My article “Letting Go in Action”, which I recommended to Koun above, I think resolves the language paradox.
I’ll summarize: 1) the practice in the Pali Canon Suttas concerns the relinquishment of volitive activity; 2) the singularity of mind mentioned in the induction of the states of meditation or the state of concentration (which states or state are mentioned throughout the Canon) is simultaneous with the induction of a state between waking and sleeping in which volition ceases in action of the body related to the movement of breath; 3) everybody experiences such a singularity of mind at least once a day while falling asleep, but it’s not noticeable unless a person is lying in bed at 4am and can’t get back to sleep, in which case attendance on the place of occurrence of consciousness and the relaxed inclusion of feeling throughout the body can disclose a singularity in the sense of location that shifts (and works miracles for getting back to sleep); 4) the induction of a hypnogogic state out of an experience of the relationship of the location of awareness, the ability to feel throughout the body, and necessity in the movement of breath allows stretch outside of the comfort zone, and similarly allows the distinction of the senses outside of the normal “happy” zone.
The distinction of the senses (including equalibrioception, proprioception, and the sense of gravity) beyond the normal “happy” zone is nonthinking; doesn’t exclude the sense of the mind or thought, and yet is neither thinking nor yet not-thinking.
The ancestors did the best they could with what they had to work with, in their description of practice. I think there is science in Guatama’s description as related in the Canon, and there is poetry with stunning applicability in the descriptions of Yuanwu and some of the other Chinese teachers. I worked out what I’m describing above to let the lotus show me more of what the lotus has to show me, and unfortunately without that context my description is not likely to win me a McArthur; darn.