I read both of your articles, and I didn't see that you directly addressed what I see as a direct refutation (in the Dhammapada) of your assertions both regarding free will and the fundamental importance of consciously cultivating accurate constructive, compassionate thoughts.

However, if you would be wiling to focus in on one of your claims, I'd be very interested to see how you back this up. You wrote: "The six thought experiments you mention are child’s play to anyone with any experience in meditation. "

Let's just take one, choosing at will to let go of all discursive (verbal) thought while remaining vividly aware.

Jack Kornfield has worked with thousands of meditation students over the course of a half century, and interacted with at least several hundred teachers. He is a doctoral level clinical psychologist and is deeply familiar with most of the research regarding meditation. He has stated that he believes the claims of Buddhist texts that it is possible to completely silence the mind are myths, and that neither he nor anybody he knows has succeeded in doing so for any appreciable length of time.

On the other hand, Alan Wallace regularly takes students for 9 month 10 hour a day retreats and claims by the end, they may be able to reach a state where they can maintain mental silence for possibly 30 to 60 minutes.

Alan was a Tibetan Buddhist monk for 17 years (including 2 3-year solo retreats) and has taught a Buddhist tradition that is supposed to lead to silence of the mind for over two decades. he disagrees with Kornfield's claim it is impossible, but does suggest it is very very rare.

Perhaps Culadasa (former neuroscience professor) is closer to your claim. he says among students who have practiced 20-30 years, he has had some study with him for several months, on retreat involving many hours a day of training, who have reached the stage Alan talks about, where they might be able to have mental silence for 20-30 minutes at a time.

But you say this is child's play (in case you're going to cite some of TM's fallacious claims, I've talked to some TM researchers who, to keep it short, ultimately agree with the teachers cited above).

So you know people who can do this?

Can you? Is there any foundation to your claim? (in case you're not clear about the relation of this specific point to the questions, it relates to the ability to remain aware in dreams and deep sleep in the complete absence of discursive thought. In fact, it's EASIER to maintain mental silence for 30 minutes than to become aware in deep sleep. Alan Wallace, who claims to be able to sit 4 hours without discursive thought while remaining vividly aware, has said many of his dreams are not lucid, and he does not have the ability to be fully aware throughout sleep on a regular basis. So silence of the mind is easier than full awareness in deep sleep.

But you say it's child's play. Please tell me how and can you describe your experience of it?