Thoughts on Thoughts

The experience of prayer or meditation can be likened to sitting beside a river. We watch our thoughts as though they are rafts coming into the river of our awareness or sight and then passing out of it, and carrying on down the river. Once in awhile (or perhaps every few moments!) we tend to become fascinated by one in particular, hop aboard, and find ourselves way downstream. Father Thomas Keating talks about how thoughts arise during prayer and how to approach them such that we are neither disturbed nor consumed by them.