Nothing

There are a number of terms to describe a particular way of being such as: Samadhi, being in the Vortex, being in the Zone. No term can replace the experience. It’s like reading the menu. You don’t have the experience until you eat or drink the food or drink. However, speaking or reading about this state of being can be a guide post to create the desire to get there and getting there.
Here is an excerpted article by Bob Klein from a system known as Zookenisis.

The Value of Nothing

NOTHING
“Nothing” simply means the natural functioning of the body and mind and the natural unfolding of one’s life and growth. When our body is working perfectly, we don’t usually notice it. It is usually only when something goes wrong that we pay attention to our bodies. When we are totally immersed in what we are doing, time flies by and we barely notice our effort. Joy then takes the place of struggle and our work is effortless.

“Nothing” is what makes the feats of an accomplished athlete seem so easy. Effortlessness is as much a result of a “mechanically efficient attention” as it is of an efficient body. If your attention is bound up or trapped in any way, the body cannot work well either. Most of us have experienced that we can do something better when no one is watching us. When we are being watched, our attention is caught up in the idea of looking good.

MIND AND BODY HARMONY
The body contains trillions of cells, each working harmoniously with the other. Yet each cell must deal with varying local conditions— concentrations of chemicals, the condition of its immediate neighbors, its own health, its proximity to the nearest blood vessel, etc. There is a natural cycle coinciding with the breath, which allows each cell to harmonize with the whole body and yet deal with its own local conditions.

One danger is the tendency on the part of a student is to brush aside the importance of this cycle in his/her rush to “progress.” The result may be permanent damage to the body. Students may try to energize an area of the body, adding more and more chi, without giving the cells time to integrate this increased energy into the system. This attitude of “more is better” can “blow the cells away,” and tear apart the meridian system. The entire body is in a delicate balance. Increased energy in one area must be counterbalanced in other areas, and this takes time.

The mechanism which coordinates this cellular cycle is what we call “attention.” In “primitive” societies, the patterns of attention were equally influenced by the biology of the body and by the natural ecology of the surroundings. Since his own cells (his own biology) had arisen from and were part of the natural environment, these two influences on the patterns of attention meshed perfectly. In more “civilized” cultures, the influence of nature is replaced by the influence of our concepts and ideas - the thinking mind. Since ideas can be freed from any ecological considerations, the influence of the mind and body on attention does not necessarily mesh well. In fact, it usually causes great conflict. This conflict is the enemy of “nothing.”Thus “nothing” is not a state of oblivion or a lack of action. It is a very active state. The state of conflict in which attention is trapped by patterns of thinking and attitudes inhibits that action.

LEARNING NOTHING
When students are told that they will feel nothing when they move correctly, they feel cheated.
Sometimes something inside the students will click and they will begin moving “from the gut.” Their usual awareness — the force that usually directs their actions — has stepped aside.
Their actions seem to be automatic, coming from “nowhere.” After they stop, a dumb-founded look comes upon their faces and they ask, “How did I do that?” Even in a form, when students’ postures are corrected and they feel an “emptiness” (lack of strain to hold themselves up), they don’t necessarily welcome that feeling. The lack of strain can be disturbing. Yet it is the basis of true balance, or “Nothing.”

THE RICHNESS OF NOTHING
It is what is left after all the nonsense is gone. It is filled with wisdom, inner knowledge and great skill. It is the intelligence of each cell of the body, with all its genetic memories, uniting without conflict and without hesitation. Once you tap that infinite reservoir of knowledge, your own body becomes your teacher. You realize that your instructor was not really your master, but only a guide to bring you to the real master. “Nothing” has become the basis for your training and for your whole life. “Nothing” is a treasure trove of riches. When attention can quiet down and sink into the biological organism (your body), you can feel the health and the intelligence of each body part and how it all works together.

THE EFFECT OF NOTHING
And by doing this, you can also feel the environmental influences that balance the activities of your individual biology. When attention is patterned after this balance, many changes take place in your perception of who and what you are. The result is basic changes in your understanding of what you are doing here on this earth. You have regained the evolutional wisdom embedded in each cell of the body. When the student returns to his form of activity, it is this effortless balance of the natural forces on attention that guides his actions. The thinking mind no longer controls his movements or intentions. The student feels uncomfortable in this situation. He must trust that this new origin of activity knows what it is doing and is reliable. This is, of course, a very presumptuous attitude, but it is hard not to feel that way. It is presumptuous because something inside you doubts that the power of nature herself, which is inside you, can’t be trusted and that your little thinking mind knows more. When you are acting spontaneously, you don’t know what will happen next. Or rather, the mind doesn’t know what will happen next because it is not calling the shots.

YOU ARE NOTHING
The more the student allows “nothing” to call the shots, the more he appreciates its wisdom. He can sense how it works and begins to understand its “reasoning.” Of course this reasoning is not thinking, but a more basic, underlying type of intelligence. The next transition of the student is to accept this realm, this experience of intelligence, as his true nature and to realize that thinking is just an activity— not one’s true identity. The student has used the currency of conflict to buy the treasure of his own self, hidden underneath the conflict. He is now the wealth of nothing. The teaching of “nothing” is a subject of the greatest complexity and importance.