Dharmette
Spaciousness (Part 2)

by Gil Fronsdal

As we transit from the previous segment on how ‘you cannot have a life without things too’, it is important for you to put all that things in (of) life into a wider context, and so how big it is depends on the space that holds you. Each one of you sitting here in this room is surrounded by space. Some of you are sitting on chairs while some of you are sitting on the floor. So where there is contact, I guess there is no space but the great majority of you is surrounded by space and though the space is only the size of this room, you know, there is still a lot of space here.

Then, when in a maze, if you look up, it is kind of a whole different feeling from the room. If you take in all the space and the height, you know, before long, you can kind of fire up the space. But as your space is your spaciousness, just as how it is limited by these walls of the room here and/or could it be your spaciousness is limited by the thoughts you are having. And when I say this, you may think that “What Gil is saying is crazy.” or “What is he (this) talking about?”.

So, this is about giving more space-spaciousness — silent stillness. And if you think these are kind of like “just ideas” you are then limited by your thinking.

Or you can ask, “What is the spaciousness?”, “What is stillness?” and “What is a silence?”. These are beyond the edges (boundaries) of your body, and so you might be agitated. But just like (feeling) a centimetre outside the edge of your skin, I think there is no wind here, so I can tell there's a lot of stillness here in this room.

Do you look it (spaciousness) up in the ceiling? I do not know. I kind of see stillness around up there. Look at all of you, if you know it does not seem so still. But this stillness is here and it is not so far away. Is there stillness and spaciousness beyond the edges of your thinking? You just go one centimetre outside the boundaries of your thoughts. There is stillness and there is silence there too. Or do your thoughts go, “Are they so big that they cover the Universe?”.

Like how they are like, they (thoughts) can just go on and on, and I mean that it is like you are having you know, maybe amazingly big thoughts. That just, you know, can over the world and cover the Universe. Is that because of how powerful and expansive your thoughts are? Or are your thoughts kind of like being bounded by your skin? Or are they bounded by your skull? Are they bounded by your neocortex? Are they bounded — bounded by just like a few little electrons travelling between neurons? Whether you know what are the boundaries?

Can you imagine or can you feel or sense the amazing amount of space beyond the boundaries, the edges of your thoughts? That (awareness) beyond the edges of your thoughts, their stillness beyond the edges of your thoughts is silence. If you are aware and/or know if your thoughts are noise. There is a lot of silence all around them. But if we are absorbed in our thoughts, and our thoughts are the ones navigating everything, then it is through our thoughts that actually most people find that their world and the Universe gets very small, very contracted and limited. 

But what happens to the thoughts, the emotions of yours or any experiences you have, if nothing changes — what happens then? There is no conflict to it. There is no for or against. But you become kind of aware of the thickness of the moment in the vast fields, of the emptiness, of absence. It is all around it and turns out that it is also within it, and you know (they tell us); but I have not really been able to check it out. But they tell us that our bodies are mostly made up of space. You know what atoms are, I do not know what percentage of space the atoms take up, but the great majority of atoms are space, right? They can take the whole known Universe and condense it into a square centimetre, if you really want to pack it in, for all you know, good for travelling on airlines. And so, you know it is mostly space and the same thing is true psychologically, mentally, perceptively because there is a tremendous amount of space all around and within. 

So, why would this be so valuable, why would Buddhism hold this up as being more valuable than all the things about your experiences, all the things which are about money, thoughts and ideas. And I think the reason, one of the answers to that, is that in order to tap into or to tune into absence, there has to be a lot of freedom. It is the absence of freedom that separates us from spaciousness, stillness, silence, openness and expansiveness. 

And this is not the freedom which is a thing, but the freedom in which it is the absence in which Life can unfold. Life is allowed to unfold, to flow, to move, to develop, to show itself, and to appear in some of the deepest, most profound ways that life can unfold. And that perhaps, cannot unfold so well, if we are relating it all with the world of "thingness". And one thing is you and that thing, which is you relating to the things that are all around you and within you. It is just things bumping into things. It is kind of boring after a while.

But the space, the openness, the freedom that allows it all, is a kind of flow that is much more enjoyable. So, you might want to consider a little bit what you think is valuable. And maybe it's counterintuitive to take it as being valuable, something which is not a thing. Something that you cannot show off to anyone or put it somewhere. Like you know, for example, to put on your mantle and say, “Look at this!”.

So, you should be so proud of your absence where there may be absence, stillness, silence, spaciousness, openness, non-conflict. Be Your North Star!