DIRECTED ATTENTION

Your mind follows your attention. Wherever you direct
your attention, there will your thoughts go too. By directing
attention to a specific place or purpose you *focus* mental
energy upon it.
For example: you're having lunch in a cafeteria
crowded with people. It is a large place, and everyone there
is talking at once, so that the room is a constant jumble of
noise. You happen to notice a man accross the room; he
reminds you of someone. All at once he drops his fork and you
hear it hit the table. But would you have noticed the sound
of his fork if you had not been looking? No. Only by focusingyour attention there were you able to pick out that
individual event and associated sound.
It is a dark night. You are walking and the only
light you have is from the flashlight you hold in your hand.
As you move the flashlight around, the beam of light from it
directs your attention first one way then another. Now, the
mind is something like that flashlight in the dark. And by
directed attention, you point the mind to one place or
another. As with that flashlight beam, you see where the mind
is pointed; nothing more. The rest is 'noise'. And so we
could define mental noise as anything not focused upon. In
another way, noise could be considered as negative emotions,
attitudes, and thoughts which make it more difficult to
direct the attention.
Your emotions follow your thoughts quite easily. Your
emotions are not YOU, but are rather reactions prompted by
your model and ego -- like a performance or an act, while
the real you watches. In a similar way, directing your
attention toward a specific emotion will cause you to
experience that emotion.