Yes, our mind is a great thing! Gives us the ability to overcome any problem, to create, to destroy and, most important, to think!
If you come to think about it, who are we after all? Do you really think you are what you think you are? As Moji asks frequently: “Who is the thinker”? Can you stop for a second and perceive the thinker of your thoughts?
Do you think your thought, or ARE you your thought?
According to Buddhist teachings, to think that there is a “ME” somewhere behind all of this storm of relentless thoughts is a mistake, just an imprecision because you can always divide what you think is your “ME” and never find the essence of “ME” anywhere until you have nothing but a collection of parts. They call them skhandas and say what we think we ARE is just a collection of five of these skhandas:
1 > "form": This is our physical body, our flesh and bones. Of course we can also divide this into parts that are not a body! But I won’t go that far today!
2 > "sensation": This is our response to objects (Concrete or not) and they can be either positive or neutral or unpleasant. This will depend on factors other than the stimulus itself. So you can see already that even sensation needs other parts to “exist”.
sensory experience of an object.[21] It is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.[b][c]
3 > "perception": This is a little different from the sensation, this is the skhanda represented by the mental processes that registers and labels (This is can be one true villain).
4 > "mental formations": This is the result of the previous ones like will, activity, desire.
5 > "consciousness": This can be awareness.
So, Who is the thinker? The fith skhanda? Or the collection of them all? Try to meditate on this and try to answer this question:
“WHO IS THE THINKER?” WHO perceives the perceiver?