Mining is basically using computers to verify transactions on the network of the coin that you are mining. Whoever verifies the transaction gets the block reward of that coin. Bitcoin for example, rewards 12.5 Bitcoins to miners every ten minutes. Mining is very profitable if you mine the right coins. I mine Bitcoin, Litcoin, Zcash, and Steem. I make about 50 dollars a day between the 3. I get 40 a day in Bitcoin and about 10 a day between the otber 2. It is fun and rewarding. I do have about 6000 dollars invested into mining but it pays itself off in 4-6 months. I hope this helped you understand a little more about the mining process.