“Equal in extent to the universe, existing in each and every atom”
(Avatamsaka Sutra)
Monkey Mind is a Buddhist term which describes the persistent churn of thoughts in the undisciplined mind. It refers to the continuous chatter that goes on in our heads which like a restless monkey is jumping from branch to branch, always on the move.
Buddha described the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, jumping around, screeching, chattering, and carrying on endlessly. We all have monkey minds, Buddha said, with dozens of monkeys all clamouring for attention.
Many years ago, once upon a time, there lived a monk near at the deep forest, in where lived a group up monkeys. One day, the head monk was preaching dhamma to the lay men and other monks, and the discussion topic was about the mind, how the mind acts as a monkey. Near at the meeting ground, one monkey also listening the dhamma talk what the elder monk was discoursing. At a moment, the elder monk addressed that the monkey mind is very bad mind. Mind is not like to stay as still. Mind like to travel here and there, and it is very subtle. However, when the monkey listened to the words –‘monkey mind is very bad’, he immediately backed to the forest and messaged to the all monkeys that ‘the elder monk who is staying besides our forest, states that monkey mind is very bad’. Having heard the message, all monkeys in the jungle started to shout, to jump and made chaos, except the leader monkey. It is said that the leader monkey was quite gentle and wise among the rest monkeys, and suddenly, he shouted and admonished to other monkeys that “Stop ! Stop ! Stop to make a noise ! It is the monkey mind ! It is the real monkey mind what are you doing!’
Upon heard the statements from the head monkey, the rest monkey become quite and said, ‘what do we do? We are born as a monkey. We are not human being like the monk. How can we stop our monkey mind?’ Then, the head monkey said, we should practice meditation like those monks. If we do it as the monks, we will be overcome from our monkey mind. Having listened the senior monkey, the rest monkeys were started to meditate, closed their eyes, sat as like a lotus posture, two legs sat as cross, and the hands pull on the chest. Immediately, the jungle become quite. While a moment, one monkey raise his hand, and through a question to the elder monkey, ‘Excuse me, Sir! I have a question. When I closed my eyes, I have been seeing banana into my eyes.’ Then, the other monkeys started to shout and complaining to the leader about their problem when they closed he eyes, they could see only bananas. Having heard all complains, the senior monkey advised to collect banana and put banana in front of them, and start to meditate.
Again, the monkey started their meditation. Some of monkey were eating banana, some put half banana into the mouth, some are grasping two bananas, some are hiding three bananas during the meditation period. Then, again they started to shout, to fight for the bananas and the jungle became chaos. Then, the elder monkey said as like as previous saying, and admonished to the rest monkeys, ‘It is the monkey mind ! It is the real monkey mind what are you doing through making shout, jumping one tree to another one, thinking about Bananas!’ Subsequently, when the monkey started to meditate, each time they feel something new reason, could not made still mind, and the jungle became noisy as like as before.
( Ajahn Brahm)
1. http://www.find-happiness.com/monkey-mind.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_monkey
3. http://www.buddhisma2z.com/content.php?id=274
4. Taming the Monkey Mind by Cheng Wei-An