I drank sake, but it was not enough to make me drunk. Now that I am old and near the end, the emptiness of life is my only joy.
– Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481)
I assume this is not the emptiness of existentialism, it’s the emptiness inherent in all experience.
To myself, I am consciousness and the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as consciousness.
The world, to me, is inherently empty of substance. It’s dreamlike. It’s ephemeral.
It’s also empty of anything in particular that I fundamentally am.
Of course, in a conventional sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s how most others see me, what my passport says, and so on. But it’s not what I fundamentally am.
I am not fundamentally more or less anything in particular within the field of experience. The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it.
Recognizing that emptiness can give some joy to this human self. It does for me, and it seems it did for Ikkyu.
More essentially, it seems that my nature noticing itself comes with an inherent quiet joy independent of states and changing experiences.