Sorry, misunderstood the question. Thoughts happen naturally but the separate "self" illusion appears from identification with thoughts.

Labels and memories and ideas and feelings all tangled up. Identifying with identification, mind gone crazy labeling and associating labels.

A loop labeled "you".

Identification is a function of mind. Identification with thought is identification with mind. Thoughts identifying with thoughts identifying with thoughts and on and on.

That cycle or process is the mirage of separate self.

"1. Where do thoughts come from?"

Thoughts come from clinging to experience.

"2. Is ”I” ever more than a thought?"

No. "I" is just the idea of the experience through a person.

"3. What is the biggest block to seeing “this”?"

Habitual thinking and identifying thought as "me".

"4. If you were a ...

Thinking leads to more thinking and nothing is really gained. Nothing at all. Clarity and peace of mind is lost. Confusion sets in, despair soon follows.

In stillness, there is clarity. In simplicity, there is peace. It is like a reflection in water: disturb the water and the reflection appears ...

There's an inner stillness.

Relinquish claims of "I" and "mine".

There are still occasional rudimentary "self" thoughts arising, beginnings of attachment observed as they occur.

That was written from sincere belief in an "I" that would be fundamentally changed, transformed by some secret knowledge into a newer better "I". There was a belief that without that "I", there could be no existence, that awareness required a person with all their baggage. The cart was in front of ...

No problem.

There is less intense mental noise.

A linking & referencing activity run amok, superimposed onto awareness.

Before seeing, there seemed to be a self who thought. During seeing, self is seen to also be a thought. After seeing, thought is just thought.

Awareness precedes thought. If thought is the basis for all forms of identification, then the self always arises dependent on awareness. Awareness is the absolute context in which relative self appears.

Thought is just thought. How can you own a thought? Who is owning it?

Thought fosters identity, yet is empty of self. Naming until the names seem like a world all their own. Those judgments and attachments are ephemeral, claiming and claiming endlessly, weaving a story and luring attention until ...

The thoughts are empty of self.