It is quite Buddhist and I'm fine with that as I navigate toward that path. I'm trying to figure out #1 as I sorta get it in an off way. There is an idea out there floating around that random thoughts can be chemical reactions of brain synapses and we can accept them or reject them. What we have control over is the acceptance or rejection. I know that sometimes something pops into my head and I wonder where it came from. I dunno jury out for me on that one.

Highly disagree on 1. I Do author my own thoughts. Who else would be doing it? Do others have sway on the information your thoughts are based on? Yes, but what I do and construct with that information and other information I learn is all me.

2,3 and 4 i can see, but we do not author our thoughts implies that a separate party does, author to my mind meaning an external 'writer'. If i am not in charge of, and the progenitor of my own thoughts, including my reactions to stimuli both internal and external , then who/what is?

Cute.
I recommend setting the phasers on kill.

What authors our thoughts?

I'm surprised by the number here who jumped from we don't author our thoughts to the inference that another must then author them. We are complex creatures and more symbiote than self. Our thoughts, at the lowest level, come from that. They are "authored" by the whole entity and driven by environment. The statement that we don't author our thoughts doesn't imply any more than that.

seems like a larger 'lf' than normal.

The trick is... knowing what we DO control...and what we don't, and figuring out the difference.

honestly, I think the best rule to live by is simply "Don't be a dick; the world does not revolve around you alone"

This reminds me of an old country western song. A young philosopher stumbled into a bar and tried to enlighten a couple of old cowboys with his wisdom and poems. They explained that while he was well intentioned, he was all wrong. The. The path to truth and happiness is "faster horses, older whiskey, younger women and more money"! Lol.

I think you've got a good working concept.

I often think if everyone had a pet, they would be kinder, happier, and less competitive.

I think that the Ego, the I is derivative from the We, without whom no human Ego is possible.

If thoughts arise from desire and our desires arise from what others desire...then yes we don't author own own thoughts, we learn roles from others, parents, teachers, society in general, and we make these desires and thoughts our own (our Super Ego). Our compassion, our guilt, our kindness and humility arise then out of the community where we find our self thrown.

I wonder how much the need to lessen negative reactions makes sense if thoughts arise from the desires which I share with others. It would seem to me that I would be better off experiencing as much as I can on a practical basis (ethically, rationally, aesthetically} so that my choices are informed by direct experience.

Ambiguous...you may have a clear picture of what you have said, but there is too much room for interpretation.

Absolutely. The premise of authoring your thoughts or somehow being responsible for them and hence feeling shame and guilt over the negative ones is one of the most fundamentally wrong things about the cosmology religion foists upon us. It wasn’t until I started studying Buddhism and meditating that I realized that’s not our responsibility and it’s impossible to keep your thoughts entirely pure. Entirely counter productive to try unless you’re completely ok with failing. But a nice poetic metaphor I heard for this was: you can’t be responsible for a bird that lands on your head; you can only keep it from building a nest there.

Maybe I understand #1. As an analogy, I do not author my computer’s “thoughts”. A computer’s internal processes are regulated by programming and by input data. If we have a higher essence outside our bodies, and that higher essence is our true identity, then it makes sense to say that “we” do not author our thoughts, rather they are automatically generated.

#’s 2&3 seem to say that our higher selves do have ultimate control. I do not control the internal processes of my computer, but I do have general control and oversight of what the computer does.

#3 seems very reasonable. It is a mistake to make harsh negative judgments on others, and by proxy, ourselves. If our computer goes off course anger and blame are senseless. There is a reason for everything that happens within a computer. To fix the problem higher oversight is needed, not guilt, blame, or demonization.

the first point seems a bit awkward. I may not understand what you mean

Yes I think so. I tell my children life is about the choices you make and how you choose to react to the random things.

I agree with what most everyone else has posted up to this point, I have a problem with the first point. You have to explain why you think we do not "author" our thoughts...or what exactly you mean by that phrase or statement.

Maybe if it had a qualifier that our thoughts are not "authored" by anyone - showing that there is no creative element to them whatsoever - that they just happen. But to say we don't author them, for me, implies that there is some other author to them. I'm not on board with that concept, and definitely not on board with it being something people live by. People would take it too far, essentially saying they aren't responsible for their own actions, because their thoughts aren't their own. If they aren't their own...whose are they?

As usual with most discussions I imagine the problem will be one of semantics, and the meanings you attach to a word, versus the meaning others attach to it.

All of your points contradict each other. Our reactions are our thoughts. Mindful reflections are also thoughts. What correlation does guilt have with kindness?

I think that my thoughts disagree with most of you have said.....who author that then if it wasn't me? Please enlighten not only me but all of us

I may not author my thoughts, but I have learned to edit the fuck out of them! #lifeskills

What does 'author our thought's even mean?

Are you talking about programmed robots? I love how we are now but it'd be great if we had right flexible laws which could be changed or improved over time and every living human is made aware of laws or is given a assistant for laws. How would one know they are doing wrong without knowing laws? Atleast in this modern age. And I really don't want to memorize the whole book of laws or constitution. And at last it's all about one's own consciousness. What fun it'd be if everything is same?