MEDITATION: "Breezes in an Endless Sky"

As I was walking along the edge of the pond early this morning, thinking over some ideas from my spiritual reading, I realized something important: There is no “me” who makes thoughts. It was an important insight for me, because for my entire life I have assumed, kind of mindlessly, that a separate, physical entity (I usually thought of it as my “brain”) spends its time creating my thoughts. I guess I pictured thought-making as a three-part process involving “me”, my brain, and the thoughts. It’s an assumption that I have carried along with me through the years, without ever carefully examining it to see if it made sense. Well, this morning I realized that it doesn’t. I saw that when a thought arises, it just arises. There’s no separate “me” that makes the thought, because that “me” is, in reality, just another thought. As hard as I try to pinpoint and identify a separate, thought-making entity called “me”, all I ever find is another thought. What this leads me to conclude is that all of reality is simply the continuous unfolding of thoughts. I can’t even call them “my” thoughts, because that would imply that a distinct, isolated, physical entity made them, and I know that entity doesn’t exist. All that exists is thoughts. This universe is nothing else than an infinite thought-making machine. To use an analogy, the universe is like a never-ending sky (no bottom, top, or sides), and all people, events, and “things” are breezes harmoniously moving in this sky – thoughts unfurling in an infinite Mind (some people call it “God”). No breeze makes itself, and no person makes thoughts. Thoughts just arise, and therefore they are not to be “owned”, but simply enjoyed.