“Monkey Mind” is a Buddhist term, referring to the restless and unsettled nature of your mind. The chattering mouthpiece of your ego; your inner critic. Stifling your creativity and suggesting that your passions are a waste of time. The monkey is like a self centered, whining child; nearly impossible to ignore.
“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” ― Roy T. Bennett
Before you can theorize about the monkey, you need to establish the monkey is not you, the monkey belongs to the mind, the mind is not you either, if it were, how could you talk about it? The mind is one of your most powerful allies for navigating the jungle, but it can imprison you as quickly as it can get you out of a jam.
Theory #1
What if the monkey’s an early warning device. Showing up when you stray from your path and get off course in the jungle. When you’re centered on the path towards your destiny, there’s no monkey to be seen or heard – just beauty. Beauty before you, beauty beside you, beauty behind you. The monkey shows up only when you lose your way, letting you know when you’ve strayed too far from your destiny.
So, you need to understand what the monkey’s saying. The first step is to recognize, the monkey is just a voice and those aren’t necessarily your thoughts. If you take ownership of them, they can mislead you and steer you away from your path. The thoughts are just there in the jungle, we all share them. Some more prevalent than others but they’re still only thoughts.
“Mindfulness is the difficult art of simply replacing thinking with experiencing.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
There are no coincidences; the events in your life will lead you to your destiny if you’re awake enough to witness them. The monkey stays busy with it’s monkey business, which can help guide your journey or get you hopelessly lost in the jungle, depending on how you interpret the dialogue. The farther you stray from your destiny, the louder the monkey shrieks, until it becomes an unbearable demonic howling. That’s one theory.
Theory #2
What if the monkey is your minds interface to the collective dream of society. All the different beliefs and thoughts out there in the jungle; everyone’s monkey, swinging wildly through the trees in a primal dance, from thought to thought. Going back again and again to that persistent thought that keeps arising. As thoughts and beliefs gain a wider following in the societal jungle, they gain more energy and draw more monkeys. Beliefs like “I’m not good enough,” or “I deserve this life,” become more prevalent and your monkey can’t help but grab that branch frequently.
When a thought arises persistently, there’s something to be learned. Ideas and thoughts are quite different. Ideas can be acted upon, while thoughts are more illusory. Just look at the methods used by mainstream and social media to disseminate toxic beliefs and thoughts. Bombarding you persistently with the same message over and over. Pretty soon you start believing that it’s true, you start taking ownership, you identify with it. That’s another theory.
Man’s Best Friend
What about the concept of training the monkey. I’ve trained a few dogs over the years and it was never simple. I remember bringing Max home when he was a couple months old. The cutest little fur ball I’d ever seen. Max is a French Brittany, the smallest and closest working of the pointing breeds. I had visions of a well heeled pointing dog, hard on point, of a High Plains Rooster.
Focused and intent, like a statue. I ease in, the rooster flushes, I make the perfect shot. The rooster crashes to the ground, Max, still holding, he looks at me telepathically and asks if I want him to go retrieve the prize. I nod affirmative and Max happily races to retrieve the pheasant and brings it to hand.
Max is bred for birds, there is no doubt about that and part of that breeding includes 60 lbs. of solid muscle, along with a desire and will that are even stronger. If only training a hunting dog went according to visions but that’s not how it works. It’s hard, repetitive work. Most dogs of his type are incredibly intelligent and have a single-minded focus.
“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” – Orhan Pamuk
If you’re not diligent, consistent and completely focused on the outcome, before you know it the dog has turned the tables on you. Securing the softest location on the bed, the couch and even the favorite recliner. They know the exact pitch of whine to use when conning you out of that last piece of pizza crust. As often as not the dog ends up training you. Dogs have also been domesticated for 1000’s of years.
Monkey Whisperer
Monkeys are different. I remember a couple that were kept as pets from my youth. My piano teacher had one in a cage, I think she kept it to lure children to piano practice. It was a mean little bastard though and I didn’t dare put fingers anywhere close to the cage and his snarling, little monkey mouth. A customer on my paper route had one and he would sit out in his backyard and drink beer with it. I’d go around to collect fees for the paper on Saturday afternoon and during good weather, the guy, usually his wife and the little monkey would be sitting in the back yard drinking Falstaff. The monkey had his own mini lawn chair.
One time the little monkey jumped up from the chair, wrenched the metal hole punch out of my hand that I used to punch customer cards, then took off up a tree. He sat on a branch and laughed at me, spinning the punch with one little monkey hand, while he fondled his genitals with the other. The customer yelled at the monkey for awhile and told him to bring the damn punch back down the tree, but the monkey just laughed at him too, jovially fondling his monkey balls.
The customer tried to lure him down with a can of beer. The monkey gave it some serious consideration but stood his ground. “He likes shiny things,” the customer said. “You can pick it up the next time you come around, he loses interest after awhile.” It was obvious that training a monkey was a non-trivial task. You can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the monkey.
The mind is a great mystery and I’ll probably come up with a few more theories as I journey along my path. I’m fairly positive that I won’t be training my monkey, drinking a beer with him or locking him in a cage. I’ll leave the monkey to his business, roaming the jungle of my mind, swinging through the trees from thought to thought. Guiding me back to the path, when feelings of anger, guilt, envy, sadness, resentment or FEAR show up to misdirect me. The mental image of a chattering little monkey, fondling his shiny object always brings me back to the present moment, where action and adventure prevail, and thoughts evaporate into the jungle mist.
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ― Paulo Coelho
This is not my first journey down Monkey Metaphor lane. Check out “Battling Addiction.” for more Monkey Mayhem.