The Great Wave

Contemplating   “The Great Wave”

     As humans we have this dominant river of thought flowing through our minds day and night.  The river almost magically allows us to time travel into the distant past of our childhood or just as easily takes us into the imagined future.  We, basically unknowingly, live in our thoughts of logic and desire and worry and regret.  We don’t even have to try to make this thought world appear, it’s just always there.  What is most important is not trying to stop this river of thought, that’s impossible, the challenge is not allowing our selves to be submerged and carried away from reality.  Over time I have become more and more aware of this great flowing river of thoughts and just how overpowering they can be.  Recently I had an epiphany.  I suddenly had an acute sense that my thoughts are actually far and away greater and more powerful than I had initially assumed.  I realized they are multi-layered, thoughts within thoughts.  Some are huge and vibrant easy to recognize, others are secretive and hidden and only in moments of great clarity do I realize they are there, some are subversive and drag me along almost against my will, others are like a vague gray background ever present.  But these hundreds of different types of thoughts are all running at the same time. I realized thought is not a river but actually more like a bottomless ocean churning up wave after never ending wave with me right in the middle.

     This image is inspired from the famous Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock of “The Great Wave.”  The waves I drew are all made of the word “thoughts” written over and over.  The bottom of the caption rectangle is partly covered by the wave showing that thoughts are more powerful than the conversation.  The tiny boat, invisible at first glance, is even made of thought. However the two people in the boat are not made up of thoughts, indicating that we are more than our thoughts.

1.   What catches your attention about this drawing?

2.   How aware are you of the extent of your thoughts? Have you noticed subversive thoughts?  Hidden thoughts?  Multi-layered thoughts?

3.   If we are not our thoughts then what are we?

4.   So what if we live in our thoughts?  How does this affect us negatively?

5.   What are the positives of living in reality?

6.   How can we avoid being swallowed up by our thoughts?

7.   God is not interested a pretend me. God is interested in the real me.  God does not live in the past or future but in the present.  What are your thoughts on these statements?