Buddhists talk about empty mind. In the purest sense, that is what we are referring to when we use the term “mind.” It is a field of energy with nothing in it. There are no thoughts. There’s just an absolutely still, formless field of energy we call “mind.”

Hui-neng compares the Great Void to space, and calls it great, not just because it is empty, but because it contains the sun, moon, and stars. True dhyana is to realize that one’s own nature is like space, and that thoughts and sensations come and go in this “original mind” like birds through the sky, leaving no trace.

Open-mindedness doesn’t mean that you’re just opening to the good parts of life; it means you’re opening to everything. And this is when you start to discover a type of inner stillness, an inner stability, that vast unchanging expanse that is at the heart of everything.

This meditation didn’t seem to be a new direction but perhaps it was a condition for a new direction. She found a little more space between her thoughts, the trees began to step near again, and she calmed down for a while.