The Mind as Self
SN 12.61 Assutava Sutta: Uninstructed
An uninstructed wordling might become dispassionate towards the body because he sees its impermanence, but he can’t do so towards the mind because he holds that ’this is mine, this I am, this is myself’. It would be better for him to take this body as self rather than the mind because the body is seen standing for many years but the mind arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey roaming through the forest grabs one branch, lets it go and grabs another, lets that go and grabs still another.
The instructed noble disciple attends closely to dependent origination thus:
“When this exists, that comes to be.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this does not exist, that does not come to be.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.”