Silence, as normally conceived, is the absence of sound, but we hear it. By that I don’t mean that we impute it into our stream of perceptions (with gears whirling and in the voice of a Dalek: “No registered sounds. Emptiness! Emptiness! Emptiness!!”), I mean we viscerally experience it. It’s not some formula on a whiteboard, some conceptualization of what is missing, and it is not an ‘emptiness’ of sound.

“Emptiness” is the English word chosen — by Western translators—for the word that was originally used in India: “Sunyata.” But the Sanskrit root of this word, “su”, conveys the idea of being swollen with possibility.

Translation is treason, though, because it usually involves minds that have never actually — thus, viscerally — experienced what the old sages were talking about, and so they can only imagine what the sages were talking about.

If we go with the modern translation, and the brain farts of physicists, then we are to believe in ‘Virgin Births’. Something from Nothing! Big Bangs!! Yeah, man — cool!

But if we understand this reality as a plenum of possibility in every moment — the possibility of everything that may come into being now, moment-to-moment, with some possibilities more likely than others, taking into account the habits of naturing, and certain other contextual limitations, and of course, the required coherent continuity from moment-to-moment, then we can, perhaps, if someone smacks us in the head with a rolled-up newspaper, suddenly recognize the Divine in every instant of our life.

Because 'it' is not nothing.

Or, we can keep marveling at the 'void'. (smiling face)