In search of nothing – something

In her search for inner peace, journalist Maaike Helmer discovered the centuries – old Japanese concept of ‘ma ’. Thanks to small, barely visible moments, she’ s now able to escape the hectic pace of daily life.

If you delve ever-deeper into the subject of ‘relaxation’, you will end up at ‘nothing’. In many Eastern philosophies, people think about this word on a fundamental level. I was intrigued: what could ‘nothing’ mean in my own life? Could it help me achieve inner peace? After reading a lot on this subject, I discovered the Japanese concept of ma, which essentially means ‘interval’, ‘between’ or something that is neither space nor time. It is used in Japan in the arts (things are suggested through either omission or the use of a white space), architecture (‘space’ can result in either tension or calm), music (the silence between chords), stage productions, flower arrangements (ikebana), etiquette (bowing with short breaks to show respect to the person standing across from you), and even conversations (silence is part of the conversation).

Ma assumes that the space we Westerners may call ‘nothing’ is actually filled with ‘something’. In his book Waar geen wil is, is een weg (Where there’s no will, there’s a way; Dutch only), Henk Oosterling, author and former professor of philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, calls this the ki, or energy, of kami, or the awe-inspiring. Put simply, and in a very Western manner: Nothing can also contain something.