At the heart of the Buddha’s teaching is that all things in an ongoing way experience change and transformation. Like a river that flows incessantly, time and all circumstances flow on, and given its fluid nature, time does not stop or fix upon anything. Due to the way events stream, all in perpetual motion, there is no cessation. Unstoppable. All too often people perceive emptiness to be a lack, a void or naught. Emptiness as lack arises because people see things compared to completeness. One of the strengths of the Buddha’s teaching is that things do not complete. Like space there is no beginning or end. The desire for completeness and resolution is a phantom of the mind. In the same way, a river flows and in its flowing is neither partial of complete.
Don’t Hold Your Breath
You don’t have to do yoga to know that you should not “hold your breath”. Yet in order to make it through a topsy turvy time it is common for people to do just this. When we say “holding your breath” we do not simply mean not inhaling. Of course, people rarely “hold their breath” for without breath there is no life and by way of a long held breath, you might end up passed out on the carpet! It is more common for people to constrict their blood vessels, clench their nerves or tighten their sphincters in order to get by.
