{"id":83397,"date":"2022-11-01T15:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T19:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=83397"},"modified":"2022-11-14T16:43:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T20:43:32","slug":"what-is-the-monkey-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-the-monkey-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Monkey Mind & How to Tame It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the monkey mind? What causes it? How can you tame your monkey mind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Singer is an American spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and author. Through the lifelong practice of meditation<\/a> and yoga, Singer recognized his unwanted mental chatter\u2014his monkey mind\u2014and described advice for silencing it in his book The Surrender Experiment<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn more about what the monkey mind is and how to tame it, according to Singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What Is the Monkey Mind?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before Michael Singer had his insights about surrendering to the flow of the universe, he was a typical college student whose annoying inner voice<\/a> led him to meditation. In his book The Surrender Experiment<\/em>, he explains what the monkey mind is and techniques for taming this unconscious mental chatter to live more peacefully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His surrender story begins in Gainesville, Florida in 1970. He describes his younger self as a \u201chippie\u201d who was less than serious about his education and for some time lived in a Volkswagen van. He didn\u2019t have a clear vision for his life and felt aimless at times. But a single event set his life on a whole new trajectory that he\u2019s remained on to this day. This was an otherwise unremarkable experience, and yet it had a profound and permanent effect on his life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a conversation with his brother-in-law, an awkward silence caused Singer to mentally search for conversational topics to fill the lull. He then noticed <\/em>that he was doing that in his mind, and found himself reflecting on his own thought process. This was the first time he\u2019d ever consciously observed his own internal monologue<\/a>, and he became fascinated with exploring that further. After that conversation, Singer began to regularly and consciously observe his own thoughts and to reflect on the distinction between his unconscious mental chatter and the part of himself that was noticing<\/em> the chatter. He had the sense that his true self<\/a> <\/em>was the one recognizing<\/em> the voice, not the chattering voice itself, <\/strong>and the more he noticed the chatter, the more he became annoyed by it and wanted to silence it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what is the monkey mind? In Buddhism, the \u201cmonkey mind<\/a>\u201d refers to the unwanted mental chatter you experience, using the metaphor of a restless monkey swinging constantly from branch to branch as a way to illustrate your constantly shifting thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Buddhism makes the distinction between your thinking mind and your observing mind<\/a>. Both of these are parts of your mind, but the mind that observes the thoughts is the one we\u2019re less in touch with. Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck<\/em><\/a>, says in order to deal with negative emotions<\/a> like fear and anxiety, we must learn to disidentify with the thinking mind<\/a>. In other words, don\u2019t think of those fearful thoughts as you<\/em>; just recognize them as being there in your mind and then let them go.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a conversation about this battle with his internal monologue, a friend gave Singer a book on Buddhism called The Three Pillars of Zen<\/em><\/a>. He was amazed to find that the book discussed these very concepts he\u2019d been pondering. It explained that meditation is a method for quieting the monkey mind and creating a more peaceful internal experience.<\/strong> So, Singer set out to learn to meditate. This became the driving force of his life from that day forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taming the Monkey Mind<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As we explained before, unconscious mental chatter is sometimes referred to in Buddhism as the monkey mind (a restless, swinging monkey). This constant movement renders us unable to concentrate and have mental peace and stillness. But, as Singer would come to realize, we can\u2019t banish the monkey mind entirely. We must learn how to train it so it behaves in a tamer way and learn to live peacefully with it. This is the primary goal of meditation<\/a> in Zen Buddhism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to classic sitting meditation, some other methods you might use to tame the monkey mind are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n