Abyss Advice

David Edwards has penned an excellent article on dealing with the extreme emptiness that we can experience with fear, depression, anger, anxiety, and such.

Its a good read and it is helpful. We need helpful these days. There is way too much negation and activity that is simply not helpful.

ZNET: Into The Abyss

“You are like beggars living in a shack, ignoring your poverty. Meanwhile, just under the dirt floor, there is a treasure of immeasurable value. You just need to scrape off the dust and you will find it.”


The claim of mystics ancient and modern is that there +is+ a treasure. But where is it? It is hidden precisely within the “dirt” of sadness, boredom, fear, emptiness, the feeling that our heart is an abyss.


First, our awareness of the sadness is deepened. By obvious implication, our awareness of the sadness of others is also deepened - and this is the basis of compassion, one of the key components of human happiness. We may often think about sadness and compassion, but feeling them directly, intensely, has a very different impact on our minds and hearts. As discussed, we normally rush from the experience of sadness into pleasurable distraction and a torrent of thoughts, and so we are seldom fully present with the sadness at all.


When we watch sadness, anger, boredom and fear rather than being carried away on the usual river of sad, angry, bored and fearful thoughts, we cut the energy supply driving these emotions. Watching the emotion breaks the vicious circle whereby thoughts ignite emotions, which fuel more thoughts, which generate more emotions.