"We reasoned some sort of  non-dual wisdom arising from direct experience was the only way to go"
Yes! Just direct experience! No added fabrications!

... and the "direct experience" is NOT a fabrication of the mind?  

Good question, Papa. Isn't every experience a fabrication of the mind?

From MCTB-2:
​​​​​​​“Some people say there is mind. I say there is no mind, but never mind! Heh, heh, heh!”

From the Dhammapada:
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Isn't every experience a fabrication of the mind?
I am going to step into the minefield here:

Mind is the sixth sense door. What it perceives is thought. If this is correct, the first, direct, raw impression of any sense door could be said to be "not fabricated". Anything added to it could be called "a fabrication".

Scientists would tell us that even that first "impression" is the result of a lot of processing but that's not what our first person perspective tells us.

Phenomenologically speaking the unfabricated can only be that first contact. Anything prior to that is speculative.

Please do me a favor, show where the above is wrong so I could learn and refine my understanding.

Where are all the things you perceive created? You aren't capable of direct perception because your brain/mind is caged inside your skull and not in direct contact with the things you see, hear, feel, taste, etc. The processing taking place is the mind making sense of the electrochemical information it receives from sense organs via nerve channels.

So, again, where are all the things you perceive being created? I'm with Papa and the Dhammapada. The mind does it, and what a marvelous thing it is!

Yeah well I can't get out of it (so to speak) to validate this so ... "don't know" would be most acurate answer but if we assume all is mind than "all is mind". 

As one Tibetan dude once said "the whole view fake" (like all of it) so don't worry be happy now It's all good. 

Bob Marley quote!

Nope!  Boddy McFerrin quote!  

Yeah - my error!

Bob Marley said, "Don't worry 'bout a thing. Every little thing's gonna be alright"

Chris, 
sorry I am not sure how to quote you in my reply as you seem all to do so well. 

My point is that the scientists probably know somehow what they are talking about but I can't know it for sure for myself, from first person perspective. How could I? I don't even know that I have a brain! 

Does this make sense? 

As a human being, and as a practical matter, I think you have a brain. I also think you have a mind. I'm skeptical of the science in this area, as the scientists regularly disagree and often change their views on consciousness and "what is reality"-type phenomena.

Training in morality is the first & the last training. 
Yes! This is simply Huge but often neglected!
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How many posts on the DHO deal with this subject compared to posts dealing with other things.  Including such esoteric subjects such as talking with the dead & remembering past lives?

It seems that what Chris (& others here) call "mind" is what I would call "awareness" while what I was referring to as mind is the sense organ that senses "thoughts".

My not-so-clear attempt at clarity:

Mind is that which is aware and that which has awareness as part of its nature. Be careful not to confuse "mind" with "brain." I see the brain as a sense organ (a physical object that can process incoming sense data), and I see the mind as a conceptually non-physical, virtually infinite capability to produce awareness, self-awareness, sentience, consciousness, thought, emotions, objects, self, etc. Currently, science claims no physical correlates between the brain and the mind/consciousness. Consciousness, the purview of the mind, and for which there are many theories, remains a mystery.

Seems like a good place for this:

From MCTB2:
"Since I just used this dangerous term “mind”, I should quickly mention that it cannot be located. I'm certainly not talking about the brain, which we have never experienced, since the standard for insight practices is what we can directly experience."