The Zen Master Huang Po said: “…these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun, moon and stars—not one of them exists outside your minds!…Outside Mind there is nothing…not a hairsbreadth of any of them exists outside the concepts you have formed for yourself!” The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, p.81. Similarly, we read in A Course in Miracles (ACIM), “The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist.” Workbook p. 23.

Mind control was the cornerstone of Huang Po’s teachings. He said the only way to experience enlightenment is by getting rid of all conceptual thought and clinging to nothing whatever in this world. And in ACIM Jesus says all our self-concepts, beliefs, roles, etc. come from the ego, which wants us to believe we are separate individuals with private thoughts and private minds. These are obstacles to enlightenment, which hide the presence of Love within us. And like Huang Po, he says there is only one Mind, which we share with each other and with God. The difficulty for us lies in the seeming “reality”