At some moments I prefer to be still. As such I will probably stop updating these pages as soon as this page is complete, since a job interview needs my undivided attention this afternoon. My preferred visualisation for meditation is to see myself as a world of mostly water, held together by gravity. As such, thoughts that occur are merely droplets of water, attracted to my surface.
The way to achieve inner stillness in such a system is by imagining the sphere of water as a perfectly still pond, with no ripples on the surface whatsoever. Then, inner world and outer world are completely in balance, and your inner world will settle down quite nicely.
Likewise, you can visualize easily that the effect of thoughts arriving will be mostly as ripples on the surface of your being, where the form beautiful Moiree patterns as they arrive. But if you immediately react and make your own thoughts and actions to go out, perception of the incoming thoughts is usually suppressed. This is similar to how you will have trouble hearing others while you yourself are talking.