Perhaps I should explain what I mean by “the empty path.” The phrase seems to suggest that I am walking a lonely path with nothing on it. Far from it.
In my understanding, the empty path is the one with everything on it. Everything is present is all of its crystalline, infinite reality. Yet everything is present empty of labels, concepts, valuations, interpretations—all of those things by which we humans tend to confuse ourselves over what is real.
To walk the empty path is to experience and observe life from a neutral, pre-conceptual perspective. And—most crucially—it is a practice of noticing whenever and however I add those human distractions to my experience of what is real.
How do I cloud the picture with notions, bias, fears, and cravings? Those mental habits are always with us. We needn’t condemn them. Yet we might, step by step, learn how to recognize them and then set them aside for the sake of increasing clarity of experience.
The Buddhists speak of emptiness (shunyata) as describing the genuine nature of reality.
Yes, our mortal bodies go through all manner of outward and inward experiences, and there is a center of consciousness that observes, reacts to, and tries to understand and even to manage these experiences. But the experiences themselves are all impermanent, always changing in terms of causes and conditions.
In fact, in Buddhist thought that center of consciousness itself is empty. “Nothing exists in isolation or as a separate, permanent entity. Instead, everything is interdependent, contingent, and constantly changing” (Buddhist Psychology.com). This includes the self.
In other words, I have a “sense of self,” but everything about that “self” changes from moment to moment. My mood changes, my focus of attention changes. My memories change through time, reedited subconsciously by my brain. My notions of myself as a person vary through time. My desire for or fear of imagined future events is always in flux.
None of these changes are actually a problem—except for the normal human desire to have a permanent “self,” so permanent that it doesn’t die even when this body dies.
I am not a practicing Buddhist. However, Buddhist teachings inform my post-Christian Quaker faith and practice. Here is a non-trivial example from a few days ago.
After a New England Quakers Zoom meeting about defending immigrants against ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), I settled in to do some writing at a neighborhood coffeehouse.
By coincidence, the group at the next table were also discussing immigrant protection, in their case regarding City Council’s action or inaction. I introduced myself and commented on our common cause. Then I turned back to my work.
A man my age left their table to talk some more. He is a lifelong resident of our neighborhood, and also a lifelong activist. He initially spoke about current challenges, but gradually he drifted into lamentation about all his years of debating with city politicians who in his view weren’t serving the community well. He went on and on.
I mimed paying attention and nodding while becoming quietly more frustrated. And then…. Click. I noticed that I was paying more attention to my inner narrative of annoyance than I was to him. Waiting with forced patience for him to stop, so I could get back to work.
That’s when I stepped back on the empty path. In practical terms I couldn’t hear well all he said, I didn’t know any of the politicians or issues he was talking about, and I wasn’t really interested. But I remembered that here was another human being passionately sharing his sense of his own life. And I wasn’t paying attention.
In retrospect I can see that the man cared very much about his concerns and his role in fighting for them. Deeper, I can see that he also longed for affirmation—and that his fellows at the other table had heard all of this before and were tired of it.
What would it cost me to give him affirmation in the form of genuine attention? I could set my “self” aside and simply be with him as part of the complex whole that is our neighborhood, city, world. I wasn’t being called upon to do anything more than be with him attentively.
In an earlier post I wrote about learning to send out loving energy from my heart. The pivotal discovery for me in this learning process is this:
When I stand in my heart and extend my heart outward, I discover that I cannot choose who receives that energy and who does not. It’s not mine to set boundaries on. I am not the gatekeeper.
That is walking the empty path.
Note
John 3:1-12 (David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation):
1Now there was a man, one of the Pharisees, whose name was Nicodemus, a ruler of the Judaeans; 2this man came to him at night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you have come as a teacher from God; for no one can produce these signs you perform unless God is with him."
3In reply Jesus said to him, "Amen, amen, I tell you, unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus says to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He is not able to enter his mother’s womb a second time and then be born?"
5Jesus replied, "Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. 6That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. 7Do not be amazed because I have told you it is necessary for you to be born from above. 8The spirit respires where it will, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; such is everyone born of the spirit.”
9Nicodemus answered and said to him, "How can this happen?" 10Jesus replied and said to him, "You are the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things? 11Amen, amen, I tell you that we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, and you people do not accept our witness. 12If you do not believe what I have told you of things upon the earth, how will you believe if I tell you of things in heaven?”
Image Source
“Power in the sky,” by Mike Shell on Flickr (2/2/2025).