Say you find yourself doing nothing. You are not working, not interested in anything, no career, no plans. You feel uncomfortable about this, try different things, try to remedy the situation, studying, learning skills, getting work, but you always return to a deeper sense of boredom. You think about this, logically, sensibly, psychologically, philosophically, but you can not find an answer. It is like you are just filling in time. Every idea is another time filler, treading water. You are bothered by this situation, because nothing seems to change the situation. People say that if you did something about it there would not be any problem. People say just get up off your bottom and do something. But what? They are saying being active will lead to something. You have tried this many times and it is an aimless, unsatisfactory, even dangerous, wandering, searching.

You wonder why you think such and such, why you do such and such. There are no satisfactory answers. You see you are not really so clever, so smart. You wonder what is your weakness. It is obvious there is a deeper underlying matter to consider. Is there a flaw in your own thinking? So you begin questioning yourself. You look at the ideas, thoughts, that keep crossing your mind. What is it that you habitually think, and what do these mean? Are the usual ideas about what to do, about living, working, sport, hobbies, families, business, society, are they helping you? It is very complex. All these relationships, and what to do is a matter of responsibility. So what is your responsibility, you ask yourself? Do you actually want to do something?

After all that mulling over suggestions, advice, all that wandering, that turmoil and conflict, you are able to find a question which in your own mind is at the core of the matter. It isn't that it is a difficult or strange question, it is that for so long and in so many other ways you have been distracted, mislead, dissuaded from such a direct question. Although it is not ambitious, clever, decidedly clear, this kind of thinking is much more interesting and fruitful. While it doesn't effect an immediate answer in the sense someone might expect in the normal course of affairs, in discussion, with a friend, counselor, social administrator, or the like, and would not satisfy normal expectations, it is, for you, within yourself, very direct and immediate. Now looking at the question on your own terms, you are struck by the sense of irresponsibility- "Do you want to do something?" What is the response to this question? Not the standard reflection on this matter, which we have seen as confused, but the actual direct response to the question in your own mind, without any distraction.

The standard response is when we identify poor learners, students who have problems with literacy, or unmotivated workers. We get people, experts, from the education system, some professional, to help them. So having found people who can not operate within the system, we attach system specialists to educate them further how to fit in. There is a complete inability to recognise failure, but merely to ascribe blame, even though we say no, that's not true, we are helping them. Our ordinary perceptions are all about belief, and belief requires that we follow the prescriptions. That kind of learning, the acquisition of knowledge and its reiteration, is what the education system is doing.

We know there is the standard complex response which is about ordinary perceptions. Go to any meeting and see for your self. Looking at the question directly, responsibly, the question that comes to mind is; What is doing? You see responsibly, the mind wants a true answer. It is seriously inquiring, and without any preconceived idea, conclusion, is really dealing with this matter. So while asking a question which ordinarily implies you are still to do, fulfill, what is required of you to be responsible, you see that your inquiry reveals an inherent responsibility, albeit in conflict with the first impression we all have. It is not a question based on belief, questioning just for the deception, manipulation. It is an intelligent question.

You also see, actually see as a fact, not just abstractly, that you tend to worry, analyse, reflect, on the thoughts occupying your mind. That is you see the usual habit is to join in with the thoughts, as it were, and look for meaning and understanding within those words. From the meaning and understanding of those words a plan of action is developed and when it's corresponding ideal has been reached it is considered an achievement. You see a common, unanswered, unresolved, complexity and confusion, which passes for respectability, civilisation. Watching the activity of the mind, and importantly, seeing your compulsion to conform with thought, you see, directly for your self, what is unease, dissatisfaction, conflict. Because you are attempting to live according to thought, which is always active, never settled, there can never be ease, satisfaction or peace.

Thought which is in the mind, is not any thing real, but builds an internal illusionary reality. Thinking is in effect the deep response to the division between the internal and the external. This movement of thought between the separate impressions of inner and the outer, is what separates them. We think action will cross this division and end the separation. There is a time gap between the beginning thought, the idea, and the result, the ideal, achievement. The idea and ideal, always separate, and thought unable to actually be in the real, is always restless, never resolved, bringing tension and conflict. Even though you are thinking there is something you need to do, something you should do, something to fix your dissatisfaction, unease, the root separation and its conflict, is really within thought.
It is an internal conflict, not external, like the public opinion, social behaviour, you worry about. Listening to these thoughts with attention, where the listening is the action, without having to act out the thoughts, there is a change in perception. Quietly, sitting, watching, listening, there is no division, inner, outer. It is not a matter of any thought, or, action, but being completely here and now, free. Free because there is no longer any separate parts falsely having to act, unite. Now, perhaps only temporarily, the watching is what you are doing. To change this temporary situation completely, we need to look at the cause of thought, and that's another question.

The thinking being is concerned with thought, to communicate, to study and teach. They are thinking about the thoughts in their head, and all of that they acquire through education, upbringing and knowledge. They don't see that they are carrying out the values, the habits, the customs, the beliefs, like a machine. They believe that all of this data, information, ideas, knowledge, intelligence, is working progressively to a satisfactory result. Their very sense of right, correct, true, possibility, and even time, is bound up in all of that which is called consciousness. They think that all of the imperfections, ambiguities, doubt, uncertainty are mental dilemmas to be processed.