The Sutra
"Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin - empty."
Paul Reps translation, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (1957)
Understanding
Your body is a room. The skin is its walls. Now suppose this room is empty - no furniture, no occupant, no contents. The organs, the bones, the thoughts, the emotions - all gone. Only the walls of skin remain, enclosing pure emptiness. This technique dissolves identification with the body's contents. You are not the thoughts inside, not the organs, not the emotions. You are the empty space the body contains. The room is empty. You are that emptiness.
Original Sanskrit
सर्वं सर्वात्मकं चैव ज्ञानमात्रमिदं जगत् ।
sarvam sarvaatmakam chaiva jnaanamaatramidam jagat |
Vijnanabhairava Verse 130 (Technique 107 of 112)
How to Practice
Sit or lie in a passive, relaxed posture. Let the body become completely still and passive.
Imagine your body as a room. The skin is the walls, floor, and ceiling of this room.
Now empty the room. Remove everything inside - the organs, the bones, the blood, the thoughts.
Feel the body as an empty shell. Walls of skin enclosing nothing but spacious emptiness.
Rest as this emptiness. You are not the walls, you are the space they contain.
The emptiness is not void but alive with awareness. An empty room is full of space. You are that fullness of empty space.
Duration
20-30 minutes
Best Time
Deep contemplation - midnight or pre-dawn
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