Controlling Your Thoughts and Emotions

THE MONKEY MIND

Controlling your thoughts & emotions

Law of Assumption

It’s all about awareness.

Meditation is all about awareness.

When we first learn meditation, we often don’t know that. 

We believe that the object to focus on is most important. 

We often struggle to fixate our minds on the breath, trying to concentrate, or forcing ourselves to have no thought.

“The object, whether the physical sensation, sound, breath, or whatever, is just a support for awareness. The essence of meditation is awareness.”

— Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Relieving. 

All we must do is know awareness.

Awareness means knowing. 

Our mind has a special quality, which is the knowingness that knows what you are thinking or feeling. 

This cognition, this awareness, is with you all the time. It’s with you 24 hours a day, even while you’re sleeping. 

Sometimes, we call these “unconscious moments,” such as sleeping without dreaming, drinking too much alcohol and being drunk, or the moment of dying, or fainting; even in these, there is still awareness.

Awareness is the basis of all of this. You have awareness 24 hours a day. 

And this awareness is the essence of meditation.

There’s some kind of contradiction here, isn’t there? 

You have awareness 24 hours a day. And awareness is the essence of meditation. But you are not meditating 24 hours a day. Why is this?

Even before you learn meditation, you have awareness, but you are not meditating. 

Before you even know what meditation is, still, awareness is the essence of meditation. 

Why? 

The answer is: recognition.

You have awareness. But if you do not recognize your own awareness, then that does not become meditation. 

In that case, the quality of awareness cannot manifest for you. You cannot experience it. 

Although awareness is free, pure, present, genuine, peaceful, and has all these good qualities, if we do not recognize awareness, then we are stuck in thoughts, emotions, or perceptions.

Consider this: What is the quality of a watch? It tells the time, right? If you have a watch, but do not recognize your own watch, even though the watch has the quality to tell you the time, if you do not recognize your watch, then there is no benefit. The watch cannot tell you the time.

Even if awareness is really perfect, if you are not connected with awareness, if you do not recognize it, there is no benefit. When you recognize awareness, whenever you meditate the object (any object) automatically becomes the support for your awareness.

When you are aware of your bodily sensations, once you have recognized awareness, and you know that this bodily sensation is the support for awareness, then you automatically recognize awareness. You do not have to worry too much about “Where is awareness? I only see the body.” There is no need to worry. Awareness becomes automatic because of your recognition. 

This helps our mind to become more familiar with awareness, and become more familiar with the quality of mind.

Thoughts and emotions can come and go in awareness. We will not be lost in thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Our mind becomes freer.

The Monkey Mind

Normally, we are lost in thoughts and emotions. If we are not connected with awareness, in our minds we only have thoughts, emotions, and inner chatter. This is what we call, ”monkey mind.”

This monkey mind is always active, always looking for stimulation. It’s very restless, with a lot of energy. It cannot remain peaceful and calm. 

If there is nothing to do, then the mind feels a little bit of fear, the monkey mind feels fear: “I have to have something to do!”

Then, what we normally do is to hate the monkey mind. 

We hate our fear. So the fear of the fear becomes stronger than the fear itself. 

Or if you don’t like stress, negative thoughts, and the voice in your head, then you push against and resist it. 

If you try to stop it or try to fight it, then the monkey mind becomes your enemy.

But sometimes, we listen to the monkey mind. 

We try to look for yet another stimulation in our life. Maybe a new relationship. Maybe buying lots of things. Even though you cannot use them, or your closet is already full of clothes, or you buy pizza, go sightseeing, or change your job. 

Sometimes, this voice is very negative. It criticizes you, others, the world. If you believe it and accept it, then the monkey mind becomes your boss. And it’s not a good boss.

If you fight against the monkey mind, then the monkey mind becomes your enemy. 

If you listen to the monkey mind, it becomes your boss. 

Both cases are not so pleasant,

What should we do? 

Actually, there is a third choice. 

The third choice is to make friends with the monkey mind. 

If you make friends with the monkey mind, then the monkey mind actually becomes quite useful.

The monkey mind is not bad.

The key is how to make friends with the monkey mind. 

Just giving the monkey mind a banana (a new stimulus) doesn’t work. 

So what does the monkey mind like? 

A job. 

It’s restless, right?

What you like is freedom. You don’t want to become a slave of the monkey mind. You don’t want to become the enemy of the monkey mind. You want to be free and calm.. 

How do you do that? 

Give a job to the monkey mind. 

If you can give a job to the monkey mind, then the monkey mind will be very happy. Because the monkey mind loves jobs. 

Now, who has become the boss? You became the boss because you gave a job to the monkey mind. 

And so you are free. 

You are no longer controlled by the monkey mind.

Now, the monkey mind becomes your employee. And you become its employer.

But do not give a full-time professional job to monkey mind at the beginning. 

In the beginning, give the monkey mind a part-time job. 

What is a part-time job? Ask the monkey mind, “Hello, listen to the sound” or “Watch the sensation in the body.” And the monkey mind replies, “Oh yeah. Good idea! Sound…” 

And it soon forgets. 🙈

Do not punish the monkey mind. Just say “That is okay, no problem. Do it again.” And the monkey mind says, “Oh yes! Sorry, sorry. Sensation…” 

And it forgets again. 🙈

If you do this again and again, then the monkey mind forms a new habit. 

It will like to listen to you more and more. And then you become freer. 

This is how meditation works.

Meditation does not only make our mind calm and peaceful but also flexible and easy to direct.  

That is the benefit of meditation.