Blog
- Exercises
Mindfulness: The Monkey Mind
The idea of the monkey mind comes from Buddhism. The term has been adopted by yogis to describe a mind that jumps from thought to thought as a monkey jumps from tree to tree. The monkey mind cannot exist in the present moment, but rather is constantly distracted by the thoughts that pass through. Buddha described the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, jumping around, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly. We all have monkey minds, Buddha said, with dozens of monkeys all clamouring for attention. Fear is an especially loud monkey, sounding the alarm incessantly, pointing out all the...