i agree this essay has good points.
i like the TV example
The Buddha compares consciousness to “a magic-show, a juggler's trick entire” (SN 22.95).20 Likewise, the many manifestations of consciousness – for consciousness is never a single thing – provides the factory workers who fabricate wondrous products in the factory of name-and-form, including subjects and objects and the appearance of an entire independent objective reality.
To see how this works, imagine you enter a room in which a television is turned on. At first you may be conscious of pixels or shapes and colors on the screen and sounds. However, the next moment you are conscious of an ongoing situation located in the nineteenth century American West, in which people are acting out their intentions both virtuous and evil. It's magic! To a degree you are convinced that this situation is real, for you find yourself empathizing with the main characters, enraptured as their circumstances unfold. Such is the power of consciousness to evoke, and such is its power to conjure up the external world “out there,” and convince us that it is real. Notice that when we conceive dualistically, consciousness arises when form passes before the eye. When we see things as they really are, consciousness does not arise from eye and form; quite the opposite: consciousness fabricates eye and form and is therefore prior to it, for consciousness is that very discrimination that produces the dualism.
The essay seem to top on the Bahya Sutta, from essay
Our mission, if we decide to accept it, is to see for ourselves into the fabricated nature of the subject-object dualism expressed in the sense spheres. This is how we ultimately bring the world to an end. In a number of passages the Buddha describes how to approach this task:
Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed.24 In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress. (Ud 1.10, Bāhiya Sutta)
end of bahira Sutta is
https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn ... .than.html
Through hearing this brief explanation of the Dhamma from the Blessed One, the mind of Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth right then and there was released from effluents through lack of clinging/sustenance. Having exhorted Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth with this brief explanation of the Dhamma, the Blessed One left.
Now, not long after the Blessed One's departure, Bāhiya was attacked & killed by a cow with a young calf. Then the Blessed One, having gone for alms in Sāvatthī, after the meal, returning from his alms round with a large number of monks, saw that Bāhiya had died. On seeing him, he said to the monks, "Take Bāhiya's body, monks, and, placing it on a litter and carrying it away, cremate it and build him a memorial. Your companion in the holy life has died."
Responding, "As you say, lord," to the Blessed One, the monks — placing Bāhiya's body on a litter, carrying it away, cremating it, and building him a memorial — went to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As they were sitting there, they said to him, "Bāhiya's body has been cremated, lord, and his memorial has been built. What is his destination? What is his future state?"
"Monks, Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth was wise. He practiced the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma and did not pester me with issues related to the Dhamma. Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth, monks, is totally unbound."
Then, on realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One on that occasion exclaimed:
Where water, earth,
fire, & wind
have no footing:
There the stars don't shine,
the sun isn't visible.
There the moon doesn't appear.
There darkness is not found.
And when a sage,
a brahman through sagacity,
has realized [this] for himself,
then from form & formless,
from bliss & pain,
he is freed.
the beginning is
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Sāvatthī at Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's monastery. And on that occasion Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth was living in Suppāraka by the seashore. He was worshipped, revered, honored, venerated, and given homage — a recipient of robes, alms food, lodgings, & medicinal requisites for the sick. Then, when he was alone in seclusion, this line of thinking appeared to his awareness: "Now, of those who in this world are arahants or have entered the path of arahantship, am I one?"
he weren't arahant but became arahant after hearing Blessed one teaching. Interesting is that he died after that. It seem once you come arhant you will also meet not so good stuff after Blessed One departure.
Through hearing this brief explanation of the Dhamma from the Blessed One, the mind of Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth right then and there was released from effluents through lack of clinging/sustenance. Having exhorted Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth with this brief explanation of the Dhamma, the Blessed One left.
Now, not long after the Blessed One's departure, Bāhiya was attacked & killed by a cow with a young calf. Then the Blessed One, having gone for alms in Sāvatthī, after the meal, returning from his alms round with a large number of monks, saw that Bāhiya had died. On seeing him, he said to the monks, "Take Bāhiya's body, monks, and, placing it on a litter and carrying it away, cremate it and build him a memorial. Your companion in the holy life has died."
Teach me the Dhamma, O Blessed One! Teach me the Dhamma, O One-Well-Gone, that will be for my long-term welfare & bliss."