Zen practitioners, people who keep an eye on themselves, realize that thoughts, pains, fears are temporary. So are joys, delights and pleasures.
Lynn pictured the presence of thoughts, flying unseen through the air, smacking into our brains by accident. So, if you are suddenly taken with an unusual urge for cashews, it might be a strange thought that has flown into your brain.
If you and your pastor have the same idea, it might not be that you both collided with the same thought. It might be that similar times, locations, conversations during coffee hour and such created similar thought invitations for you both. Arthur Koestler’s “Roots of Coincidence” describes people in a large dining hall, each drawing what comes to mind. It was found that sections of the room tended to produce the similar drawings even though everything was conducted in silence. You and your drawing neighbor might have seen the same horror show or romance last night or just heard the same sound.
Most of the time, we don’t halt thoughts at the door and denounce them as unfit for entry into our minds. We do sometimes feel a dream has come to mind that is very unlike our usual thoughts. But mostly, when that happens, we shrug it off as a function of dreams: to take us to places we don’t usually go and give us roles we don’t usually have.
At least in my culture and family, I don’t drink from your glass. If I knew that a flying thought was yours and not meant for me, I might cast it aside or return it to you. Still, since I am very curious about your life and feelings, I might delight in slipping some of your ideas into my head, if doing so didn’t hurt, of course.
I actually don’t find myself thinking that much. I mean figuring, wrestling with a problem to solve. It seems that much of the time, I am off in a meadow gazing or waiting for a plane gazing or savoring my role as prime minister of Fiji. It is definitely possible that I already spend a lot of time working with your pictures and don’t even know it. Sort of like a bird that has an egg in its nest from another mom, feeding and nurturing a strange kid. If you have been slipping me your images, stop it.
