Within you is the Buddha-seed or gotra, which we refer here to as the Bodhichild. But this child cannot be birthed in a forced or worse yet, in an artificial manner. Its potentiality is already there, it just needs a little coaxing through proper nourishment via the Buddhadharma. It’s there but you have been carrying it for so long that it may result in a still-birth. This is the direct cause of your inner-anguish, you sense something is there inside that wants to come out, that wants to be born, but your resistance is killing it; it’s like a woman carrying a fetus for more than nine-months—it’s not natural and this unnaturalness is malignancy itself. Only a monstrous tumor is the end result. It seems to be a contradiction, but you first need to be empty before this transcendent birth can occur. Emptied of all that is in opposition to the Unborn. Emptied of emptiness itself.
At one time a disciple came to Bodhidharma and stated, “Master, you have told me to be emptied and I have already done so. So what else needs to be done?”
Bodhidharma struck him hard on his head with his staff, saying, “Now be gone and throw this emptiness out!”
In insisting that he had already done so, the disciple injected an unnecessary quotient that blocked emptiness from occurring. There is no “I” who needs to do the emptying! Emptiness cannot be done or undone. Emptiness needs to be filled with everything that emptiness is not. If you try to figure out this apparent conundrum with that noggin of yours, your intellect, then you will never be a midwife who gives birth to That which is closer to you than your own apparent life.