If you practice in a meditation community for any period of time, it will not be long before you hear a reference to the monkey mind. The monkey mind is a concept used to describe how the mind behaves, which is typically pretty erratic. It jumps from one thought branch to another thought branch, endlessly moving with opinions, cravings, aversions, fantasies and more.
The basic idea is that we have to tame our monkey mind so that it doesn’t jump around so much, and then we will be able to focus our mind in order to cultivate qualities like mindfulness and loving-kindness.
The monkey mind is a good and useful metaphor to describe an undisciplined mind that jumps from thought to thought. It is a metaphor, however, and nothing more. There is not actually a monkey in your head. There are other ways to think about the mind and how it behaves. And in my experience, I think this idea has run its course, and I propose we move beyond the monkey mind in order to welcome in new understandings and ways to think about the mind and meditation.
Not getting stuck in the monkey mind
One of the most important teachings in meditation and spiritual communities is that we shouldn’t get hung up on certain words and concepts. The great teacher J. Krishnamurti taught that “an intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding,” expressing how any fixed belief represents an attachment to things being a certain way and prevents us from finding true freedom. Even the Buddha himself said that, “Those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world bothering people.”
Spiritual teachings are also described as a finger pointing at the moon: one shouldn’t focus so much on the finger, as they should direct their attention to the reality that goes beyond words. “The menu is not the dinner,” was a common caution given by the great philosopher Alan Watts.
One common story that explains this phenomenon involves a young professor who is eager to learn about the truth of enlightenment. The professor has many letters after his name, numerous published research articles, and has lectured to audiences around the world.
When he travelled to Japan to learn the essential teachings of Zen Buddhism, he made a pilgrimage up a great mountain to meet with a notoriously enlightened sage. When he got there, the master asked the professor to have a cup of tea with him. Once the two sat down, the master started pouring the professor a cup, but didn’t stop pouring when it was nearing full. Soon, the cup started to overflow, and the professor exclaimed, “Stop pouring! The cup is full!”
To this, the master replied, “You are like this cup. You are full of too many ideas. You come and ask for the great teachings, but your cup is full. There is no room to put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”
There are many versions of this story, and its original telling is often attributed to a famous conversation between the scholar Tokusan and Zen Master Ryutan in the 8th century. However you tell it, the point of the story is that the more rigidly we hold onto concepts, the less open we are to new ways of understanding.
So, anytime a concept is repeated too many times without question, we should be skeptical, asking ourselves, in what way is this understanding preventing other ideas from coming in?
I wrote previously about how we can move on from the story about the two wolves, because it is better to be compassionate to ourselves and integrate all of our parts than to create more internal conflict.
This understanding can be extrapolated to the incredibly common use of and attachment to the concept of the monkey mind. Despite the common knowledge that we shouldn’t hold onto any idea too tightly, people keep referring to the monkey mind as if it were a real, verifiable thing, and not simply a helpful model for thinking about the mind.
Letting go of the monkey mind
I remember one retreat where the teacher gave a long answer to an audience question about the mind. The teacher distinguished between the four components of the mind–intellect, memory, identity, and intelligence–and explained how our karmic conditioning leaves latent impressions in the mind, known as samskaras. By cultivating tapas (discipline), we can free ourselves from karmic bondage.
After a brief pause, the person who asked the question replied, “Ah, I see. So we have to tame the monkey mind.”
When he said this, it was clear that he hadn’t been listening to the teacher’s answer at all. Instead, he was holding onto to this own belief–his own full cup–and only listening to what confirmed what he was already thinking.
So the monkey mind can be a helpful model, but if we get overly attached to it, it can actually be an obstacle on our path. There are many other ways to describe the mind, and even other animals that might better represent an undisciplined mind. One particular tactic that I have found useful in my practice is to think about my discursive thoughts not as a monkey, but as a puppy instead.
