The first Tarot card I ever touched… The first card of Divination I chose… (This is maybe 20 years ago, back in like 2004 maybe!!) 

…was No-Thingness. 

The card was completely black and I remember being confused, weirded out, maybe even disappointed. (Remember, I was raised Midwestern Catholic. 🙂) Until I read the description. It talked about how Buddhism has a more elegant word other than Nothingness for this concept – Sunyata. So the writer adjusted it to No-Thingness because Sunyata is not Nothing. It is translated as “emptiness” but even in Buddhist resources such as Lion’s Roar (an independent, nonprofit foundation/magazine whose mission is to share Buddhist wisdom in an accessible way) it is explained that “all things lack- or are empty of- inherent or independent existence. Neither we, other beings, nor any phenomenon in the universe has a permanent, separate, and independent core, soul, or identity. Nothing exists in isolation or on its own—everything is interdependent and exists only in relation to other causes and conditions. This includes physical objects, mental states, and the very concept of self.” The Tarot deck description expands on this stating that “it is all.” “It is potential, absolute potential.”

And now, NOW, you’ve got my attention. My heart went pitter pat. I was sold. On Tarot. On Buddhism. And on Sunyata. 

 

All those years ago this is what I thought…

“‘What is’” is the basic idea that we are a part of a collective. The Universe breathing as we breathe, expanding and contracting and moments in between the inhale and the exhale. That gap in between a no-thingness, a pause, a stillness. All dynamic vibration in that moment just before a change in direction – to be called vast potential. The emptiness not empty. We are here purifying, for lack of a better word, our actions, thoughts and being. There is an intelligence, an order at play and what we can do is let go into the flow of ‘what is’ so that we may all function efficiently in this system of Love.” 

 

Forgive my naivety but I still sorta think this is ‘the bag of chips’ that goes with ‘All this’… I still don’t totally “get it” and I 100% “get it” in the pursuit of the fulfillment of just “being”. Except now, I also have a fuller appreciation of the Becoming aspect too. The emptiness is not static. It is not this one thing that is nothing or No-thing. It is the expansive mystery of the potential of life, constantly changing, constantly churning, cycling, constantly Becoming…