I’d like to respond as if we were conversing, so I’m going to split up what you said:

ok but coupled with my own experience i totally get what he means and see it all the time

Do you “see” it as he explained it? He broke down what is a nondual whole into “elements” that make up our being (not the normal elements of earth, water, fire, wind, etc. either, but rather “aspects” of our lived presence) and abstractions like “the Earth,” and “the Sun,” in order to explain to everyone what can only be immediately known, not as a collection of piece-parts that we suddenly discover the unity of, but as one undivided and unsegmented whole all at once. He did that analysis so that he could be clear in his explanation. Did he do wrong? He doesn’t have the power to instill the whole into your mind, anymore than he could mature your bliss into tranquillity — only you could, and did, do that.

what i find unnecessary is the over complication of intellectualising the Buddha’s teachings

Here, I would respectfully point out that even the “Four Noble Truths” are an enumeration of an intellectual understanding of the more direct, but dialectical, truth the Buddha taught, which can be found in the “Three Pitakas,” which are the earliest words of the Buddha. According to the Buddha’s own statements, most of those hearing his teachings did not understand what he was saying. So to simplify it, so that it could be shared with those who could not comprehend directly what the Buddha taught, but who might spend the time and effort to try to do so, it was later broken down into “four truths.” Lost in that was the actual insight of how it can actually work to end suffering. Was this wrong to do?

it becomes form rather than the thing itself

It’s form all the way down… there is no “thing itself” according to Mahayana Buddhism. But are we using “form” the same way? Forms are empty, emptiness is form.

which is really very simple

I agree, but then you say:

Me sense of self is pretty much purely through other people and then the various sense organs etc in the moment

So you have a world full of people in time and space, and sense organs, and perceptions, and presumably a mind that perceives, etc. It’s no longer “really very simple.”

I’m not saying you don’t know what you are saying, I am merely pointing out the impossibility of saying what you know without unnecessarily over-complicating it. We’re writers, and meditators, and teachers. We use language and thus ignore the sage advice that “He who speaks knows nothing; he who knows is silent.”

heart and diamond sutras

Yes, thousands of pages of text, and commentaries on it all…

I would like you to consider the way that I am writing in these dialogs I am publishing (as a publication on medium). My effort is not to tell you how things are, but to unsay what you’ve already heard and taken to heart. You may not realize that you have, but there is a difference between the understanding of Thich Nhat Hanh, and his words, with which he was trying to point to all the things we think are separate so that we might suddenly discover that they are not parts of a whole, but only abstractions we talk about as if they are apart from the whole.

I hope you read this in the spirit in which I have attempted to share it. And although, I may appear to be talking about Buddhist doctrines in many cases, all of what I write is founded upon my direct imperiences and insights over 5 decades of meditation — with the goal, not of presenting Buddhist doctrines, but to find a way of integrating the results of my meditation into the generally accepted theory of what’s happening that we are all inculcated with, so that there is only one truth in my life, not two.