The Anatomy of a Thought

Thought is a thing that has no essence on its own. We can view them as drops of water that make up the mind like a forceful flowing river in which we swim—or more like a deep, vast ocean that covers this whole universe we see.

With this idea, we live in an ocean of thoughts. Even from within the depths of our heart, there is a spring of thoughts that keep shooting up from beneath all the time, forming the froth and bubbles in the ocean.

Such is the force that influences the way we choose to act. At the base of our thoughts, there is an evenly spread region of our consciousness, constantly shining from where it is and sheds light on our thoughts.

You can feel and see anything with the help of this light we call consciousness. When you are reading, you know that you are reading. When you are sitting down, you know you are sitting down. You can even see and feel the kind of thoughts in your mind. When there is pain in your body, you can choose to sit quietly for a moment and observe the pain in your mind. You can resist the urge to judge the pain, to express any anxiety about how intense it feels, and wonder when it will go away. When we watch the pain, our consciousness observed it in its entirety and slowly loosens the knots caused by our thoughts that induce the pain in our body and mind.

With this patient, time, and trust in this process only then will the pain pass.

The beauty of this ocean called the mind is that it seems like it is there when we believe in its existence. But when we stop for a moment, slowly dip our toes onto the shore, take a deep breath and dive deeper and deeper into the water, we finally see through this ocean; it seems as if it is no longer there.

In this way, we begin to understand the anatomy of a thought. It is empty. Thoughts together make up emptiness. They have no definitive point of origin, no set course of travel, and no specific site of disappearance.