Distant mountains fading into morning mist

無 · Inner Voidness

Stillness, in words…

A quiet portal into Zen, Taoism, Buddhist emptiness, silence, contemplative cinema, ancient texts, and the slow return to inner observation.

Enter the Silence

一息 · One Breath · Today's Fragment

Time, in its own way, is being. Being, in its own way, is time.

After Dōgen · Uji

“The usefulness of a vessel lies in its emptiness.
Where there is nothing, there is everything.”

Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching XI

A slow descent · read one breath at a time

傳 · Traditions

A few quiet currents

Inner Voidness is a contemplative navigator. It points toward older voices, not toward itself.

道 · The Way

Words of the old masters

  • The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
    Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching · I
  • To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
    Dōgen · Genjōkōan
  • The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
    Sengcan · Hsin Hsin Ming
  • A special transmission outside the scriptures; direct pointing at the human heart.
    After Bodhidharma
  • The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror — grasping nothing, refusing nothing, receiving but not keeping.
    Chuang Tzu · Inner Chapters · 7
  • All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind.
    After Huang-Po
  • Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
    Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching
  • When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.
    Sengcan · Hsin Hsin Ming
  • A flower falls, even though we love it; a weed grows, even though we do not love it.
    Dōgen
  • Men do not mirror themselves in running water — they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
    Chuang Tzu
  • When the mind is like a wall, you may enter the Way.
    After Bodhidharma
  • Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.
    Lao Tzu
  • Each moment is all there is. Each moment is the universe.
    Dōgen
  • The mind, in itself, is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind.
    After Huang-Po
  • He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.
    Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching · 56
  • The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you have the fish, you can forget the trap. Words exist because of meaning; once you have the meaning, you can forget the words.
    Chuang Tzu · External Things
  • Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.
    Sengcan · Hsin Hsin Ming
  • When you reach the top of the mountain, keep climbing — quietly, with no map and no need to arrive.
    A reflection in the spirit of the old Zen masters
  • Time, in its own way, is being. Being, in its own way, is time.
    After Dōgen · Uji
  • If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you will not see the Buddha.
    After Bodhidharma · Bloodstream Sermon
  • The ten thousand things rise and fall while the self watches their return. Each returning to its root is called stillness.
    After Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching · 16

“Outwardly engage in no activity; inwardly the mind is not panting after anything.”

After Bodhidharma

五 · five quiet thresholds

A small house, slowly furnished.

用 · How to use this place

This site is meant to be read slowly, the way one drinks tea — one breath, one fragment, then quiet.

“Knowing how to keep still — and being content with what is enough — is the beginning of the Way.”

A reflection in the spirit of Lao Tzu

Misty bamboo grove

Be still like a mountain, and flow like a great river.

In the spirit of Lao Tzu

Stone and raked sand

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

A Zen line, often repeated

“When the mind rests, the ten thousand things settle of themselves.”

After Huang-Po