way of negation

"...once we let go of what we're not, the nature of what is Real becomes apparent... And as that Reality is beyond description, it is not appropriate, and least misleading, to let it remain undescribed. This is the essence of the 'way of negation'..."

p. 27 THE ISLAND, a compilation and commentary on wisdom texts (regarding Nibbana) in the early Buddhist teachings (Pali Canon)by Ajhan Amaro and Ajahn Pasanno

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timelessness

"...thought, as one knows it, generally is in time; it is based on notion of time; thought itself is time; thought itself creates time; when there is no time there is no thought."

Ramesh Grover - reflections on Bohm and Krishnamurti The Ending of Time in Kalachakra Meditations


When you are dwelling in the past or the future - remembering, planning, regretting, fearing - you are not alive in this moment. You are missing this moment, lost in time. Time is a construct. The past does not exist substantially in the present, nor has the future come to be.

Can you choose to be alive right now? Can you choose to be fully open to this moment? To this breath? To sounds and sensations right here, right now?

Mary

lost in emptiness

Many questions come up about non-duality. This passage addresses one problem with embracing the experience or an idea about it too quickly. Non-duality includes a need to be deeply aware of clarity, spaciousness, and stillness but to also know clearly and immediately how to pay attention and navigate skillfully in the world.

The danger is that we hear too much too soon. We think we have understood shunyata, err on the side of the absolute in a nihilistic fashion, and are obscured by concepts. Nagarjuna said, "it is sad to see those who mistakenly believe in material, concrete reality, but far more pitiful are those who believe in emptiness." Those who believe in things can be helped through various kinds of practice, but those who have fallen into the abyss of emptiness find it almost impossible to re-emerge, since there seem to be no handholds, no steps, no gradual progression, and nothing to do.

Nyoshul Khenpo

emptiness

The Buddha spoke of emptiness as an open space where the idea of being an isolated and permanent self is no longer able to ensnare one. This emptiness is “the abode of a great person,” where one can encounter and respond to the world in a selfless but caring perspective.

A bleak nihilistic void in which meaning and value have been lost is the exact opposite of what the Buddha meant by “emptiness.” For him, an understanding of emptiness transformed a compulsive cycle of fears and cravings into a path of wisdom and care that enhanced inner freedom and empathetic responsiveness. Rather than an absence of meaning and value, emptiness is an absence of what limits and confines one’s capacity to realize what a human life can potentially become.


Stephen Batchelor
Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil p. 7