In the Diamond Sutra, Subhuti essentially asks “How are we to live our lives [or practice].”

Buddha’s answer: Know that not anything is real.

From the standpoint of advaita, it would be legitimate to say that the self is the Self, or Absolute. But, of course, when we take advaita as far as it can go, in ajata we finally recognize that there is in fact, no self. Nor is there a Self.

The Heart Sutra has declared “Form is emptiness.”  Emptiness has no form, other than any forms which it occupies, therefore “emptiness is form.” 

This sutra emphasizes that emptiness itself is nothing other than empty; it has no being beyond its presence in forms: “emptiness is not other than form.” 

All phenomena are without independent characteristics because, in truth, they are empty; being empty, they have no actual “life.” As emptiness, “they are not born, they do not cease.”

Even if we speak of any of the things in this unreal world, all depend on other things for their presumed existence; and so this tells us again that not any phenomenon have an independent existence. In fact, all phenomenon being nonexistent, we cannot even maintain that there are real things, to begin with.

The religionists write of “creatio ex nihilo”, presuming that out of nothing creation came. This is simply their attempt to create a Creator. One need not think long to realize that out of nothing only nothingness can come.

The unenlightened are like Alice in Wonderland who drops, through time, out of a perceived rabbit hole into a world of apparent things, seeming to be born into wonderous multiplicity. It is not until the end of the book that we learn that it was all a dream without meaning, with herself within the dream—until she has awakened.

Like her example, you are the central character in your sleeping dream, the actor in your events. You have no knowledge that you exist, or don’t exist, in any other form. And in the Dream of “life”, this situation continues into your daily waking experience.

O you, who fear the difficulties

Of the road to annihilation —

Do not fear. It is so easy, this

Road, that it may be travelled

Sleeping.

– Mir Yahya Kashi

Zen master Wumen Huikai said that “Buddha hung out dog meat, and sold it as mutton. “While life is not a nightmare for most people, neither is it a sweet dream. Buddha’s diamond–hard message: not anything has ever been born (or “created”). When we start from this premise and work our way back, in logic, it literally explains “every thing” — or even, lack of it. What more could anyone want?

The only reason why we come to examine emptiness is because we recognize that we envision our selves as forms, and — it is alleged, on high authority — all forms are empty: unreal.

We assume that our past and future are proven by our present. But our present is unreal.

We assume that things occur. But even at their occurrence they are empty. Is an “occurrence” of emptiness an occurrence at all?

We ask, where did I come from? You didn’t: you don’t exist, in truth.

Where did my thoughts come from? They don’t. Any thoughts of an unreal person must be unreal thoughts.

But aren't even these appearances real? Appearances are what appears to someone who is unreal. Only to the dreamer does the dream exist.

But until you can say that you do not exist—and know that it’s true—you're unlikely to awaken to the fact that “life” is a Dream. Only then will there be nothing left to cling to—including “life” itself.

Joy is there once you let go of all you consider important. – Wolfgang Kopp

When you know that not any thing that “exists” is real, you know that not anything, therefore, can be important. When you know that not anything really matters, what questions can arise? Confusion, conflict and anxiety end in utter stillness, or emptiness.   

The perception of “me” versus “not-me” is vacated. The “existing” I and the existing “world” disappears simultaneously. Instead of “separate” things which compete to be “real”, there is one thing—emptiness—which is un-real.

But, you know what, that doesn’t matter either.

Until you can step back into

the phenomenal world, and

experience it from the vantage

point of that place of eternal

serenity, that place which is

unborn and undying; until

 you can live your life out of

 this understanding, it is not

enlightenment.

– Danan Henry

Sooner or later, on the spiritual

journey, one will come to a

point where a leap of faith—a

leap of trust—will be required...

If you are lucky, your experience

will be so profound that it will

result in your complete destruction.

– Andrew Cohen

Find out who is born, and who has the trouble of ‘existence’ now... and you have the solution. You discover none is born. There is no birth—no trouble, no unhappiness in fact... The realized have no death (having no birth)…

It is sahaja samadhi: in this state you... are unaffected by what you do or say or think.

– Ramana