[elbear]

I'm not talking about just the sense of self. I'm talking about the fact that the world is an illusion.

In any case, I may not be conveying the message properly, because I'm still trying to understand these things conceptually.

The book I mentioned does a far better job with this.

[labawi]

> the fact that the world is an illusion.

I may not be disagreeing with what you mean, but one should be careful to differentiate between concepts, that are knowable, and things they refer to, which are not¹. Lots of confusion stems from mistaking the two. From what you were taught are apples to the world or ones own self.

As an illustration, if I slap your face, you may argue it is an illusion, it may not affect your later in life, and you may not even remember it. I take it as true, that words nor imagination are no match for an actual good slap. After a slap, people may disagree whether it was a slap, they may have illusions about who, what, how or why .. yet I don't think many will argue it is an illusion in the sense that nothing in fact happened.

¹ Well, most of them anyway.

[elbear]

This is the risk of trying to summarize a big conceptual framework in just a few words. It leaves out a lot and its only hope is to entice the reader to explore further and discover that entire conceptual framework.

Even that conceptual framework can not describe what can't be described. It can only get you to experience again and again what can only be experienced until the moment that concepts drop off.