What Is The Monkey Mind?
By Tergar Meditation Community • 4 min read
You have likely heard the phrase “monkey mind,” or “monkeymind” and want to know what is the monkey mind. But even if you’re unfamiliar with the term, you can probably guess what it means: when your mind won’t shut up, churning out thoughts, images, associations, impulses, and so on. But it might come as a surprise to know that the monkey mind isn’t a bad thing. Actually, it’s neither bad nor good. What matters is the relationship you have with it.
Most of the time, our relationship with the monkey mind is tricky, to say the least. You’re brushing your teeth in the morning and, glancing at the mirror, you notice something on your forehead. A small pimple. “Oh dear,” says monkey mind, “there’s a problem with my appearance.” You feel a little pang of dismay — but it’s really not a big deal, after all, so you get on with your day. But while you get dressed for work, your thoughts return to the pimple. “Could I cover it with makeup? Would it look strange if I wore a hat?” In your mind, it’s becoming more noticeable by the minute. By the time you leave the house, you are convinced that everyone on the street is trying not to stare at your hideous blemish.
What is happening in this kind of situation is that the networks of neurons in our brains are connecting. You could say they love to gossip to one another. One neural network fires off with: “Hmm, there’s a pimple.” Another responds by remarking, “Yuck.” Another chimes in with, “Now my whole face looks ugly.” More and more neurons fire together, becoming a group, and the group expands exponentially. “You did this to yourself! Remember those potato chips you gobbled yesterday? No self-control, and now you look like a monster!” It can feel like a real force to reckon with.
If you try to fight it, you’ll never win. You will only turn it into an enemy that you can never escape. On the other hand, if you listen to it and believe it, then you are making it your boss. That’s a problem, too, because the monkey mind is restless and crazy — and nobody wants a crazy boss. To free the monkey mind, you have to take the most skillful tactic: to make friends with it. How are you supposed to make friends with a monkey mind? By giving it what it wants the most. (Hint: it’s not a banana.)
“Even if you learn to rest in simple sensory awareness, the crazy monkey mind will always be looking for new ways to interrupt whatever calmness, clarity, and openness you’ve achieved by offering a different and disturbing interpretation of events.”
– Mingyur Rinpoche –
More than anything, the monkey mind wants a job. And, if you give it the job of a meditation technique, then the monkey mind becomes your employee. It likes to have a task, and you are in charge — it’s a win-win situation! Eventually, as you practice giving the monkey mind various meditation techniques, it becomes calmer. Less aggressive, less frantic, less high-strung. More peaceful. Not only that, it becomes more pliable and workable.
By working with it in this way, you will find it highly useful as a support for meditation. And eventually, the monkey mind itself transforms into wisdom, love, compassion, and awareness. As long as you are maintaining this kind of healthy relationship with it, it will become increasingly beneficial.
You can do this monkey mind meditation very briefly anywhere, at any time, and under any circumstances. To learn more about how to develop and maintain a happier relationship with monkey mind, join Tergar’s Joy of Living course. For details, click here.
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Monkey mind loves to create problems for us. In this video, Mingyur Rinpoche clarifies that what monkey mind is doing is not terribly important.
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Tergar Meditation Community supports individuals, practice groups, and meditation communities around the world in learning to live with awareness, compassion, and wisdom. Grounded in the Tibetan Buddhist lineage of our guiding teacher, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, our online and in-person programs are accessible to people of all cultures and faiths, and support a lifelong path toward the application of these principles in everyday life.
“Fifteen or twenty minutes of formal, seated meditation a day to anchor and develop your practice, and then – since you can’t always be sitting on a cushion in a nice quiet room — plenty of informal meditation throughout the day. Repeat as necessary…ideally, throughout your life!”
The golden thread that runs through all of the Joy of Living is awareness. Mingyur Rinpoche introduces us directly to awareness by virtue of a practice he calls “open awareness.” To use the traditional analogy of the ocean and the wave, this is an introduction to the ocean — the vast, clean, pure expanse that is our inheritance. It is our abiding nature, always there, and can never be made better or worse. This is who we truly are.
Is formal meditation—sitting quietly in an upright posture for a dedicated amount of time—the type of meditation you should prioritize? And if so, for how long at a time? And how many times to meditate a day? Or is it more important to learn how to meditate anytime, anywhere, in any circumstance?
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