When void notices itself, there is nothing there. What “I” really am, the unmanifest within and as which the manifest happens, is really – literally – nothing. An awake nothing. A nothing also absent of an I with an Other, so when it notices itself also as the manifest, that too is revealed as already and always absent of an I with an Other.
When this happens, there can be a sense of disappointment.
Is this all there is to it? Is this what has been made into such a big thing in the different mystical traditions? Is this what all these practices are for? All the fancy titles and robes? All the rituals? All the convoluted and obscure terminology?
But of course, the void is not disappointed. What we really are – this awake nothing full of and manifesting as whatever is happening – is not disappointed. It allows disappointment, as it naturally and inevitably allows anything manifesting, because it is itself. Disappointment only happens within the manifest, and it – as anything else in the manifest – has infinite causes. Or in more typical terms, it is conditioned… by an infinity of things, including culture and personality.
When the void awakened to itself and expressed itself through Gautama Buddha, he initially didn’t want to teach according to the story. One explanation is that he thought it would be too difficult for people to grasp. But another one, equally likely, is that there was a disappointment there, maybe even an embarrassment.
It was just too simple, too obvious, what was already and always there, and really nothing at all (he may have thought). How can I talk about what is inherently absent of anything, yet allows it all? Yet at the same time, this void does not so easily notice itself, or at least realize that it notices itself, which makes it worth the effort. May as well teach as anything else.