Chapter XX, Section 1b

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

The passage uses the metaphor of a calf drinking milk to illustrate how attachment to the body (mother) keeps the mind in bondage.

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

The instruction to 'cut out the love of self' directly aligns with the practice of radical letting-go of attachment.

Texts and rituals guiding the soul through death.

The passage explicitly warns about death's inevitability and the lack of help from kinsfolk, guiding the reader through the fear of mortality.

The Zoroastrian triad of right thought, right speech, and right action as the foundation of ethical life; truth-in-living.

The instruction to 'cherish the road of peace' implies a commitment to right thought and action as a spiritual path.

The claim that the divine realm is present inside the individual, accessible without external mediation.

The text emphasizes clearing the way to Nirvana internally rather than through external means.

Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.

Verses 286 and 287 explicitly describe meditation as a practice that leads to or away from death.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

The mention of Nirvana implies a union with the divine state achieved through liberation.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The instruction to cut out love of self uses a paradoxical command to destabilize ordinary attachment.

Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).

The call to cut out the love of self reflects a state of emptiness or lack of attachment.

The spiritual danger of attachment to material possessions; wealth as a spiritual obstacle.

The text warns against relying on sons, fathers, or flocks as sources of help.

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The instruction to cut out the love of self implies a recognition of one's true nature is necessary for liberation.

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The goal of clearing the way to Nirvana suggests an upward movement toward liberation.

The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.

The commentary explicitly defines the term as 'vast knowledge,' aligning with the concept of emptiness recognized in Buddhist doctrine.