If you fill things up it is because they are empty

What do I mean by this? Ah, the usual moderately interesting psychological experience...

For example, recently 'Zen' has taken up residence in my brain again. As well as the practice of just sitting and letting body and mind drop away, I'm feeling an attraction to the wabi and the sabi and all that lovely Japanese culture dripping with the blood of Zen - the calligraphy and haiku and honkyoku, all the signs and symbols of Zen. My big black zafu squats on my floor, Dogen's essays and Basho's Narrow Road sit on the sofa. These things, for me, have a kind of fullness. Their appearance satisfies me. They promise something. They will be my travelmates on a journey to a richer life.

But then occasionally, as for example yesterday, a nausea overcomes me. The objects are suddenly exsanguinated of their meaning, and just as the sight of a corpse might suddenly shatter the youth's feeling of immortality, I am returned to the meaninglessness and futility of all things and the indifference of the world outside to my internal world. Actually it's similar to the experience I used to have sometimes in the days of girlfriends, of suddenly seeing - not as a result of jealousy or argument, but just a spontaneous flipping of perception - my beloved with utter detachment and indifference, just a person, barely a perrson. A skinsack.

It always fades, and I am soon back in the world of illusory fullness. In our impermanent non-selves, any object of attachment is an incompatible organ transplant which must inevitably face rejection. But the world is a donor of infinite generosity.