Where can happiness be found? Is it inside or outside of us? These are questions spiritual teachers have been asking since the beginning of time. They are human questions, resonating with our deepest longing. They can be difficult questions to ask; the inquiry itself puts us in touch with our wanting, and also our emptiness.
The Sanskrit word for emptiness is sunyata and it does not mean exactly the same thing. In English the word has a slightly negative connotation but in Sanskrit the word is more of an invitation to be with what is. In the West we systematically run from our emptiness, we are scared of the void.
But what if the void contained possibility and opening. What if in that opening we could feel into something much greater and larger than ourselves. And if everything we needed and were striving for was housed there. Can we imagine how we would want to show up for that version of happiness?