How to Tame the Monkey Mind

Posted by Javier Rodriguez on

Thoughts and the mind! Ah! How do you meditate on your worries, doubts, fears or goals?? And how do you reconcile the quest for no mind?? What do you think about when you are trying to quiet it down? These are all relevant questions. One of the goals in meditation is to quiet the mind chatter - slow down the monkey mind. How do we do this? To quiet the mind we say, give the monkey a banana. This means to use breathing do calm the mind - the breath is the banana.

If the mind is very active, you can use some deep breathing. This will slow down the heart rate and relax the body. Relaxing the body can help to relax the mind. And vice versa: relaxing the mind can relax the body. Meditation is path which helps to distinguish what the issue is and how to address it.

We often have worries or fears that plague our minds and rob us from experience of life. We should try to be present and aware, moment to moment. However, when that is a knot in the mind, it can hold our attention and awareness to the point that we get stuck in our minds. So in meditation we learn to let go. We often hear this phrase and it can be unclear what it means.

When meditating we want to let go of thoughts which help us to quiet down the mind. Conversely, quieting the mind helps to let go of thoughts so that they do not become knots. Eventually we find that when we are able to give-away our thoughts, so as to release them, we set them free. Consequently we set ourselves free from mental knots. It is in this space and in this spirit when we can reach resolution, and find answers to our most pressing questions.