A thought arrives, takes a room in your head, and starts charging you rent. Worse, it invites relatives. By evening the whole house is occupied by a single remark somebody made at eleven in the morning.
The mistake is arguing with the tenant. You cannot reason a thought out of the house; reasoning is the door it came in through. What ends the occupation is attention moved elsewhere — to the breath, to the hands, to the task in front of you. Not suppression. Relocation.
Thoughts charge rent for rooms they do not own. A note on tenancy, attention and eviction.
Meditation is simply the practice of doing this on purpose, twice a day, so that by the time a real crisis arrives the skill is already in the muscle. People think they meditate to feel good. They meditate so that they are still usable on the days when nothing feels good.
Try this: the next time a thought loops, do not answer it. Take six slow breaths and count them. The thought will return. Count six more. Somewhere around the fourth round the tenant gets bored and leaves, having found you a dull conversationalist.
