There's often a distracting thought or two or ten when I meditate or simply in any day to day activity. In a distant healing session recently, I noticed a thought rise about a current concern that I need to look into soon. A planning thought. But since this was a healing session, I gently brought my attention back to my breath and continued. After a little while another thought rose and captured my attention for a few moments. As soon as I chose to return to my breath, the thought vanished. When the next one rose, I noticed more about the nature of the thought - about any thought. It rose like a balloon, and when I didn't follow my habit of paying attention to it, it floated off. 

I realized that many of the thoughts that floated up were not important. Many were remnants of old worries or complaints that seemed almost like afterimages that hadn't entirely dissipated yet. Some were current concerns. Some were planning thoughts. None would fully form unless I gave them my attention. Like balloons, they look solid, but they're really mostly shape, not substance. Left to their own devices, they'd simply float off if I ignored them. 

That's not always easy. I may want to give a passing thought my attention if is about a juicy bit of information I want to remember to pass on, or an unresolved problem, or a fresh idea that I want to develop. If it's a BIG ISSUE it can be hard to ignore. But mostly it's just a habit to give over my attention to any old passing thought remnant.

In my healing sessions I can't do that. It's in the resting, trusting place between thoughts that new ideas and possibilities arise, that I meet my more essential self, that I see and feel and live. This is where my inner creative self sits. If I am too busy planning and thinking and trying to hold these passing thoughts in my mental energy, or if I don't trust that the right thing will float up at the right time, I may be abandoning who I am for a passing fancy. 

If it's not a passing fancy that floats up, but an idea fragment that I may want to flesh out later on, I'll jot it down on a corner of the paper I use to keep track of the healing session so I can make up my reports later. Then I'll get right back to my breath.

Most rising thoughts are as insubstantial as balloons. By seeing them this way, I may, over time, break the habit of thinking that just because a thought rises, it needs to be well, thought about. I don't have to catch that passing balloon. 

I'm certain another will follow it soon enough.

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