The Removal of Distracting Thought. You’re sitting there on the cushion, and suddenly you have this really strong, disturbing thought. From the Buddha’s perspective, a disturbing thought is any thought that leads to harm to yourself or to others. It might be characterized by craving or hatred. Having that thought, and paying a lot of attention to it, compels you to act in a harmful way. But the Buddha offers a few methods for confronting that thought before it turns into action.

If you have a difficult thought, you can “replace” it by thinking a positive thought or considering a positive quality, such as friendliness or compassion. Turn the attention that wants to go to the difficult thought into thought about friendliness, and bring a sense of friendliness to your experience, in order to change the “tone” of the difficult thought

Via Reese Jones