Think of it as the puppy mind
I find it better to think of our unfocused thoughts as a puppy, rather than a monkey, for a lot of reasons. First off, a monkey is a wild, undomesticated animal and shouldn’t even be trained in the first place. A puppy though, when brought up in the right way, becomes a solid friend and companion.
Secondly, the term “puppy mind” reflects why our mind is so unfocused in the first place: it is young and immature. It hasn’t been disciplined yet, nor taught appropriate boundaries and behaviors. That is why our meditation practice is focused on training the mind. As the author Byron Katie noted, “We don’t mature through age; we mature in awareness.” The more awareness we gain on the nature of the mind, the more it matures and naturally becomes more calm.
Thinking of the mind as a puppy also introduces elements of love and compassion to our practice. If a puppy acts out of line by peeing on the carpet, we wouldn’t get mad at it and would never hit it, because we realize that is just what a puppy does. If we continue to love and teach it, eventually it will learn. Similarly, if we notice the mind wandering, there is no need to get mad at it. We realize that is just what the mind does.
I’ve written before about how important it is not to add meditation to grand self-improvement projects. We are often our own inner critics, and we shouldn’t be judgemental about ourselves when our mind is just doing what it does.
Also, I find my mind behaves more like a puppy than it does a monkey. Monkeys don’t just bounce around randomly. They tend to be pretty goal-oriented, jumping from branch to branch looking for food and staying together with their fellow monkey friends and family. A puppy, on the other hand, will chase after anything it finds even remotely interesting.
In my own meditation practice, I have also found that the mind will chase after even the slightest thought. How easy it is to go from “I’m a little hungry” to “I should eat sushi tonight” to “I should move to Japan and study sushi and fall in love and get married under the cherry blossoms.” That is the puppy mind, and the sooner you can rein it in, the better.
Of course, the mind doesn’t have to be an animal, either. Perhaps it is not a monkey mind or a puppy mind. Another way to think about how our thoughts and attention behave is to consider the mind to also be like a river.
Think of it as the river mind
If you have ever gone whitewater rafting, you know that there are times of incredible turbulence and adrenaline. Your whole team is rowing, water is splashing on your face, and you’re moving quickly, gaining momentum with each turn. Then, there are also times of calm, where the river slows and levels out, and you have time to enjoy the scenery.
This is an apt metaphor for the mind as well. In our meditation practice, we might experience extreme emotions like anxiety or hatred. But there are other times when we experience and incredible peace and calm. Either way, the stream of the mind–sometimes called the stream of consciousness–inevitably continues. “In the flowing river there are so many things—fishes, leaves, dead animals—but it is always living, moving, and your mind is like that. It is everlastingly restless, flitting from one thing to another like a butterfly.” Krishnamurti once said, confirming not only the reality of the river mind, but also giving us another wonderful metaphor: the butterfly mind.
Considering our thoughts as part of our river mind is actually more in line with yoga philosophy as well. The great sage Pantanjli even defines yoga as the cessation of citta vritti, or mental turbulence. Different commentaries on Patanjali’s sutras will say things like “yoga is the cessation of thought streams of the mind,” “yoga is the calming of a turbulent mind,” “yoga is bringing consciousness to a state of stillness,” and “yoga is the inhibition of the modifications of the mind.” The point is that the path of yoga uncovers the causes of the mental turbulence and helps you live fully in clear, unperturbed awareness.
Thinking of the mind as a river can also help to understand that the thinking mind will never cease to be the thinking mind. It will always be a part of our experience, offering up all sorts of thoughts, distractions, and emotions. Part of our task as meditators is to learn how to navigate turbulent times while cultivating the calm times more and more, until calmness becomes our natural way of being.
What else?
Now you know two other ways to think about the experience of having an undisciplined mind. There are, of course, countless others. As we see our cup getting full, we can empty it–again and again and again–keeping ourselves open to allowing new ways of being and understanding to permeate our awareness.
How do you think of your mind? What are other concepts that we have been holding onto for too long? Let me know in the comments below.
