P.A.Chacko
Disciple: I have come to you with nothing in my hands.
Master: Drop it at once.
Disciple: But how can I drop it? It is nothing.
Master: Then carry it around with you.
Your nothing can be your valued possession. You may not want to part with it. Your clinging on to it can cause you misery.
Is there emptiness within you? Your nothing! You keep on nursing it as a precious stone or a golden bowl which never fills to the brim. You seem to polish the stone or try to fill the bowl with things which increase your thirst for more and more.
Robin McLaurin Williams (1951-2014), a great-great grandson of a Mississippi Governor, was an American actor and comedian par excellence. Here was an accomplished comedian who would send his listeners into rapturous guffaws by highlighting people’s idiosyncrasies and by his satirical observations. He climbed the ladder of success with ease. He is credited with leading San Francisco’s comedy renaissance. He won accolades in character comedy, stand-up comedy and improvised comedy. Nominated for Academy Award for best actor three times, Williams won the Academy award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as therapist Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. He was the recipient of two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actor Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards. But, as an anti-climax, on last August 11,2014, Williams was reported to have committed suicide by strapping himself with a belt around his neck.
What had gone wrong? A colleague of his remarked: ‘There was some emptiness in him which he couldn’t fill.’ His poking fun at people, his satire against social ills and his comical mannerisms could have been a cover-up operation to fill that emptiness within him. Accolades and awards failed to fill that vacuum. Finally, he took solace in drugs. Due to drug addiction he had to be treated for psychiatric problems like substance abuse. In Good Will he himself had acted as a therapist for which he had won the Best Supporting Actor Award. On his own confession, as a child he tried to make his mother laugh to gain attention.
Diffidence, just as over confidence, can be a sign of emptiness within. ‘I can’t do it. I am not capable’, ‘Why should I do, let others do’, lack of courage to stand for a good cause, lack of nerve to say ‘yes’ when one has to say ‘yes’, or to say ‘no’ when one has to say ‘no’, seemingly comic clichés to gain people’s attention – all these, among others, can be symptoms of some sort of emptiness in oneself. Hiding under false pretences or picking holes in others, making unwarranted observations, indulging in negative criticisms or refraining from offering positive suggestions or ideas, laziness, going after glamour and fame, accumulating without having real need, even whiling away one’s time, all such ways one may try, without success, to fill the emptiness within.
In the course of his discourses during the Vipasana retreat, the Buddhist Master explains how desire can be the root of evil. Desire can cause emptiness within oneself. Desire for more, desire for glamour and glory, desire for power and pelf, desire to compete and defeat etc. can fill your living space, dragging you more and more into the dungeon of emptiness within. The Master does not stop there with a negative note. He proposes to the retreatant positive desire exercises to fill oneself with goodness and good feelings which a psychiatrist may not succeed in injecting into you. Looking about one sees the world around: people walking, some working, some travelling etc. Observe them, without judging them, their movements, and their ways of going about. Imagine some goodness in them like patience, will to live, hard work or care for the family or whatever. And wish yourself filling with such positives you imagine in people. Look at nature, see the beauty around, God’s handiwork and fill yourself with it. A child’s innocence, a stranger’s friendliness, the quiet presence of a friend! Try to absorb all such goodness into yourself and see how your attitude to yourself and your surroundings transform, how your blood pressure falls, and how your migraine subsides. Finally, the Vipasana Master climaxes the ten day prayer meditation exercises by suggesting to you not to stop with yourself in filling your space and emptiness with good wishes and feelings. He suggests that you extend your desire for goodness into others, your acquaintances and friends, your dear ones, those near and far, to all those who wish and expect or deserve your good wishes and prayers. That is where you enter positively others’ lives by wishing to fill their inner space with energy and vibrations, with healing touch or with blessings. You teleport yourself into their space like a good messenger where angels may fear to tread! Such a prayer therapy is not just Buddhist but Christian too. Jesus wished the leper to be healed. The wish turned into wanting. He sent his vibrations of that wish into the sick man. He extended his own goodness and integrity into the needy person desiring to be healed. It worked. The healing took place.
How does healing take place in prayer assemblies? The good wishes and prayers of the assembled vibrate with energy and touch and soothe you. You begin to believe that you are getting healed. ‘Your faith has healed you. Go in peace,’ said Jesus.
Filling one with good feelings or positive thoughts has a soothing and healing effect. One can transmit to others a soothing touch, a healing vibration by positive wishes. It works. You heal and you get healed. Your emptiness gets filled.