What makes me think that (whatever I’m thinking)?
SHORT ANSWER:
Nothing.
MEDIUM ANSWER:
Nothing makes me think what I’m thinking. Thoughts just float through on the wind.
LONG ANSWER:
Thoughts don’t belong to me. They flow in and out of mind in all shapes and sizes, all colors.
Then spontaneously, there is belief in a thought (which is just another thought - a thought about a thought), an arbitrary, intentionless tilt toward one thought and away from its opposite. These thoughts, attracted by belief, sort of stick together and support each other, creating a localized swirl of thought-belief that narrows as it swirls. As it narrows it more readily attaches to certain thoughts and dismisses others (instead of dismissing all, which is what happened before belief).
The attachments consolidate into an identity. The identity seems to be separate (when in truth there is no separation). When it consolidates enough to produce the thought and belief, “I am _____ ,” that’s when “life” begins. And that’s when suffering becomes possible. Why suffering? Because it isn’t true. It is a mistaken choosing of “not all” when there is no such thing as “not all.”
There is no separate identity. Only the carving out of an imaginary sliver from a kind, peaceful, perfect whole and thinking this little sliver is all there is. It’s innocent confusion. All is still all. Every “separate thing” is the whole, misunderstood. Its standing in a sea of oneness, missed.
In my narrowed focus I am just a toddler innocently “lost” at an amusement park, standing right next to their mother, terrified because they can’t find the protection, the connection, the belonging that never left, missing that the whole time they are perfectly okay, held, seen, cared for and bathed in love.