Emptiness: The way of seeing the connection of everything

This is a lesson from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book The Art of Mindfulness.

There is no fixed self, we are each a kind of ensemble.
An ensemble of our parents, our grandparents, the voices we've heard, the knowledge we've learned, and the background we've grown up in.
Even our bodies are made of ensembles: cells, stardust, minerals from the universe, and the food we eat.

We are everything. Everything is one. We are all connected, we are the universe itself.

Meditate on this—on seeing the world this way. Look behind things, look the invisible threads that connect it all.
The connection of everything. The connection within you.

Thich Nhat Hanh once said he could see the cloud in a sheet of paper.
Because the paper comes from the tree,
The tree from the rain,
And the rain from the cloud.

Quite poetic, isn’t it?

And the more of these connections you begin to see,
The more compassionate you become.
Because you realize: we are not separate.
There is no hard line between you and me.