When the Buddha analyzed the causes for stress, there’s no place where he says someone does something. Simply he says, “There is this action, and then from that there is that action. When there’s this action, then there’s that action…”

"When the Buddha analyzed the causes for stress, there’s no place where he says someone does something. Simply he says, “There is this action, and then from that there is that action. When there’s this action, then there’s that action…” If the actions are done in ignorance, there’s going to be stress and suffering; if they’re done with knowledge, they can become part of the path away from suffering.

So you want to focus on the actions of the mind — this is why we get the mind really quiet: not to find out who we are, but to see exactly what actions are happening in the mind, which ones are causing stress, and which ones are helping put an end to it.

When we focus on the actions, we’re not saying there’s nobody there, we’re just saying that that issue is irrelevant right now. It’s like when you talk to a physicist, and the physicist describes the atoms in a rock. He doesn’t say whether the rock is sandstone or granite or limestone. He’s more interested in the electrons and the protons in the atoms. When he doesn’t talk about limestone or sandstone, that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as limestone or sandstone. It’s just that for the time being — if you’re looking just at the atoms — the type of rock it is, how it got formed: Those things are all irrelevant.

You’re trying to focus on the problem that you’re interested in solving, so don’t let yourself get distracted by other problems that can get in the way. Learn to treat that question of who you are as a problem that gets in the way, and instead look at the question of, “What am I doing to identify with things?” — because identification is a form of clinging, and clinging, as we know, is part of the definition of suffering and stress. So if you have any sense of you inside that’s just purely clinging and is not helpful in any other way, then you let it go."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ask the Right Questions"

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