Monkey Mind

You know, the Buddha always described our mental state as the mad monkey mind. So if we know monkeys in India, not the tame monkeys in a zoo, but monkeys in India, they're very restless, that way jumping around and squabbling and, you know, interested in food and so forth. They're just very, very restless. And so this is our mind. Our mind is very, very restless.

All the sensory input through our eyes and ears and taste and so forth stimulates the mind towards liking and greed, towards pleasure and aversion and anger towards anything which is unpleasant, which is threatening and we don't like it. I like it. I want it. I don't like it. Get rid of it.

Or just a kind of dull apathy. So this is our mind most of the time, also caught up in the past, caught up in the future, all our ambitions and dreams and plans, all our memories. And even in the present, endlessly comparing, criticizing, approving and commenting, we don't see things nakedly. We only see things through our conceptual lenses. So this is very disturbing for the mind.

And therefore we get very stressed and tired. And so in all meditation traditions, the first step is to tame the monkey mind. And so whatever meditations people are doing, it's basically to get the mind to become more calm and our attention to become more honed. That's the first step. Without that, there's no foundation, right?

I mean, any other more fancy or advanced practices, if our mind is distracted, they have no depth. So first it's to calm the surface waves. And that gives a sense of peace and joy. Just that, I mean, step number one, if the mind quietens down and our ability to be more aware, more mindful increases, then that naturally gives a sense of coolness and of peace and calm and inner joy, which is not dependent on external circumstances. So that always encourages people.