Expert: Alex Wilding - 12/3/2008

Question
QUESTION: Is thought a product of mind or is thought outside of mind?

ANSWER: Mind cannot be tied down. What, after all, does your mind look like? Where is it located? What is its colour? What is its shape?

Thought is the movement of mind. It is also impossible to get hold of a thought. How long does a thought last? Where does it happen? How many inches thick is it? How fast does it move?

It is a practice often recommended in Buddhism to stay with and work on questions like these, even though they have not answer, until we truly "get" the fact that they have no answers.

I'm not at all sure, either, what "thought outside mind" could mean.

So in short, thought can not be separated from mind.

I hope that helps!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, Alex!

>>I'm not at all sure, either, what "thought outside mind" could mean<<

What is the origin of thought on what is it dependent?  One can 'will' one's self to think on a particular subject and the process once begun, from whence does the train of succeding thoughts  emerge?

Other times, thought arises independent of will.  One might conclude that thought is engendered by sight, sense, smell, etc, but on what are these stimuli impacting?  Mind? True. But what colors, flavors the experience, the direction of what follows? Is there an entity (mind) to be impacted or does the impacting create the mind that was not there before?

Are thoughts just out there as some surmise like radio waves to a raidio, and our mind being the radio?- This I doubt.

What say you?


John


Answer
Dear John,
You say "What is the origin of thought ..."
These are good questions to sit with and practice. I don't know that discursive explanations are valuable; perhaps they are not even possible.

You also say: "Are thoughts just out there as some surmise like radio waves to a raidio, and our mind being the radio?- This I doubt."
I doubt it too, partly because I can't make sense of it. What is a thought when it is not being thought by some mind?
How could we detect thoughts without minds to think them? If there is an answer to that question, we might move forward, but as it is it seems like sheer speculation.

All the best
Alex W