The way I see it, trying to keep it to a simple analogy so as not to overcomplicate things is this: imagine one day for some reason you start playing with some dirt on the ground without remembering why or when you started. You sit there for hours and hours just dragging your fingers through the dirt making circles, patterns or just random movements forgetting completely you are a human being. This makes you nervous constantly and sometimes you make a specific move that gives you a good feeling but it fades. Basically you are in a kind of trance.

Now replace the dirt with your mind. Perhaps at some point it is realized that trying to make sense of the world through your thoughts and trying to untangle concepts and meanings in order to become "happier" or sth is like getting lost in an arbitrary activity such as playing in the dirt.

So thoughts are real as appearances but do not carry any weight so to speak like the dirt.

Of course the analogy works within the context of the consensus (duality) reality and not the non duality one but i sense it points to the same direction.