The Blesses Buddha once said: Not attending to the experience of People or City, the monk focuses on the single, even & same experience of Forest...! His mind is absorbed into that experience of Forest and he acquires assured confidence, fixed imperturbability & determination. There & then he understands: Whatever agitation there always was in the experience of city & people, all that is absent here...!!! Here only remains a minor distraction rooted in this silent, sweet, same, single & even experience of endless Forest! Thus he understands: This field of experience is indeed Void of experience of the buzz of people & city. There is present only this stilled sameness condensed on the experience of Forest. Thus he regards the present state as void of what actually is absent, while what now still remains in presence, that he notes as still present! This, Ananda is the very first step in the gradual, genuine, undistorted, ancient & pure descent into Voidness... Again & then, Ananda, by now not attending to the experience of forest, the monk shifts and focuses until he reaches one-pointed absorption on the single, even & same unified Experience of the extensive solidity of Earth... Experience of the cohesive fluidity of Water... Experience of the vibrating radiation of Heat... Experience of the energetic mobility of Motion... Experience of the infinitude of Space... Experience of the infinitude of Consciousness... Experience of the empty void of Nothingness... Experience of neither perception nor non-perception... Experience of the signless & objectless mental absorption... In this void state, he understands that all other phenomena are now quite absent! Only the non-voidness due to the subtle signless mental absorption is still present... This too, Ananda, is the gradual, genuine, undistorted & pure descent into voidness...
Source: The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Majjhima Nikāya 121 [iii 106] The minor speech on Voidness.
