Some people say, that he mind is like a monkey, or rather, many monkeys are living in our mind.

Supposedly Buddha has been one who used this comparison. And the yogis and sages of old, also the Taoists of ancient China. And they should actually know what they were talking about.

Those were people who studied the mind and its workings.

They suggested that the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, who are jumping around, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly, creating chaos and mischief .

We all have monkey minds – Buddha said – with dozens of monkeys all clamoring for our attention.

Well, what do you think?

Do you think the mind is a monkey or full of monkeys?

Just sit down for an hour or so in silence, without any outer activity and pay close attention to whats going on in your mind and then you will know : )

According to psychologic research, the mind produces between 60,000 – 80,000 thoughts a day.

Thats an awful lot and most of it is more or less only half conscious chatter in the background.

Most of the time we are so identified with our thought processes that we don’t really notice that we are thinking.

In actuality we are not aware that we are “being thought” by our restless mind.

Only when we want to concentrate, when we need to study or be focussed on some important task do we become aware how much the automatic mind activity wants to distract us and drag our attention away from the task at hand.

Nowhere else is this more evident than when you are practicing silent mindfulness meditation, Vipassana meditation, where you simply sit and observe everything that is arising in you consciousness.

Try that … : )

If we observe ourself, our inner world really closely over a period of time, we will notice that most of the time we don’t think actively or creatively or constructively, we rather “follow our thoughts, we let ourself be dragged along by whatever thought comes along”.

In the German language they have a word for it: “Nachdenken” – thinking after something …

This kind of mind activity becomes almost pathologic when people have a real problem or a crisis or a depression. Then the thinking becomes compulsive rumination, endless loops of worries, anxieties and fears, rotating in the mind without producing a solution.

But, but!!! Hold on!

I really don’t want to sound negative about the human mind, the awesome ability that we have to think and use thoughts for an endless amount of purposes!

What i am saying is: Maybe we have not yet really learned how we can use the mind actively, effectively, creatively, constructively. How to really think thoughts. How we can make the very best out of our ability to think thoughts.

We have never learned that, no matter how many mainstream schools or Universities we have attended.

Mostly we have spent our time there to fill the mind with endless information.

In my own experience, the mind is a mystery and the underlying physical structure – our brain – is the most awesome and unbelievable complex organism that is in existence in our world.

Although brain mapping and neuroscience has made a lot of progress in the last decade, we still know only a fraction of what is there to know about the functioning of brain, mind and consciousness.

They say, that we only use 10 percent of the brain’s capacity!

Uufffff! Thats a lot of space to expand, explore and grow into!

Isn’t that exciting!

Of course this expansion will not come by itself and – collectively speaking – we are not doing much to develop those capacities. Nor are we teaching our children how to do it.

How to think. 

How to use the brain.

How to tame the monkey mind.

I think most of the time we are mostly busy with reacting, responding and following the endless impulses that come to our brain from within the mind and from the outside, the media, the people around us.

Most of the time we are simply too busy to take a break and sit down, reflect on whats going on and what we are actually doing all the time.

Most of the time we are probably … sleepwalking.

Only half conscious.

“So!”, you ask: “How shall we wake up, how shall we become fully conscious and using our mind as it was supposed to be used?”

Well, i guess to answer this question, we can learn a lot from the Tibetan Buddhist teachings.

They have – to my knowledge – studied the workings of the mind and its use in all its depth and developed methods to train the monkey, to make him a perfect citizen of the overall human being.

And of course most other spiritual teachers and teachings of the past have always emphasized the importance of getting to know and mastering the mind, taming the monkey.

And using the brain for what it was meant to be.

Here i only wish to hint at other teachings and practices and rather share my own understanding and experience.

I think that brain and mind are not the same. The brain is part of the visible, tangible world of the body and one of the main centers thru which the mind works.

The mind is part of the invisible, transcendent world of thought, feeling, attitude, belief and imagination. The brain is the physical organ most associated with mind and consciousness, but the mind is not confined to the brain. The intelligence of our mind permeates, spreads thru every cell of your body, not just brain cells.

Our mind has tremendous power over all bodily systems.

“Mind over matter”, the wise ones say.

“Energy follows mind”.

This means that the ability to create and manifest something in the world is closely associated with our ability to think clear thoughts and hold those thoughts over a certain amount of time in our awareness.

SO, i guess that should be reason enough to do a bit of mental hygiene every day – mental toothbrushing – and maybe some real tuneup from time to time to have our brain/mind running smoothly when ever we actually need it.

So, how do we do that … for our brain?

Tuneup, cleaning, change oil, tighten the loose screws ; )

# The Brain

Our brain is the most awesome portable supercomputer: according to brain science it weights just 2 percent of our bodyweight, but it contains 150000 km of blood vessels and 1 quadrillion neurons, and it consumes 25 percent of the body’s oxygen and nutrients and 70 percent of its glucose (the brain’s preferred fuel).

Quite an awe-inspiring machine to maintain for proper functioning!

Just a few hints:

1.) Brain uses up a lot of energy, most of all by processing too much random input and by thinking too hard – consciously or unconsciously.

So it wants to be nourished well in order to function well.

