WHO is thinking?

Something is going on - I know thoughts, I see a body, it appears that I am separate from this chair, that wall, those other "people."

What is a thought? What is a "body"? If you drop the label, what is it? If you don't use thoughts, memories, concepts, and just look, what is anything?

It certainly appears that the world goes on, the body moves about, living a "life story". I grew up here, got this job, lived in this house... I drive this car, am friends with Joe... But don't we have to use thoughts to remember that job, that house, any of the life story? Isn't the past just a thought known NOW? Isn't the sense of continuity just appearances strung together in memory? Doesn't that memory/thought only arise NOW?

Can you see that these are all thoughts? If you don't use thoughts, what is really going on? The only way to give an answer is to try to apply a label, to use words and thoughts.

Prior to these thoughts, just THIS RIGHT NOW is the reality. Anything can arise within this appearance, but it is only when we engage thoughts that we flavor this appearance, identify with it... Any problem that comes along can only be a problem in thought. Even the past and future arise in thoughts, seem to pull us back to the "past" or forward into imagination or anxiety.

It appears that a body-mind goes about living a life story. But in reality there is just a "life" being "lived" by no one. There is no one actually IN that body - no separate entity abiding there.

Life goes on, the world turns, events pass by constantly. But to WHOM does any of this apply? And if there is no YOU in that body, what is KNOWING this story? What is watching it all come and go?

Can you answer without using thoughts? Do you need thoughts to exist? If thoughts don't arise, are you still aware?

Thoughts are not the problem - they will go on. What apparently happens is seeing how the belief in thoughts, the seeing the false for the real, puts us under a spell, a dream. The dream won't stop, only the false identification, knowing the workings of thought. This is why it is said "wake up within the dream."