How Can One Attain Emptiness?

You have been engaged in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the four establishments of mindfulness, the contemplation of the body as an establishment of mindfulness, and observing the breath for several months now. What insights and experiences have you gained regarding the phenomena of breathing? From partial breathing to the breathing of the whole body, from the subtle aspects of the breath to observing it as a whole—what discoveries have you made? Have you clearly perceived the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the breath, its impermanence? Regarding the entire condition of the body, do you have a sense of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing? Have you had any experience or feeling of a sense of emptiness?

In the process of observation, do not bring in the mind consciousness's thinking and analysis; instead, perceive objectively and experience it firsthand. Forget all the theoretical knowledge you have learned; it must be purely personal perception. In contemplative practice, take a high vantage point, grasp things as a whole, and then condense the whole into a single point to contemplate. Do not merge with the feelings; pay attention only to the feeling itself. You must separate body and mind—let the mind leap out of the body, leap out of the feelings, leap out of the breath. It is best if the mind and body can be completely separated. Looking down from above, overlooking, surveying like a bird in flight, you can view the body as an object unrelated to yourself. In this way you can objectively regard the body, regard the breath, and regard all phenomena arising in the body. It then becomes easy to discover the phenomena of arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing, and the mind can easily become empty.