When people begin to meditate, they often say that their thoughts are running riot, and have become wilder than ever before.  But I reassure them and say that this is a good sign.  Far from meaning that your thoughts have become wilder, it shows that you have become quieter, and you are finally aware of just how noisy your thoughts have always been.  Don’t be disheartened or give up.  Whatever arises, just keep being present, keep returning to the breath, even in the midst of all the confusion.
            In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that at the beginning thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep waterfall.  Gradually, as you prefect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge, then a river slowly winding its way down to the sea, and finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.
            Sometimes people think that when they meditate there should be no thoughts and emotions at all; and when thoughts and emotions do arise, they become annoyed and exasperated with themselves and think that they have failed.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is a Tibetan saying: ‘It’s a tall order to ask for meat without bones, and tea without leaves.”  So long as you have a mind, there will be thoughts and emotions.

Just as the ocean has waves, or the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.  The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them.  The waves are the very nature of the ocean.   Waves will rise, but where do they go?  Back into the ocean.  And where do waves come from? The ocean.  In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind.  They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind.  Whatever arises, do not see it as a particular problem.  If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature. 

From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche