views.

Five skandhas are empty of self.

Dispassion is empty of the fire of the passions.

Whatever is dependently arisen is empty of itself.

And so the Zen practitioner goes to an empty place,

like the foot of a tree.

Sitting down and directing the body up,

he aspires to the just sitting which is empty

of trying to be right,

of piecemeal self-adjustment,

of the body's habitual doing.

The cycle of saṁsāra is empty of substance:

it is like a circle of light

made by a sparkler on bonfire night.

Still, it is said that in the ending of ignorance,

the physical, verbal and mental doings

which are the root of saṁsāra, are no more.

Thanks to this knowing of emptiness,

Nāgārjuna wrote,

ignorance ends,

and so the cycle ends.