Getting Depressed by Emptiness
A student doing shi-nä retreat asked Rinpoche why he sometimes felt depressed after meditating on emptiness. The dialogue of question and answer between Rinpoche and the student was as follows:
Student: Sometimes in retreat, when you really meditate that everything is appearance, an illusion, and empty, it feels like the mind can become very depressed.
Rinpoche: Depressed?
Student: Yes, very cold…
Rinpoche: It should be other way around. Do you feel depressed because you are unable to stay with your meditation in daily life?
Student: No, the mind feels numb, unfeeling. Because everything is a label, then it feels like anything that happens is not really there.
Rinpoche: In what context? I don’t think it’s a problem.
Student: For example, if I go outside and see something beautiful, then I think, “It’s just a label, it’s not beautiful,” so I feel like I can’t enjoy it. Or if I feel happy, I realize the happiness is just a label, so I don’t feel anything any more, I go back into nothingness. The same when I feel sad. I say, “That’s just a label,” so I don’t feel sad any more. So, the result of doing that meditation over and over is that you end up feeling nothing. It feels very bleak and the mind gets a little strange.
Rinpoche: If the way of meditating is correct, the effect should be to feel more free. It should be like that, not feeling more upset. The other way is not free. If you see something beautiful and the grasping mind arises, this is not free. This is a prison. If the way of meditating is correct, the effect is to feel more free.
Student: But even the feeling of being free is labeled.
Rinpoche: Yes, labeled, but there is the base. You are not just labeling; there is a base. There is a feeling, and you label that feeling “free.”
Student: But when that feeling of being free comes, my mind immediately says, “Even that is a label,” and I can’t become attached to that feeling of being free. I would be meditating on the emptiness of that feeling, so I wouldn’t allow myself to feel it because that is also a label.
Rinpoche: Yes, a label, everything is merely imputed. That is why it is important first to meditate on karma, the suffering of samsara, and the shortcomings of delusions. Then, when this realization, discovery, and renunciation are very strong, then you meditate on emptiness. Then, the method to use, like an atomic bomb, is emptiness—to destroy delusions and be free from samsara, to destroy samsara.
But you need to meditate on karma, the shortcomings of delusions, how the delusions cheat us and cause the extensive sufferings of samsara, the shortcomings of samsara, which are the shortcomings of delusions, delusions as the enemy, how these objects are the nature of suffering, especially how samsaric pleasures are all in the nature of suffering. The problem is you haven’t meditated enough on renunciation, how samsara is in the nature of suffering, how samsaric pleasure is in the nature of suffering. Seeing how everything is the fault of delusions and seeing delusion as the enemy—when you have that and you know emptiness is like an atomic bomb that destroys the delusions, then you are only happy. However much one is able to meditate on emptiness is only happiness. It’s a jewel, it’s incredible. Without that you can’t be liberated forever from the hell realms, hungry ghost realm, animal realm, sura realm, asura realm, and human realm —you can’t be liberated from those sufferings forever.
Every single problem human beings have is due to the shortcomings of delusions, the shortcomings of the root of these delusions: ignorance. Whatever the delusion—attachment, anger—it goes back to the shortcoming of ignorance, the root of samsara. Everything comes from that. All the other delusions that make life so difficult for oneself and others come from the root, ignorance. The shortcomings of ignorance, holding the “I” as truly existent, are the root of samsara.
You haven’t meditated enough on looking at how samsara is suffering, on the nature of samsaric pleasure, on renunciation, because of that you don’t see samsaric pleasures as suffering and then there is clinging to samsaric pleasures. Because of that, when you meditate on emptiness, it becomes depressing, like a problem. So, please meditate more on karma, on how samsaric pleasure is suffering, on the delusions as the enemy, especially ignorance, then there will only be great joy in meditating on emptiness.