Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
To stay with that shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feelings of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves is the path of the warrior. We catch ourselves one zillion times as once again, whether we like it or not, we harden into resentment, into a sense of relief, a sense of inspiration.
Darkness can be understood to represent emptiness, the complete overcoming of ignorance: the false perception of reality, the illusion of dualism, of anything existing separately. Emptiness, the womb of enlightenment, can be understood symbolically as darkness ... Emptiness is not nothing. Emptiness refers to the radical insight that there is no individually existing, independently arising, separate self. All that is, is in constant flux, rising and falling in relationship to and with something else. Emptiness is the black of starless midnight, imminence, that comes before the pre-dawn of enlightenment, the "clear light", a state of translucence or transparency that is beyond dark and light. This is a radiant black. This is wisdom.