Namaste. Welcome to the next-to-last episode of our series on Emptiness, where we’re going to talk about neither-perception-nor-non-perception.

“Further, Ānanda, the monk—not attending to the perception of the dimension of the infinity of consciousness, not attending to the perception of the dimension of nothingness—attends to the singleness based on the dimension of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in the dimension of neither-perception-nor-non-perception.”—Cūḷa Suññatā Sutta

What does this mean? Well, you should try it and find out! See, nothingness is different from space. I think I have to point this out, because we got a couple of comments from people who are a little mixed up about this, that space still offers a context for becoming. Because space is actually space-time, as we know from Einstein, and space-time allows for movement, change, and therefore becoming, being and so on, which leads to suffering. But nothingness has no dimensions, it has no measurement, therefore it has no time, therefore no change, and therefore no becoming. So there is no becoming, no being in nothingness.

So then the question arises “Well, how do I know whether I’m conscious or not?” [laughs] “If I’m concentrating on nothingness, if I have removed all other perceptions, and I’m just concentrating on the singleness of nothingness, how do I know that I’m perceiving anything?” and of course the answer is, you don’t. [laughs] It’s neither-non-perception-nor-perception, because there’s nothing to perceive. This nothingness, this is really the emptiness that we’ve been talking about, the emptiness where there is no opportunity for anything to exist. You see, existence has a beginning, a middle and an end, therefore it’s suffering. All perceptions are suffering, because they have a beginning, a middle and an end.

So, if we want to be completely free from suffering, we have to go into nothingness so that there’s nothing to perceive. But then how do we know whether we’re perceptive or not? How do we know if we’re conscious or not? Well, we don’t. And the thing is that this gives us, or simulates, the conditions involved in complete merging with Brahman.