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The Emptiness of Egypt

egypt-camelThis is a spiritual fact, from a Zen point of view, not an opinion or a judgment. It is neither good nor bad and it is neither an excuse to do or not do anything in particular.

It’s easy to see there is tremendous suffering and pain there now. So what does it mean that it is empty and how can this realization help us to end the suffering there, if we intend that?

Since this is not a political or journalistic article the topic will be the emotional aspect of Egypt’s crisis and how to contribute to their healing.

The politics may be complicated but the emotions are simple. The people are angry, desperate, fearful, sad and disappointed.

The emptiness is the truth that we all share these emotions and therefore they belong to no one in particular and have no particular form. We can all experience the emptiness of these emotions if we see they are universal and always changing. How do we do this? We practice letting go of the stories about why we feel these feelings, we practice being still with these feelings at their root and letting them move energetically.

By allowing these feelings to move through us we can let them go. Once this happens we no longer have to tell any stories about what makes us feel anything. Nothing makes us feel anything, rather, we make up stories to explain how we already feel. If we feel insecure we will choose an unstable situation and put all our faith into it, which guarantees we will be let down and feel all the insecurity we have.

Reality is empty, and so we project our own form onto it. Egypt has consciously and unconsciously projected a collective spirit of instability and anger onto its reality, and now it feels all of this and the feelings it has built up over many generations. Now it has the political situation to justify these feelings.

The emptiness of Egypt means that it will continue to change. It can become stable and peaceful or it can become more unstable and violent. The emotions of it’s people will create the projection that will dictate this change. If possible, a healthy shift in the emotions will lead to a healthy change in the form and function of its politics and structure.

Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist RevolutionSo how can we participate in this shift towards ending suffering? The hard answer is that we must participate in our own painful emotions that connect us to Egypt. We can feel our own anger, rage, fear and sadness, and do it in this context of connecting with those who feel this way there. If we do this with the intention of sharing the burden of these feelings, we can help carry the load of painful emotional energy they are unfairly burdened with at this time. This act of sharing the emotional energy will energetically relieve their pressure and give them a bit more space to let their intuition or true self shine.

If everyone in the US did this today Egypt would be peaceful tomorrow. Since they are empty they do not need to fight and they do not need to be suppressed. They undoubtedly have a leader in their midst who could unify their hearts and give them security and peace if they could open up to this reality.

If we can see that we share the emptiness of Egypt and that our empty emotions connect us in a universal way that does not need a particular story to justify, we can also share their burden and end their suffering in the same moment we end ours, by being one with the anger, fear and sadness of all beings.

And hopefully, in return they will share our suffering when we feel overwhelmed, stuck and hopeless.

The post The Emptiness of Egypt appeared first on Zen Comprehensible.

About Herb Eko Deer

Herb Eko Deer
Herb Ein Eko Deer is a paradox, and he isn’t.

Born in Texas in 1968, his first kensho was as a born again Christian, which lasted until he got into drugs in high school. He experienced his next kensho after taking the formerly legal drug Ecstasy, and then several other drugs.

After becoming interested in Zen, inspired by Yoda, he moved to a traditional zen monastery in order to see if his kensho experiences were truly authentic from a certified zen masters point of view. They weren’t, so he decided to stay there and practice zen until he had reached an authentic state of enlightenment.

A former addict of alcohol, pot, cocaine, crystal, crack, sex, food and Facebook, in that order. He got sober in 2004 and now incorporates 12 steps into his teaching as koans. He calls this revolutionary process “12 Steps for Normal People”.

He completed his training at the Sweetwater Zen Center near San Diego with Seisen Saunders Roshi, where he currently teaches and works.

“My vision and hope is to continue to create a full time monastic training program that combines many styles of martial arts, qi-gong, energy healing,12 Steps for Normal People and tai-chi with the Zen. This vision is inspired by Yoda, obviously the most kick-ass character in the star wars series he is.”

Ein Eko believes that 99% of delusion is caused by emotional stuck places. Therefore, enlightenment is a primarily emotional experience that can be achieved through the practice of resolving emotional issues and patterns through koan study, 12 steps, communication practice, martial arts and 12,000 hours of zazen.

He thanks you for this opportunity to connect and invites you to visit his average blog site; zencomprehensible.com and order a t-shirt.

He says; “All my heroes are losers, losing their selves!”
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  1. For some reason the letter “i” drops out of the above link to zen comprehensible

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