That is a 'no thinking mind'. That is a very ordinary and natural state of mind, without identity of I, me, mine. Like you are sitting in front of PC, opening the mail box, reading my mail, and you hear the sounds around, you purely know that sound, perhaps of typing, woman voice, man voice, somebody's voice, a baby crying, the awareness is there, embracing everything, knowing everything, as it is, at this present moment. Just a sense of natural ease.
It is only when you switch this "Buddha mind" to delusion mind (grasping of I, me, mine), then all the suffering arises. I read a good simile of a man with a drinking habit, always he will drink, until one day he got really sick and he has to give up this habit for the sake of his life. Since then, on the occassions when wine is served in front of him, he will still have the thought of wanting to drink, but he will just leave it ( letting go the thought without grasping, as he know the result will be suffering, and the thought itself is anatta). So, he remains a healthy man though he is still having the thought of wanting to drink.
So, just abide in the awareness, this "Buddha mind", then you will not involve (I, me, mine) in the thought (understand it just the result of kamma). No need to deliberately push it away or stop it. The nature of it, is to arise due to conditions, stay temporarily and vanish. Just see it with the natural feeling. No need to identify. The Knots Untied
Let me give a simple illustration. [Pls Puts on a shoe with the laces tied tight ] This is the 'self'. It's out of place here in the meditation hall, isn't it? All of you are naturally barefoot. No need for shoes in here. "I am the only one" parading around with a 'self'. What do we do when the shoe starts to hurt, when this self-complex becomes aware of its dis-ease? Often we grab one end of the knot and pull it even tighter: "My damn boss is the problem!" or "If I wasn't stuck in this stupid job...." We might then pull the other end — making the knot tighter again: "Oh, it's all my fault. I'm no good. I never do anything right." Now the knot is very tight. It really hurts. What is freedom? This: [Unties shoelace by gently pulling apart both strings at once] It's as simple as that. Then we actually know for ourselves because the painful tightness is gone. Now we can hold up the two ends of the shoelace and see that the whole painful complex was only the knotting up of those conditions. No more, no less.
Be careful here. Don't fall into thinking that the "self" is absolutely evil and must be smashed to pieces. That itself is just another delusion. Buddhism does not say that. When you and I leave the meditation hall, we naturally put on our own footwear. Not somebody else's. In that respect, we all have a sense of "self". [There is a process which when seen together forms a unique charactor or personality BUT not a concrete unchanging Being or Self]. There's nothing wrong with that. The shoe comes in handy sometimes when we go outside. But we don't identify ourselves as that. We freely wear it, and freely take it off. [I do not know about you but it is clear that we need to wear a shoe when the occasion demands BUT the shoe is certainly NOT us! ]
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