I believe the author's point is not that you can't have thoughts (how can you not?), but that they're not identical with identity, and that awareness is more fu

I believe the author's point is not that you can't have thoughts (how can you not?), but that they're not identical with identity, and that awareness is more fundamental to identity, a great insight of Eastern philosophy. I have wondered if Socrates had this insight. Judging from Plato and Xenophon's writings about him he may have not had such a clear view of it, but he does speak of his bodily feelings as being separate from himself (e.g. in Plato's Phaedo, while sitting in prison he remarks that if it was up to his legs he would be in earnest flight from Athens.) I think the author is pretty close to the truth of things; however, things like anger and "addiction to thinking" are not so easily overcome (at least in my experience), but awareness of them seems like a necessary first step.