Best Of

@Jeroen said:
It occurred to me today, that if we are not body or mind, then we are not our thoughts, and if we are not our thoughts, can we be said to actually do anything? An action is usually preceded by a thought.

To say that we are not the body or the mind is to imply there is something we are that does not include the body or mind. To say we are nothing at all makes no sense as it negates that which would identify with nothing. If I identify with nothing in particular, then, inclusivity reigns.

This body and/or mind is not all that I am.

I had always considered that thought comes first, then a discernment whether this thought was worthy of action, then the decision to act. But I am kind of wondering whether that whole process is also thinking, also of the mind. When dreaming things happen much more automatically, I’m much less aware of any kind of mental process.

“The thought of ‘I am the doer’ is the bite of the poisonous snake. To know ‘I do nothing’ is the wisdom of faith. Be happy.”
– Ashtavakra Gita 1.8

Perhaps the Ashtavakra Gita has it right…

Could be. But then again, maybe not. To think "I do nothing" is a good way to get out of owning our actions but that goes against knowing that my actions are my only true possessions which is the fifth of the Five Remembrances.

Or Jean Klein, when he said that people continually act out of reaction, is closer to the truth.

Until the subconscious is made conscious we are slaves to past conditioning. Jung said we call that fate.

Well, if there is direct perception and awareness, you could say that by not identifying the self with the “bundle of thoughts that is the mind” you free yourself to observe the mind and the world without being involved in the interpretation-reaction cycle. You could say it is a path, others have said it is a shift in perception.

The fact that as we sleep the world continues to turn and act around us poses an interesting question, Jean Klein says that the world is continually recreated every moment by the cosmic awareness which we are all part of, in the way that a wave thinks its a wave but it is also water and part of the ocean.

Looking at the mind from a step removed, we are no longer as directly involved in the world. I recall Nisargadatta once saying that the operation of his body and mind were to him the same as the liver purifying the blood or the digestion processing food.

hmm.
From one meditative perspective, "not being the mind " is predicated on some understanding & experience of the fundamental difference between natural thought and deliberate thought.
Here "not being the mind" simply describes a mind whose primary operating agenda is to be less habitually attachment bound to any phenomena that it encounters.
It's not so much an organic definition as it is a path.

This question is good.
Its answer is like looking for the true origin of a stream where every conclusion is preceded by the next until we see that its water itself that defines it. The stream is just a momentary expression of water's movement and that water in itself is an endless loop where its true start is indistinguishable from its ending.
Or from another perspective, it's like a momentary wavelet on an inexpressibly vast ocean asking who it is. Karma, ignorance, slightly saddened love, a bubble in a stream, a phantasm, a dream?

Traditionally, a study of Dependent Origination is one of the best companion teachings that Buddhism offers in how to relate to the answer.