The mind departed, and having been absent for a year, it came back and said: 'How have you been able to live without me?' They replied: 'Like fools, not knowing with their mind, but breathing with the breath, seeing with the eye, hearing with the ear, generating with seed. Thus we have lived.' Then the mind entered in.

In plain words: Then the mind left for a year. The others lived on like foolish people who do not understand, but still breathing, seeing and hearing. So the mind came back in.