The Dark Fertile Unknown
When I was first introduced to the Buddhist concept of "emptiness" I thought it was a bad translation. The good Westerner that I was, I freaked out... "Don't I want to be full? Why would I want to be empty? That sounds sad, lonely, and impoverished!" As I continue my meditation practice I am coming to understand it from many different angles. From a psychological perspective it can mean free of baggage, free of heaviness: the ability to meet each situation with a fresh and innocent perspective and without the memory of past failure dictating behavior. Deepak Chopra calls it the field of infinite possibilities.
When we think we know something we might be limiting our potential. Humans believe what they see and they see what they believe. So by acting from a place of knowing, a knowing that has come about through past experiences, we project a tainted reality onto the path before us.
What would it be like to truly meet each situation with a fresh perspective?
For example, when your partner does something to piss you off, what if you simply respond to the instance that is at hand and not respond with the force of 20 years worth of mistakes that this partner has made. After a meditation retreat once, I came home and my partner pissed me off and I had the following realization:
"I DON'T NEED TO SEE YOU AS A FIXED CHARACTERIZATION OF AN EXAGGERATION OF WHATEVER PROBLEM IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, I CAN JUST ADDRESS HOW I AM FEELING RIGHT NOW AND DEAL WITH THAT: THE PROBLEM THAT IS AT HAND AT THIS MOMENT, AND GO FROM THERE. YOU ARE A WAVE AND A PARTICLE. I DO NOT NEED TO ACT WITH ALL OF THE FORCE OF PAST TRAUMA AROUND THIS ISSUE. I CAN SIMPLY ACT BASED ON WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW."
It is important for therapists to stay in or close to this place of unknown, what the influential British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion called "O". Professor Rachel Vaughn (smallgreensprouts.com) of CIIS calls it the state of not knowing, curiousness, and radical openness. As a therapist I must hold my clients lightly, they are ever changing. As a lover, I must hold my partner lightly, they are ever evolving. When Heraclitus said that you can't step into the same river twice he meant that the form of the river may appear to be the same, but the particles that make up the water flowing through the river will never be exactly the same at any given moment. The same is true of humans.
One week, I went to my therapist heavy with something that I perceived as a problem. I spoke to her about it, and after I left her office I spent the week in prayer and meditation. When I returned to her office in a week my attitude toward the situation had totally shifted and she wanted to pick back up right where we left off and it was not possible to do this. In this case, I felt that the therapist was holding me in a fixed space when I had already moved beyond. When we do this to our loved ones it can be limiting or damaging to the relationship. We have a problem with them, we address the problem, maybe there is a tiny shift in them, or eventually a big shift, but our frustration and fear cause us to hold them in that fixed mold, which may make it harder for them to change if they want to.
The state of emptiness is radical openness, with no agenda: curious and receptive. The dark fertile unknown precedes the state knowing. The state of knowing must be taken lightly because the person is always changing and evolving. Keeping one foot grounded in a perpetual state of openness or the unknown is essential for allowing, recognizing, and welcoming growth. According to analyst Barbara Sullivan, being in a state of openness requires having faith in an "ever-shifting, ultimate truth" and suspending both memory and desire.
Bibliography
Beisser, A. The Paradoxical Theory of Change. Article available online at http://www.gestalt.org/arnie.htm 1970
Stevens Sullivan, B. The Mystery of Analytical Work 2009
Quatman, T. Essential Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: An Acquired Art 2015