Don't Worry, Be Grumpy

Monkey Minds

A monkey was visiting a Buddhist monastery on one of the holy days. He thought that there would be so many visitors bringing offerings of food that someone was sure to drop a mango, or leave an apple unattended, and that would be his lunch.

As he was loitering outside the monastery’s big hall, he happened to hear an old monk give a sermon about the “monkey mind.” Thinking that this might be of interest to a monkey, the monkey listened.

“The monkey mind,” taught the old monk, “is a restless mind, always jumping from one thing to another, like a monkey jumping from one branch to another in the jungle. It is a bad mind that needs to be rectified through the practice of meditation in order to find peace.”

When the monkey heard the monkey mind being called a bad mind, he became angry. “What do they mean a monkey mind is bad! I am a monkey and monkey minds are just fine. These humans are slandering us. This is unfair. This is not right. I have to do something about this gross defamation!” Then the monkey swung through the trees back to his home deep in the forest to complain to his friends.

Soon, the large troop of monkeys was jumping up and down squealing, “They can’t get away with slandering us! This is species discrimination! How dare they! Let’s get a lawyer from the World Wildlife Fund. We monkeys have rights too!”

“Stop it!” ordered the leader of the troop. “Don’t you see? That monk was right. Look at yourselves, jumping up and down making so much noise. That is the result of having a monkey mind. You monkeys just can’t be still.”

The monkeys realized that their leader was correct. They were all cursed with monkey minds and would never find any peace. They all hung their heads and brooded in sullen silence.

“Hey!” said the monkey who had been to the temple. “I’ve got an idea. I heard that monk teach that if you meditate, then you can overcome the monkey mind and find peace.”

The happy monkeys started jumping up and down again, squealing, “Yeah! Cool! Let’s meditate. Let’s find peace of mind.”

After much jumping about, one monkey asked, “So how do we meditate?”

“First we have to find a cushion to sit on,” said one monkey.

“Yeah! Cool! Let’s find cushions!” And after a lot more jumping around and shrieking, they went off into the forest and collected a lot of grass and soft leaves which they fashioned into zafus, the Buddhist name for a meditation cushion.

“What do we do next?”

“Sit on the cushion,” said the monkey who visited the temple. “Cross your legs and place your right paw over the left paw, with thumbs slightly touching. Keep your back straight. Close your eyes and observe your breathing.”

This was the first time in history that monkeys meditated. The forest had never been so quiet. Unfortunately, it did not last long.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” interrupted one monkey, and all the others opened their eyes. “I’ve been thinking. Don’t you all remember that we had planned to raid the banana plantation for our lunch today? I can’t stop thinking about it. So why don’t we all raid the banana plantation first, get that out of the way, and then we will meditate?”

“Yeah! Cool! Great idea!” shouted the other monkeys, jumping up and down again, and off they went to raid the plantation.

They stole many bananas, heaped them up in a pile, and having got that out of the way, went back to their meditation cushions. They sat down, crossed their legs, placed the right paw carefully over the left paw, straightened their backs, closed their eyes, and resumed meditating.

After two more minutes, another monkey put up her hand. “Excuse me! Excuse me! I’ve been thinking too. Before we eat those bananas, we have to peel them first. Let’s get that out of the way, and then I can meditate without thinking about it.”

“Yeah! Cool! We’ve been thinking the same!” screamed the other monkeys. So once again the monkeys were jumping up and down, shrieking, and peeling all the bananas.

Having peeled them all and placed them in a heap, the monkeys went back to their cushions. Once again, they sat down, crossed their legs, placed the right paw carefully over the left paw, straightened their backs, closed their eyes, and observed the natural flow of their breathing.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” screeched yet another monkey after only a minute. “I’ve been thinking also. Before we eat those bananas, we have to place them in our mouths. Let’s get that out of the way first, and then we can meditate peacefully without having to think.”

“Yeah! Cool! What a brilliant idea!” And all the monkeys jumped up and down, making a lot of noise, and put a banana in their mouths. A few monkeys put two bananas in their mouth, and one put in three. Some monkeys are no different than some people. But they did not eat them yet. This was just to get something out of the way so they didn’t have to think about it and could be free to meditate instead.

They sat down on their cushions again, crossed their legs, placed the right paw carefully over the left paw, straightened their backs, closed their eyes, and resumed meditating with bananas in their mouths.

Of course, once all eyes were closed, the monkeys ate all their bananas, got up, and left. That was the end of their one-and-only meditation session.

Now you know why we humans have difficulty finding peace of mind. Most of us have monkey minds, which say:

I will just get this one thing out of the way first, and then I’ll rest.

That is why, as I mentioned in my previous book, the only place these days that you find people “resting in peace” is in the cemetery. And in the Buddhist monastery, of course!