The Space Within

Several years ago, while sitting in a hospital room with my father, I noticed a light glowing at the bottom of his bed.  It was a small, red number.  298.  It was his weight.  I was sitting with him in that very same room when he passed away.  I watched him take his last breath and that little red number never changed.  It held steady at 298.

Now, while I am fairly certain that my father would not have been happy knowing that I shared his weight with everyone, I needed to share it to make my point.  That is, when my father passed away, his body didn’t change.  The part of him that was gone was unable to be weighed, seen or measured.  The part of my father that I knew him to be existed in the space inside of him.  Just as we all exist in the space inside of us.

‘It’s the empty space inside the vessel that makes the vase.’

This Zen quote means that we can make a vase out of clay but it is the space within it that makes it useful.  Without the hollow space inside, the vase would not have the potential to hold anything, it would just be a lump of clay.

I like this quote because it forces us to think differently.  It causes us to abandon easy conclusions and take a more philosophical thought path.  It tugs at the possibilities that exist within the space inside of us.  The space where our creativity, curiosity and consciousness lie. 

The space inside of us is where we find our true selves and our true paths.  It is where we find a worry-free existence.  It is where we find true happiness no matter our circumstances. 

Just like the capacity inside the vase, it is also where we will find our usefulness and our potential.