Mind categorizes the world of things . One of the categories is selfidentity . Mind embraces the things in that category extremely tightly . So these are , for most people , the hardest concepts to shed , at least based on my experience . Anything that makes up your selfidentity . Do you think you ' re smart ? Charitable ? Not charitable ? A free thinker ? A student ? A Republican or a Democrat ? Part of a particular group ? Member of a sangha ? All of these things . Anything that you like about yourself or don ' t like about yourself . The way you look or dress are you a beer wine or tea drinker ? Infinite more things . Things that don ' t make up your self identity are still a problem , because by being categorized as nonself , the categorization lives on . Chinul ' s recommendations for focus during meditation are to either imagine that the world is all mind , or that there is nomind and only world . He ' s addressing this categorization directly , saying that either direction works .