What is the mind? When I put that question, please don't wait for a reply from me. Look at your own mind; observe the ways of your own thought. What I describe is only an indication; it is not the reality.
The reality you must experience for yourself. The word, the description, the symbol, is not the actual thing.
The word door is obviously not the door. The word 'love' is not the feeling, the extraordinary quality that the word indicates. So do not let us confuse the word, the name, the symbol, with the fact.
If you merely remain on the verbal level and discuss what the mind is, you are lost, for then you will never feel the quality of this astonishing thing called the mind.
So, what is the mind? Obviously, the mind is our total awareness or consciousness; it is the total way of our existence, the whole process of our thinking. The mind is the result of the brain.
The brain produces the mind. Without the brain there is no mind, but the mind is separate from the brain. It is the child of the brain. If the brain is limited, damaged, the mind is also damaged. The brain, which records every sensation, every feeling of pleasure or pain, the brain with all its tissues, with all its responses, creates what we call the mind, although the mind is independent of the brain.
You don't have to accept this. You can experiment with it and see for yourself.