Method 110 · Vision, space and darkness
The Universe as Open Field
Universe as empty field AdvancedIn the app
An advanced spatial contemplation that regards the whole universe, with everything in it, as an open, empty field in which all things appear.
Understand
When we look around, attention usually lands on things: buildings, trees, people, the objects on a desk. What we rarely notice is the space they occupy, the openness without which none of them could appear. This method turns attention towards that openness on the largest possible scale. It contemplates the whole universe, every star, mountain, city and living creature, as resting in an immense, empty field, and considers the possibility that the field is in some sense more fundamental than the things within it.
Descriptions of this kind of contemplation often mention vastness and quiet. Some people speak of a feeling that their concerns, while still real, have become smaller and lighter against the scale of open space. Others describe a sense that objects seem less heavy and separate, as though they were patterns drifting in a clear sky. For some, the experience is mostly one of calm; for others, it is closer to wonder.
There are several common misunderstandings. The first is to take emptiness as meaning nothingness or meaninglessness, as if the method concluded that nothing matters. In the tradition, emptiness more often suggests openness, freedom and the capacity for anything to arise. The second is to try to imagine the universe in detail, which quickly becomes an exhausting mental exercise rather than a contemplation. The third is to treat any feeling of vastness as an achievement or a sign of special attainment, which it is not.
This method may suit people with a well-established practice who are comfortable with open, spacious attention and feel grounded in everyday life. It is less suitable for anyone who finds large or empty spaces frightening, who has experienced the world as unreal or distant, or who is going through a period of low mood in which a sense of vastness could feel bleak rather than freeing. People with a history of trauma, psychosis, dissociation or serious mental-health conditions should seek suitable support before taking up intense contemplative practice.
Deep dive
Space is one of the most persistent themes in the Vijñāna Bhairava, appearing in methods about the sky, about the space between things and about emptiness within the body. This method takes the theme to its furthest scale. Seven Doors places it in the Vision, Space and Darkness family, with a secondary tag in Nondual and Expansive contemplation, because the practice moves from a visual or spatial image towards a sense of the whole of reality. It pairs naturally with the neighbouring method that regards the body as an open room: one looks inward, the other outward.
Teachers who have discussed contemplations of this type tend to describe them in a few ways. Some treat the empty field mainly as an image, a way of loosening the mind’s habit of fixing on objects. Others draw a closer link to the tradition’s philosophy, in which the open space of the universe and the open space of awareness are understood as not fundamentally different. Some describe a progression, from the felt space around the body, to the space of the sky, to an unbounded field that includes everything. These readings are interpretations and differ considerably; none of them describes what a particular person will experience.
Similar images appear in many traditions, including Buddhist teachings on space and emptiness and various forms of sky-gazing meditation. This wide presence suggests the image is a natural one for the mind, but it also means people bring many different assumptions to it, some of them gloomy and some exalted. Neither is necessary.
In historical settings, contemplations of this scale were usually approached after long practice, often in retreat, and with a teacher who could help a student interpret what arose. Intense absorption in emptiness can sometimes be destabilising. Some people report a sense that the world has become flat, distant or unreal, or that their own life has lost its weight. Others find the scale itself overwhelming. Such experiences are not milestones. They are reasons to step back, return to ordinary activities and seek support if they persist.
A modern, careful adaptation would hold the image lightly and connect it to things that can be directly perceived, such as the open sky, the space of a room or the distance to the horizon, rather than to an abstract notion of the whole cosmos. It would emphasise openness, room and ease more than emptiness. It would keep sessions short, leave the eyes free to rest on something real, and encourage a return to the body and surroundings at any time. It would make no promises about where such contemplation leads, and would present it as one door among many rather than as the summit of practice.
In the Seven Doors app, this method is offered only as a short, adapted guided practice built with these cautions in mind, and this page describes it rather than giving step-by-step instructions. For most people, simple open-sky gazing, spacious listening and relaxed attention to the room around them explore the same theme in a well-grounded way.
Described, not instructed
Best approached after the foundations, or with a teacher. Described here, not instructed. This page explains the method and its context without step-by-step instructions.
Source text
Verse 58 · The Vijñāna Bhairava, ed. Mukunda Rāma Shāstrī, Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies 8 (1918)
विश्वमेतन्महादेवि शून्यभूतं विचिन्तयेत् ।
तत्रैव च मनो लीनं ततस्तल्लयभाजनम् ॥
viśvametanmahādevi śūnyabhūtaṃ vicintayet |
tatraiva ca mano līnaṃ tatastallayabhājanam ||
Translation
O great goddess, contemplate this universe as empty. When the mind dissolves right there, one becomes a vessel for that dissolution.
How the practice adapts it
The verse asks for the universe to be contemplated as empty, with the mind dissolving there; the practice keeps the universe as an open field.
Seven Doors’ own translation from the Sanskrit of the 1918 KSTS text, made and reviewed with AI assistance in two independent passes; the works listed were drawn on for the meaning of hard words, from the AI’s knowledge of them, and were not compared page by page.