1. The mind, it can be asserted, is limited consciousness. This definition gives rise to two questions. One, is consciousness ever limited? And, two, is there such a thing as the mind?

2. If consciousness is limited, it must be limited by something. There are only two possible cases to examine: 3a) and 3b): consciousness is limited by something else, and 4) – 6): consciousness is self-limiting.

3a. If consciousness is limited by something else, then the likeliest candidates are space and time. A little reflection will show, however, that space and time are both thought-forms–and nothing else–and also that these thought-forms appear in consciousness. Further reflection will show that whatever this “something else” is, it must be an object, but any object whatsoever appears within consciousness. Therefore, because all objects (space, time, concepts, etc.) only ever appear within consciousness and because “all that is not consciousness” is some object or other, consciousness cannot be limited by something else.

3b. A second argument: Assuming that something apart from consciousness were to exist, could consciousness ever make contact with this else-ness? No, because the principle “like can only know, or make contact with, like” is confirmed by direct experience. Here, what is, by hypothesis, different from consciousness is unlike consciousness. For example, a physical object, being unlike consciousness, can never make contact with consciousness. The general conclusion is that even if something else exists, it cannot make contact with consciousness. The corollary is this: without any possible contact between something else and consciousness, how could that something else even possibly limit consciousness?

4. Then (our second case) can consciousness be self-limiting? This is an especially puzzling question. How would consciousness, being wholeness itself, ever actually divide itself into parts? Is it even possible to experience consciousness’s purported self-division or self-pulsation? And if such a division or pulsation is not even possible, then how, in actuality, could consciousness ever limit itself?

5. If, then, consciousness is never actually limited, then how can the mind–which is defined as limited consciousness–actually exist? It is an unintelligible concept.

6. A second argument concerning the unreality of the mind: where, in direct experience, can you actually find “the mind”? You might find a thought, but where is that limited consciousness “from which” the thought is apparently arisen? It’s nowhere to be found!

7. If there is, in truth, no mind, then how can there ever be any real suffering? Since the mind is nonexistent, where is bondage and where is liberation?