the mind is totally unreliable.

By observation, it can be seen that beneath the images and words themselves, there is a driving energy, a desire to think, to keep busy with any input the mind can find to fill in the gaps.
 One can detect a drive to "thinkingness" that is impersonal.

 With observation, one can detect that there is no "I" thinking the thoughts at all.
 In fact, the "I" rarely intervenes.


From: The Eye of the I: From Which Nothing is Hidden (2002), Chapter 7: The Mind, p. 96


--------------------------------
With Additional Context:
--------------------------------


The Buddha said that the true self is glimpsed in the space between thoughts, and yet, there seems to be no cessation in the mind's endless activities. 
If anything, the mind seems to engage in endless frenetic activity as though it dreaded a moment of silence more than anything else. 
Does it fear that silence will mean its end has come? 
It seems to pin its hope of survival on non-stop chatter.
 It will, in fact, quickly fill in any possibility of silence with nonsense rhymes or senseless sound bytes; it will start chanting "cha-cha-cha" or "itty-bitty-boo" or "bee-bop-a-boo"—anything rather than silence. 

What in the world is going on with the mind?


Motive


►By observation it can be seen that beneath the images and words themselves, there is a driving energy, a desire to think, to mentate, to keep busy with any input the mind can find to fill in the gaps. One can detect a drive to 'thinkingness', which is impersonal. With observation, one can detect that there is no 'I' thinking the thoughts at all. In fact, the 'I' rarely intervenes.◄ The real 'I' has trouble even getting in a few sensible words or thoughts. When it is capable of this, we call this intervention 'concentration’; but it takes effort and energy to push aside the babble and distractions to be able to organize a sequence of logical thoughts.


The first part of such a process is to focus on the desired subject and limit the stream of content to the topic chosen for contemplation. 

Psychologists here surmise that the stream of thought is determined by instinctual drives, or that the content of thought is organized according to associations and conditioning. 

All the theorizing about the nature of thoughts surmise that there is an inner 'thinker', an invisible homunculus who sits in charge of this ongoing, multifactoral set of processes called mentation.


Computers study these phenomena and hope to come up with artificial intelligence programs.
 However, at best, these merely imitate certain limited logic processes. 
The multifaceted, complex processes of the total mind are nonlinear and unable to be encompassed within the Newtonian paradigm to be suitable for computerization. 

Its primary content is best described as seemingly random or chaotic, with interspersed runs of logic, reason, or intelligence which just as quickly fade back into the noise of endless chatter again.


The periods of intelligent logic sequences seem to appear chaotically. 
Like reveries, fantasies, or daydreams, the mind just as randomly selects short periods of reality-focused, sequential processing. 
Intuitive leaps occur with no warning.

 Just as likely are periods of thought blocking, lapses, forgettings, and various fragments lost in an endless maze.


One thing is obvious—the mind is totally unreliable.
 It cannot really be depended upon at all. It is not able to be consistent, and its performance is sporadic as well as erratic.


From: The Eye of the I: From Which Nothing is Hidden (2002), Chapter 7: The Mind, pp. 96–97