Self-realization is a matter of seeing all things to be (or, as) the Absolute.

What is the Absolute? The nondual teachings say that it is “without beginning or ending, infinite, and eternal”.

Buddhism uses a Sanskrit word sunyata (or shunyata) which translates as “emptiness”. In other words, the awakened point of view is that “all things are empty”—empty of abiding reality, as are the figures in your dreams (including yourself).

When this is the sage’s point of view, he is said to have an “empty mind”: all things are recognized to be empty qualitatively. In other words, all things have “sameness”: for example, the qualities of “better” and “worse” are absent of meaning.

So, the empty mind is not expecting its condition to be better, or worse, than any other condition: whatever condition is perceived to be present is, by nature, empty. Therefore, it does not matter what condition is present; it is all “the same” (i.e. empty of value or meaning).