Evan, once again you have directed my thinking into an area that I have only dabbled in before. I will practice these things more in the coming days.

Me again. A less random and more reliable way to experience cessation of thinking is particular kinds of drawing. Working through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain uses this kind of approach. It’s also a great way to learn how to draw.

The stopping of the mind can be experienced in the mundane: the sunset that leads me to catch my breath, that very attractive person of the opposite sex who immobilises me they are so beautiful. These too are times when my mind has stopped.

Likewise when I am absorbed in what I am doing. Instead of ‘sitting back’ and ‘thinking about’ the mind is not running the show.

We tend not to notice these times, but they are there. You have probably experienced them.

Perhaps more humble than questions or breath, but they are moments when our thoughts stop.

I can only speak from my direct experience, but when my thoughts cease, when the chatter stops, then the real truth of who I am shines through. An old technique for taking the mind to the limit of its understanding, to getting it to pause, is to ask a question like the ones Takuin asked. The mind cannot answer a question whose answer is outside of it. And what is beyond the mind? Well, that’s the indescribable that Takuin referenced. I call it Truth at times, or Reality, or….. Whatever you prefer. The key to al this is the realization that you are not your mind.

I love your question: if there is no me, is there a something else? Instead of an answer in words, I prefer the result of the question: Silence. Stillness. The question sends my mind into stop mode. And what is there? Ah, now that is the answer.

The illusion, the image, the phenomenal world, or whatever people call it is a projection of a self that identifies with whatever it comes into contact with. The problem is an idea of what one sees in relation to the center of the self.

It is always the “me” and the “something else.” If there is no me, is there a something else? If there is no me, and no something else, what is there? If there is no me that searches, how can one ever know if there is something else?

Nice questions to ponder. (Of course, you cannot really answer them. After all, how can timelessness come to a conclusion?)

It is essentially a problem of identification. There is the idea that there is a person capable of coming to an end, or a being that is searching for enlightenment. Searching for it gives the impression there is a person that doesn’t have it already.

Wonderful stuff.

I’m an Australian though. I have visited the south and California in the US but that was 28 years ago. If I ever get to the east coast I’ll drive carefully.

Personally, I think the number one problem that we face in discussing these things is that we are using words describe what is beyond words. Words are symbols, abstractions for things and experiences. And things and experiences are the very illusions that the masters are always speaking of. They are “condensed” Reality, form as opposed to the Emptiness, matter as opposed to the Field. Words are thus twice removed from Reality.

That’s why every sage and mystic uses his or her own lingo to try to describe what is impossible to describe. But it is fun trying! And I will go where only fools dare to tread.

From whence does the mind arise if the non-dual is prior.

I guess I’m accusing Huangbo of smuggling in the evaluation. Why is enlightened better than illusioned? This is an evaluation I agree. But to defend it is more difficult. Or as the T-Shirt slogan has it: Reality is only for those who can’t handle drugs. These are difficult questions I think.

In a sense, illusion “arises” from Reality. But, then again, it is illusion. So its arising is an illusion. You can’t deal with illusion from within illusion. Only when you step outside of it.

Is huangbo speaking then of illusion.

I think there are levels involved here. The problem is: from where does illusion arise? If there is only one there can’t be two. But then from whence comes illusion. If there is something to return to, there is two.

I think I agree with Huangbo, but it is poorly put. (I was accused in a comment on another article of thinking too highly of myself. This is either proof of that – or, if I’m the Buddha and enlightened anyway . . .). I guess I shouldn’t be flippant. I do have genuine problems with the way this distinction between illusion and enlightenment is expressed.