We often stare into space, we’re always looking through it, but how often do you look at it?
I’ve spent my whole life looking at stuff, hardly ever looking at the space the stuff is in. You can try it now. Look at something, like a tree. Then notice how much space is between you-the-observer, and that tree. Then notice how it’s surrounded by space, there’s so much of it! The space is everywhere!
Then, for me, another cool thing happens. Maybe it will for you too. The distinction between tree-ness and the space gets a little blurry—while still maintaining their difference!—like the old optical illusion of the faces and the vase, but 3D. And then instead of observing it, I put my “I” into it and become this happening, and everything flattens from all directions.
I guess this is the visual equivalent of seeing the emptiness between thoughts, the silence that holds sounds, the awareness that everything arises in, but if you don’t worry about all the spiritual jargon, you might have a neat shift in your state that you can find your own language and uses for.
I enjoyed reading this perspective.