user10950: Can someone please explain to me in clear laymans terms exactly the steps to working with and removing sankharas because I think I have a lot. I have been meditating for 6 years and basically just using the breath as my anchor. When my mind wonders I note thinking thinking or seeing seeing etc then I come back to the breath.  I'm not sure am I meant to do anything else?   I don't really have any strong emotion arise in formal practice. It only happens in my daily life.  To rewire the brain and remove sankharas am I meant to just notice sensation and not react?  So someone cuts in front of me on the road and I feel a strong sensation of anger begin to arise. So I just watch it and know that it's anicca, Dukha , Annatta?  And wait for it to pass?  I must do this with all sensory inputs when I feel triggered?  And then sankharas will be removed eventually?  Is this correct?

user43: You can't really remove sankharas, but you can have them wither and fade, as you build new ones. How? By not feeding them with obsessive thinking. The less you think certain thoughts, the more the corresponding sankharas wither and fade.
Now, not thinking thoughts is not a matter of suppression, that's too hard. A more practical way is to find a different perspective, a different system of interpretation, that will change your focus and your attention away from your typical thoughts and onto completely different thoughts.
This is called meditation with discursive support, when you pick a theme for meditation, like a musician picks a theme for improvisation, and then you play by making mental statements within the new frame of reference you're practicing, and letting free associations flow, then making another statement and so forth.
For example, instead of your typical capitalism theme, you think how many people in fact try to help others in most basic ways, and try to come up with some real examples and then think what could motivate people helping others. Just an example. 

10950: <p>Can someone please explain to me in clear laymans terms exactly the steps to working with and removing sankharas because I think I have a lot. I have been meditating for 6 years and basically just using the breath as my anchor. When my mind wonders I note thinking thinking or seeing seeing etc then I come back to the breath.  I'm not sure am I meant to do anything else?   I don't really have any strong emotion arise in formal practice. It only happens in my daily life.  To rewire the brain and remove sankharas am I meant to just notice sensation and not react?  So someone cuts in front of me on the road and I feel a strong sensation of anger begin to arise. So I just watch it and know that it's anicca, Dukha , Annatta?  And wait for it to pass?  I must do this with all sensory inputs when I feel triggered?  And then sankharas will be removed eventually?  Is this correct?</p>
 43: <p>You can't really remove sankharas, but you can have them wither and fade, as you build new ones. How? By not feeding them with obsessive thinking. The less you think certain thoughts, the more the corresponding sankharas wither and fade.</p>

<p>Now, not thinking thoughts is not a matter of suppression, that's too hard. A more practical way is to find a different perspective, a different system of interpretation, that will change your focus and your attention away from your typical thoughts and onto completely different thoughts.</p>

<p>This is called meditation with discursive support, when you pick a theme for meditation, like a musician picks a theme for improvisation, and then you play by making mental statements within the new frame of reference you're practicing, and letting free associations flow, then making another statement and so forth.</p>

<p>For example, instead of your typical capitalism theme, you think how many people in fact try to help others in most basic ways, and try to come up with some real examples and then think what could motivate people helping others. Just an example. </p>
