Meditation: Calming your Monkey Mind
I have a theory, one that I feel really confident in, that my brain does really similar stuff to everyone else’s brains when I try to meditate, especially If I haven’t meditated in a while, or I am experiencing life pressure. I find it difficult to concentrate, to stop thinking about lists and life events, what I’m having for dinner, what I’m doing next. Almost every kind of thought you could imagine will come through my mind.
This is commonly called ‘The Monkey Mind’ in Eastern Philosophy, and I first heard it when I was travelling through Thailand after I had finished school, and I attend a meditation evening with some local Monks. The way they described it at the time was that our mind bounces around like a monkey in a cage, jumping from thought to thought. One of the hopes of meditation is to calm that Monkey and make her sit still, even if it’s only for the briefest of pause. Ideally, with more time, that Monkey will sit still for longer and longer. From here all the other benefits of meditation follow.
What I took away from this was more grace with myself, it’s OK if I’m struggling to slow my thoughts. It’s OK that this is hard. The purpose of meditation isn’t to immediately be sitting like a Zen Master on the ocean cliffs.
It also made meditation accessible in my mind- if the hope is to calm the monkey for even a brief moment, then any time I take a moment to still my thoughts is a meditation practice. This is particularly helpful if I am feeling pressure and struggling to find blocks of time to meditate. What I find, is that if I start with small moments, the blocks of time will come.
It also helped me make any activity that I enjoy, where I can quiet my Monkey, a meditation activity. When I garden, when I wash up, when I’m folding the washing. If I use these moments with intention, it can build up.
There are so many various meditation practices out there, and it can take time to find one that works for you, but one way to work out if it’s working for you is to enter into the meditation with the thought of ‘does this help me quiet my monkey mind?’
Hopefully your Monkey Mind isn’t too bouncy today!
Caz