Sunyata (2009) from Life Lines by Laughing Jaguar

This was the first poem that came through me (outside of school assignments). At the time, I was processing my first heartbreak and so — quite naturally!—questioning the entire nature of existence.

For years, I thought the poem was about life, death, and suicide: the choice to stay life and our fear of the "nothingness" of death.

Years later, now joyfully enmeshed on a spiritual path with Buddhist lineage, I see these words as the first attempt to grapple with emptiness: Sunyata. The spaciousness that permeates all thoughts, feelings, words, objects, sensations, and relationships.

Sunyata is void of ego, of "me-ness"; and so we Westerners are raised to fear it! In fact, it is precisely by surrending into Sunyata (for a moment or a lifetime!) that all deep bliss is experienced.

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