How does the brain decide "what" thought to attach to a feeling?

A feeling (an emotion) is a body sensation swiftly followed by a thought. So swiftly that, without practice, they seem to come at the same time. In fact, without practice, it’s hard to see that’s what they are. We just call them “sadness,” “joy,” “anger,” and so on.

The thought seems to be the mind’s attempt to interpret the body sensation. “Oh, there are tears running down my cheeks. I must be sad …”

I’m really confused as to why “what” is in quotes, so it’s possible I misunderstand the question.

We now told, by Senator Grassley, that on the FBI form about the Biden bribery story, there is a Burisma exec who says he has 17 tapes of his deal with the Biden. 15 of Hunter and 2 of Joe Biden? What would this do to Hunter/Joe Biden if released?

We don’t yet have an answer from neuroscience. The best I can do is give you an anecdotal answer based on my years of meditative introspection. (I meditate for two hours every day.) For what it’s worth, I’ve heard many other longterm meditators give similar answers.

When thoughts aren’t reflections of sensations (e.g. a thought about you’ve felt in your body, seen, heard, or imagined feeling, seeing, or hearing), they are reflections on other thoughts. We often have long chains of thoughts about thoughts about thoughts about thoughts… An example might be “… and the reason I’m sad is …”