Thinking is Impermanent

It is very, very important that we attune to the gaps in our stream of mental activity throughout the day. Try as it might, the mind cannot be thinking all the time, no matter how much uninvestigated momentum is powering it.

There are gaps, even if they are tiny and infrequent. They may happen anywhere and at any time. They are normally not prioritized or even noticed by most people.

But we notice them. We love them.

In the beginning, they often come when our senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste) are fully engaged. Being completely in sensation has a way of naturally stopping thought, not by attempting to suppress it (impossible), but instead by directing attention completely into feeling.

When we get a gap, we have the opportunity to see something fundamental. In that moment, the thinking doesn't exist. There is no trace of it. The mind is gone, gone, gone. The stream of thinking, which we often invest with a sense of self, is totally impermanent.

Yet awareness is there, doing the looking, doing the listening. We don't need the thinking to be ourselves! To enjoy. To savor. See this! See thought as a tool to be picked up and put down, not as a self to be fixed or maintained.