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The question is from Amida. You must be feeling empty. And you are not yet courageous enough to accept that emptiness. Hence one goes on stuffing in many ways. People stuff with food, people stuff with knowledge, and people stuff with many things: money, power....

Deep inside, everybody is empty. And that emptiness is divine, that emptiness is God. Buddha calls it sunyata — nothingness. And sooner or later one has to come to terms with that inner emptiness.

There are only two types of people, the worldly and the other-worldly. The worldly is one who goes on stuffing the emptiness. And the other-worldly is one who comes to see the point that there is no way to stuff it. It remains empty. So why not face it? Why not be it? Why not accept it? In that very acceptance, the revolution. The radical transformation. The metamorphosis. And that is the whole art of meditation.

But people are afraid — the emptiness looks like death. So what I should suggest to Amida, I will suggest: Stuff a little more. Hoard a little more. Go on stuffing. So that you can see the foolishness of it. It seems you have not yet been able to see that the emptiness is eternal and cannot be stuffed by anything. Go on in this nightmare a little more, make it more nightmarish. People change only from the extreme.

It seems Amida has been doing the thing moderately. Only lukewarm. The jump comes only from the hundred-degree point. Go on stuffing as much as you can. Put your whole energy into stuffing. In that very stuffing, a moment comes when you see clearly that the emptiness is eternal, that the emptiness is your very nature, that there is no way to stuff it. You can forget it for a moment by stuffing, but it remains there and asserts itself again and again.

Seeing that, stuffing stops — not that you stop it. Seeing that, stuffing stops. And suddenly the benediction of emptiness spreads all over you. To be empty is to be divine. To be empty is to have come home. But do a little more.

I have heard a beautiful story...
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Een man kwam bij zijn rabbijn om hem om raad te vragen.

‘O, rabbijn, mijn leven is zo ellendig. Ik heb een klein huis, met maar één kamer, en het is veel te vol. Mijn vrouw en ik, onze twaalf kinderen, haar oude ouders en de mijne, mijn dove oom en mijn kreupele zus. Ik kan me geen groter huis veroorloven. Wat moet ik doen?’

De rabbijn dacht even na en vroeg toen: ‘Heb je ook dieren?’

‘Jazeker,’ zei de man. ‘We hebben vijf geiten, drie koeien, tien kippen, twee katten, twee paarden en een hond.’

De rabbijn zei: ‘Neem ze allemaal mee naar huis en laat ze daar een week wonen.’

De man begreep er niets van, maar omdat hij groot respect had voor zijn rabbijn, ging hij naar huis en deed wat hem was opgedragen.

Zijn leven werd een nachtmerrie. Het was zo vol dat hij alleen nog staand kon slapen. Ademhalen was vrijwel onmogelijk en de stank was niet te harden.

Na een week rende hij, bijna waanzinnig geworden, naar de rabbijn.

‘Ik zie dat je hebt gedaan wat ik je heb opgedragen,’ zei de rabbijn. ‘Heel goed. Ga nu naar huis en haal alle dieren eruit. Je zult verbaasd zijn hoeveel ruimte je dan ineens hebt!’
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A man came to see his Rabbi, to ask his advice.

He said 'Oh Rabbi, my life is so miserable. I have a small house, just one room, and it is much too crowded. There are my wife and myself, our twelve children, her old parents and mine, my deaf uncle and my crippled sister. I cannot pay for a bigger house — what to do?'

The Rabbi thought for a while and said 'Do you have any animals?'

'Yes' said the man. 'There are five goats, three cows, ten chickens, two cats, two horses and a dog.'

Said the Rabbi: 'Bring them all into your house and let them live there for a week.'

The man was very puzzled, but since he respected his Rabbi very much he went and did as he was told. Life became nightmare. He had to sleep while standing, it was so crowded. And it was so impossible to breathe, it was stinking.

He ran to the Rabbi after a week, completely crazy, and the Rabbi said 'I see that you have done what I told you. Very good. Now go home and take all the animals out. You will be surprised to see how much space is there now!'

Amida, do that. Enough for today.