Monkey Mind

Is acquiring serenity driving you crazy? Are you at battle with your inner peace?

Is your “here and now” “there and then”? Is your Zen more like a zoo?

Well, this is common.

And for years, I’ve been battling with taming my “monkey mind.”

It seemed like whenever I reached a small level of inner quiet, a thought parade demanded I engage it and all of its confetti.

The Path

I spent years trying to train my mind. I meditated. I read everything I could on the subject.

I improved, but only marginally. Despite my best efforts, as I tried to go into silence, the shows began, demanding my immediate attention.

“Go away! I’m meditating!”

I demanded, and the more I cursed my thoughts, the louder and more insistent they became.

Until I learned one little secret.

Training the Monkey

Up until I learned this secret, my efforts focused on training my mind to improve it.

I was gaining skills, but no stillness.

I was developing mindfulness, but no peace.

Just like an athlete, I was training my mind to be better, stronger, and faster, but the monkey still came.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that all of my efforts were to train, strengthen and improve the monkey—not my peace.

Mind vs. Ego

I know a lot of people like to use the term ego where I’m using mind.

I’m using mind specifically because of the mess the term ego gets into with some common applications, making it a synonym for conceit.

The Split

So, how did I untether myself from my mental primate?

I discovered, and this might be obvious to many of you, that I am not my mind.

Despite all of my learning, I never considered that my mind was not me.

In fact, I worked hard to convince myself otherwise. Oh, Jerry, you’re so smart! I identified my mind as me.

The Trick

As a teenager, I read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and the author, Dan Millman, was advised to lose his mind.

Although I thought that was clever, I didn’t understand it.

Once I realized that my thoughts were independent of me, I could treat them as if they were an unwelcome visitor

(Do I hear voices in my head?

Yes, I do.

And now, I largely ignore them).

My mind can chatter on about whatever it chooses, and I can go about my business.

What is even better is that the more I ignore my mind, the quieter it gets.

It is as if it only wanted my attention in the first place, like a child who ate too much candy demanding the undivided focus of its parent.

So, the trick to taming the monkey mind is actually not taming it.

Rather, it’s learning that, regardless of how tame or wild it is, it is not you.

From there, you may find more here, now and again.