At the beginning of a retreat last summer, Roshi Kennedy said, "If you are blessed far beyond what you deserve, you will leave this retreat empty-handed." Emptiness is essential to the spirit of Zen in the context of Zen, emptiness is not nihilism. It is not a void. It is not loneliness. It is not a black hole. The experience of emptiness is the experience of no boundaries and the experience that you are not separate. It is the experience of oneness. It is vast and boundless as the empty sky.
— Ellen Birx, Healing Zen