And the quality of our thoughts depends on mindfully acknowledging them as mental formations that arise according to their own conditions and causes. If the meditator sits with this long enough and mindfully enough, eventually s/he sees how impersonal a process this all is. It’s not about controlling thoughts but observing them as they flow past. If we do not cling to a mental formation, we give it no energy or power. As we become more skillful, we rest more often in the happiness of contentment with the ebb and flow of our experience.