Excerpt from Becoming Enlightened
The mind has been chattering away for as long as the mind can remember. It is thought that the mind is an ever-present existence in the head. An inescapable presence. It is felt that the mind is the self. However, it is only felt this way because there has been no break in the continuation of thought. The mind is not solid, not an organ in the body. Imagine you are walking down the street and then you stopped. Where has walking gone? It does not exist. It isn’t a solid form, it is nothing that the self would identify with. It is simply an action.
The same is as with thought. It is merely an activity of the brain that has not for a single moment retired. Your brain has gone on thinking and creating thought for so long that you have come to identify with its voices. The mind simply an accumulation of many stored words and voices. It has come to hear your own voice and repeats it back to you within yourself. This is what you feel is you.
However, if you notice, this voice is often not within your control. If you observe the mind while it creates thought you will see that there is nonsense. There is a misfiring of many words and images that come from nowhere and everywhere. This is what goes on throughout every day and every night. At times you are using the mind, and at most times the mind is using you.
The mind cannot be seen as who you are. It is an automatic process, an activity, and not an identity or a solid object that cannot be gotten rid of. In fact, it should not be seen as the mind but that rather the brain is “minding”. Once it is seen as “minding” then you will start to become the master. Then you will be able to use the brain to mind. To think. This the only use for thought. Left on, the process of thought will drain the energy from all of your experience of life.
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