In the course of getting involved in the Emptiness working, I've had an intriguing encounter with another pop culture entity, namely the Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, aka Darth Sidious. It probably didn't help that until a couple weeks ago I was playing The Force Unleashed, wherein the character appears, but even so the appearance of this entity in the Emptiness working is appropriate since a lot of the emotions I'm dealing with would fall under the "Dark Side" of the spectrum. I am of course aware of just how treacherous and power hungry this particular entity is. Yet in dealing with the emotions I've encountered, he's been a quiet presence occasionally offering advice...though I have yet to shoot lightning from my hands. His advice has mainly consisted of allowing myself to feel the emotion and give it expression in the act of feeling it. For me the giving of expression to those emotions has involved some opening up, but also the dissolution of the meotion by feeling it, and the adding of that energy to the feeling of emptiness, which provides a sensation of a neutral mindset, with an enhanced awareness of my immediate environment as well as the patterns of behavior and action that people are involved in. Obviously this a bit different than how the Emperor is portrayed in Star Wars, and yet it seems appropriate. The emperor is a manipulator...to be an effective manipulator he needs to be able to observe others dispassionately...he needs to be able to be empty at times. While I don't intend to become a manipulator, I do know that learning to be comfortable with emptiness is learning to be comfortable with achieving a state of mind that flows with emotion, but doesn't let the emotion take control.
This has also lead into a new direction with my energy work: Learning how to dissolve my emotional energy without automatically cycling it via a Taoist technique. Instead, I'm dissolving the energ and settling it into the feeling of emptiness itself, which ends up actually infusing the energy into me. When working with energy like this, I feel the energy settle into a vast river or stream that is within the emptiness.
I am continuing to work with the Taoist styles of energetic work, but I also think there is some value toward what I'm exploring through the emptiness working. I'm also starting to realize just how much I need to make certain changes in some plans I have for the future...I have so much to share.