It's thoughts, just thoughts. May be good. Often good but still thoughts, just thoughts:
I find it helpful to realize that my hopes, dreams and fears are thoughts, thoughts I had, thoughts I constructed, thoughts that I can concentrate on, accept, edit or discard. They are like writing in a word processing document on a modern computer: a series of marks that can easily be changed.
It was probably in our visit to the Sheboygan art museum that we bought our Buddha board. It is just a little board of some material that holds an image when painted in pure water for a few minutes. That is long enough to see what was drawn or written but in a few more minutes, the water dries completely, leaving no sign. Just like our minds.
Sure, we can decide to concentrate, to hold on to that thought of getting the car washed or buying a backup hard disk. But regardless of our efforts, it won't be long before something new is on the agenda of the mind. Much like politics and the news generally, new events, new slants are always rolling in.
Won't too much concentration on the transitory nature of our thoughts, our lives even, bring on despair? We are such tiny specks in the large universe, we are here for so short a time, our fortunes and memories are so quickly and easily forgotten, after all. But that leads back to the fact that it is all just thoughts. As Dr. Slygh advised years ago,"think in different terms."
What different terms? You can start with the senses. What do you see, yes, right in front of you? What do you see out of the window? How about your other windows? When you look at the list of files on your hard disk, what do you see? When you look through your photos, what do you see? When you look through your clothes, what do you see?
By the time you give your attention to sights, sounds, smell and touch, you will have different ideas and thoughts. Again, just thoughts but they may be fun or valuable or promising.
If you want to keep roving through yourself, a good next focus is feelings. Sitting alone and unbothered, what are you feeling right now? If you stay still and alert, you can feel more separate feelings rolling through yourself in five minutes than you can adequately describe in 15 minutes. Similarly, you can watch the themes that pop into your mind: adventures you relive, goals you picture achieving.
Like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together, you can sometimes assemble thoughts into a satisfying mosaic.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
