Namely, any time you ask them to explain consciousness, they shake their head and grumble “Existence is existence! It cannot be explained! It can only be experienced!” While this neatly avoids the argument (by refusing to engage in it), it can certainly be frustrating if you want to understand what consciousness is.
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration of the position. It’s not that no explanation can be given, only that it won’t explain what you’re hoping it will because the thing you were hoping to have explained is not the same as the reality you have reified into a thing. One traditional approach is to give up categories and focus on practice and experience (e.g. Zen), but there’s also traditions that go hard on explaining the inner workings of the mind and providing detailed models of it (e.g. Gelug).
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration of the position. It’s not that no explanation can be given, only that it won’t explain what you’re hoping it will because the thing you were hoping to have explained is not the same as the reality you have reified into a thing. One traditional approach is to give up categories and focus on practice and experience (e.g. Zen), but there’s also traditions that go hard on explaining the inner workings of the mind and providing detailed models of it (e.g. Gelug).
I was definitely thinking more of Zen, but “claims have been exaggerated for rhetorical effect” is also a fair characterization of what I said.