A talk on emptiness begins with Nyogen Roshi’s recounting the experience of “writing on water” with a stick when he was a boy growing up in Colorado. Far from indifference to the world around us, Roshi says, realizing the emptiness of all things through Zen practice entails profound spiritual awakening. “When you truly grasp this,” he says, “you will transcend birth and death. Transcend fear, greed and anger. And you become capable of selfless compassion.”
