Thinking is indispensable to us
It is essential for belief formation, planning, explicit learning
Moral reasoning, and many other capacities that make us human
Thinking is the basis of every social relationship we have
It is also the foundation of science
But our habitual identification with thought
That is, our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts
As appearances in consciousness, is a primary source of human suffering
See if you can stop thinking for the next sixty seconds
You can notice your breath, or listen to sounds
But do not let your attention be carried away by thought, any thought
Even for an instant
It takes a certain degree of concentration
To even notice how distracted you are
Even if your life depended on it
You could not spend a full minute free of thought
This is a remarkable fact about the human mind
The question is: what should we make of this fact?