Here is the obvious nutritional advice, that is true in general for a healthy body, but specifically for a well functioning brain:

– Lots of water

– Organic fresh food

– Plant-based diet (complete protein)

– Omega3 (fresh fish)

– Antioxidants (berries and such)

– Low sugar

– Lots of fresh air and nature

– Movement and exercise

– Conscious breathing

– Yoga headstand ; )

– a good night’s sleep every day

Well, there’s a lot we can do to serve our brain with good nutrients, enough fluids and fresh air.

Check in with your holistic nutritionist or the internet for more specifics.

2.) Like the rest of our muscles, the brain is also a kind of a muscle – for thinking, for making creative connections that make the synapses jump, that inspire new neural pathways to be established.

– So, like any muscle it wants to be used and challenged a bit.

Creative challenges, computer programming, learning an instrument, learning languages, storytelling, reading “difficult” non-fiction books … All such activities keep the brain in good shape.

3) And as the picture shows so nicely, we have a distinct 2in1 brain : )

left/right hemisphere, male/female and so on. Either/or.

The whole dualistic spectrum.

The sages of old maintained, that the ideal state of the brain is not either/or but a synchronization of both. The brain opens to higher states of consciousness when both hemispheres are in sync, work in unison.

A shift in brainwave pattern happens in such moments of peak experience.

How can we accomplish that?

Its called “The Flow State”. You can not “do” it. This might happen in moments of deep relaxation, of intense artistic creation or otherwise when you “disappear” in a creative activity – can be something so simple as cooking. Or when there is deep union of male and female in lovemaking.

Also some researchers have developed “technological” methods to trigger such states – they proclaim.

Binaural Beats and certain Neuro-biofeedback machines are used for such methods.

Personally i have not much experience with such machines or audio programs, but i guess they are quite established and widely used.

So, so much about the brain, now what about the mind?

# The Mind

There is definitely a lot to say about this one!

More specific things … but i guess this could be a theme for another day.

It has to do with:

1)  Spiritual Practice as Character Development.

Intending certain spiritual values and attitudes and making a practice of that until we embody those values.

Compassion, Empathy, Patience, Non-attachment, Truth, Unconditionality and so on.

Such a sincere, long-term practice will give our psyche and overall being a solid grounding and general foundation of higher vibration and our brain a higher & more refined brainwave pattern than the normal everyday Beta brainwave state.

Without such “groundwork” spiritual experiences are simply temporary States/Experiences that come and go. More or less randomly, without necessarily transforming our substance.

2) Meditation as Spiritual Practice.

Many different forms and methods of meditation exist and all of them have their purpose and result.

In this context here i am mostly referring to:

– Meditation as Concentration:

Focussing on a flame or other simple object (in front of you)

or on a Mantra (a word or phrase that you repeat over and over in your mind)

or on your breath (as it streams in and out of your nostrils)

Such a practice, done for 10 minutes daily over a period of time will certainly calm down our monkey mind quite a bit and help us to increase our general ability to stay focussed on any kind of task in our everyday life.

But beware! You can try to calm a monkey, but you can not tame him ; ) He may jump out of his cage anytime you do not look!

– Meditation as awareness of awareness itself (Mindfulness or Vipassana meditation)

Personally, this is the form of meditation that made most sense to me throughout my adult life and it is as natural for me nowadays as breathing.

In Vipassana meditation i may start with a soft focus on my breathing (no concentration), using the breath as an anchor and reverence point to come back to anytime in case i find myself drifting off into unconsciousness or in case i get carried away into following my thoughts.

All i do is to allow and observe any content, any physical sensation, any feeling or emotion, any thought or impulse – anything that is happening in my field of awareness – allow it to arise and pass by me and move on.

My only “activity” is to stay completely awake and aware and witness whatever is happening on my “inner screen”.

But don’t get involved at all!

With practice and over time an interesting phenomena is happening:

I become aware of Awareness itself.

This center of our being – very difficult to express in words or concepts – can also be named “I” or “I Am”.

This is who I am beyond everything else that i can identify myself with.

It is the “origin point” from which i perceive all layers of my Self and all the outer worlds.

It is the origin point that does not change throughout my lifetime, not throughout all my many incarnations and also not between incarnations. I confess, this is an wild assumption now and i can not scientifically verify it ; )

Anyway, the fact remains – and this is really also my experience of the last 30 or so years – that to be anchored it this awareness is of tremendous value in a world and a life where the only real constant is constant change.

To become identified with “I Am” means the end of “The Search” and the beginning of “Being (whoever I Am)”

And as a “side product”, the monkey mind can be whatever he is. The monkey. I will not fight against him anymore. I will simply not follow him, not give him all the attention and energy he craves.

Naturally, then he calms down, naturally he becomes more peaceful.

The mind becomes peaceful … and magic starts to happen:

# … and the rest

In the old scriptures, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the yogis and sages of India, Tibet and China talk about a mind that is as peaceful as a pond on a calm summer night, the full moon reflecting in it like in a perfect mirror.

This is a most beautiful picture, i guess that this is what The Creator had in mind when he/she created the mind of man and gave it consciousness of itself.

What would happen then, when many of us would live in such a state, such a frame of mind … who knows.

For me it is a most exciting potentiality.

I hope to inspire you to go on this journey of discovery, to find it out.

I recommend it!

Highly!

Don’t wait!

Try it!

Good luck

: )

ps: This piece of text was inspired by a question from a friend and written spontaneously.

Please see it as my personal experience and perspective of those topics.

No claim of absolute truth!

If you have questions of a more specific nature please feel free to write a comment or send me a email to [email protected]