Delusion isn’t quite located where we think it is.
We imagine that it’s the apparently ceaseless thoughts and emotions which come up during sitting, but it isn’t. It’s our response. Uchiyama likened it to an ignorant person watching a play, mistaking it for reality, seeing a villain on stage, jumping up on the stage to remonstrate with the villain.
This is the practice. We keep finding ourselves up on the stage, realising what we’re doing, and leaving the stage, to sit with all beings.
That’s why an emphasis on consciousness is harmful, because we’re focused on the wrong thing. Whether we turn the mind from lead to gold, it’s still a headstone, weighing down on the body of the world.