The hungry heart keeps crying out for more and more. Our lives are ruled by hunger of every imaginable kind. We hunger for food, love, recognition, possessions. Anything to fill up the emptiness that gnaws away at us constantly.

Only moments after one meal is complete, we are already looking for the next. In Zen we call this being a hungry ghost. A hundred ghosts may go to a feast, sit at the table and eat all it wants and yet it is never, never can taste the offerings or feel full.

What is the origin of this sorrow? What is the emptiness that seems to never be able to be completely filled? For a short time maybe, but then it returns full force once again.
Our whole lives are dedicated to either running from or filling this emptiness. We do not want to feel the pain of it. Some say the emptiness is caused by being separated from ourselves, one another, or from the divine. However we name it, or think about it though, the emptiness and craving remain. However we try to fill it up, it returns once again.

A different and beautiful way is to stop trying to fill the emptiness up.

 Just be with the loneliness, emptiness, hunger, craving – however it presents itself.  Feel it completely, let it in. Do nothing at all to lessen its grip. The more you do, the more it becomes empowered to hold you in its grip.

 Instead be the very emptiness itself. Live inside it day by day. Stop piling activity upon activity to quench it. These only drain life and energy from you. 

 As you dare to try this different way, as you make friends with the emptiness a fantastic thing happens. The emptiness turns to fullness and you do not need the ten thousand things to fill it up. Just this suffices. Each moment itself is beautiful and complete.

EXERCISE  
What do you hunger for? What have you been hungering for for a while? How do you try to fulfill this yearning? Does it work? Stop now for a little while and give up all the ways you’ve tried before.
Let the yearning just be there when it is. Feel it, accept it, experience it completely. Then go on your way.

When it returns do this again. Stop yourself from rushing to your old means of fulfillment. It hasn’t worked anyway up to now.

As you do this, you will also see that all the power you felt the emptiness had, you’ve been giving it yourself. As the hunger rules your life less and less, you will become available to the beauty of all that is constantly being given, right here, right now.

Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D. is a psychologist, speaker, workshop leader and longtime Zen practitioner. She offers talks and workshops which introduce A Different Way to satisfy our hearts and make our lives full. In this Different Way we learn how to release anxiety and sadness, transform problems into adventures and become able to live fully, appreciating all aspects of our lives. Her current workshop series, Steppingstones to Happiness presents the practice of Releasing, based both on the Sedona Method and the practice and principles of Zen. A long time practitioner of releasing, Brenda was an original student of Lester Levenson. Contact her at topspeaker@yahoo.com, www.brendashoshanna.com