Confronting the Monkey Mind

A Sermon Delivered by

The Rev. Thomas Schmidt

at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Lowcountry

October 7, 2007

While we may be born with certain predispositions regarding certain personality traits and physical characteristics inherited from our parents, generally speaking our minds at birth are a blank slate.  I am open to the idea that we may inherit patterns of thought and behavior from another person not our parents and no longer living, I could not prove such a claim, but I am open to the idea. But even that does not change the fact that as infants we are totally and completely at the mercy of our immediate caregivers and the larger society to which we happened to be born.  While I hesitate to speak for anybody else, I can say without a shadow of  doubt that I do not recall choosing the circumstances of my birth.  I am not even sure that my earliest memories are truly my own memories, there is  a good chance that they are pictures planted in my mind overhearing others talking about the events in question. I have a clear picture in my mind of my family moving us into our new home while I sat in the middle of the living room floor, quietly wactching, I would have been about six months old at the time.  I have a few other memories of  that same time period, and always I am watching my family from a distance, likely from the perspective of a play pen set at the peripherary of the activity.   Whether real or planted, however, those memories serve to shape who I am today. Those early memories, if that is indeed what they are, and countless other events, a great many beyond memory, serve to shape who I would become.  The same, I imagine, could be said for all of us, to a large degree. Very much of who we are was determined by events far beyond our control and most often without our consent and most often beyond our own recollection.  

Try to recall the first time you remember your parents telling you they loved you, or the first time you truly felt loved.  Try to recall the first time a sibling or a bully on the playground teased you for being too skinny, or too fat, or too tall or too short or too clean or too dirty, too rich too poor.  Try to recall the first time you internalized the names others called you.  The first time you said to yourself, “hey, I am smart, I can learn this..”  Or “I will never be able to understand math, I’m too stupid.”  Self image, self esteem, is very much a product of our environment, however an overinflated self-image is often as damaging as a negative self-image.  Though early self-image is very much learned, it can also be  unlearned and reshaped through conscious effort.  

But such work requires a reasonably mature mind and a great deal of commitment.

While it is likely that we may recall some such events, chances are we cannot recall each and every time a caregiver expressed care and concern, leaving us with the longterm impression of being loved and worth loving,  or each time we were teased, called a name, otherwise made to feel inferior, leaving a lasting scar, a  constant reminder  of our imperfections and limitations.  Perhaps we cannot recall the individual events but the cumulative effect is the same regardless.  To be honest, I think we are fortunate to reach adulthood with any level of sanity and self-worth given all we were subjected to as children, especially if we add to the mix religious messages that humans are by nature depraved sinners or cultural messages of racism, sexism, ablism, etc. etc.   To complicate matters further, we must include the tendency of the human mind to filter many of our memories through our desires, thus leaving us wondering if our memories are true to life, or merely what we want to remember. As the reading indicated, “we take on everything at once before we’ve even begun to read or mark time, we’re forced to begin in the midst of the hardest movement, the one already soiunding as we are born.” Yet, we are called to study our lives, to gleen from the mass of information thrust upon us since birth, our truest self, our highest self, our deepest self, the unobserved observer.

I recall the first time I tried to meditate.  I was in my twenties and I had been doing considerable reading about various spiritual practices and decided I should try to meditate.  I was under the false impression that to meditate I had to clear my mind of all thoughts.  Have you ever tried to clear your mind of all thoughts? As soon as one thought clears, another takes its place at the very speed of light,  To me, it all sounded much like this song . . . (It’s the End of the World as We Know it by R.E.M.) 

Seemingly random thoughts coming and going and I told myself, I can’t do this, I can’t meditate.  I persisted, with limited success,  but never once clearing my mind of all thoughts, at best I was able to keep my mind focused on a single thought for a period of time.   I eventually gave up the practice assuming myself a failure. Years later I learned that given my lack of training and experience, my level of concentration was actually quite good and my experience of random thoughts coming and going was not only normal but expected.  I like to call it the Monkey Mind,  and we all have it.  Have you spent any time watching monkey in the wild or in zoos, how their attention moves from one thing to another, a noise over there, movement down there, another noise over there, a bird flying overhead, more food on that branch there . . . The monkey mind is just like that and is most evident when we are resting and external stimulation is minimum.  Most of what is on television is so addictive because it is designed to stimulate the monkey mind, keep it active.  

But what is the monkey mind? And is keeping it quiet and/or otherwise occupied a good thing?  While I recognize that it can be most annoying at times, especially when we are trying to go to sleep, or trying to concentrate on a particular thought or project, but what would happen if we took some time to get to know it, grow to understand it.  To do that, we must confront the monkey mind on its own terms.  

Random thought happens.  Distraction happens. Likely, most of us had any number of random thoughts during the course of this sermon, perhaps stimulated by something in our peripheral awareness, or perhaps a thought with no apparent connection to anything around us.I have had several random thoughts while standing here delivering the sermon. To deny the monkey mind  is to judge it and that is the first thing we must learn not to do.  The monkey mind is not a bad thing, it just is.  Really, it is nothing more than our own subconscious mind, doing what it does all the time but generally beyond our awareness.  While our conscious mind is focusing on a particular object or thought,our subconscious mind is busy processing everything occurring in our peripheral awareness, It is processing and comparing this and that to past experiences, looking for connections. 

One can imagine that this was a useful skill for our ancestors living in constant danger of attack from wild animals. Heck, one can imagine that this remains a useful skill for those in our world living in constant danger of attack from their own governements, gangs, or any number of other human threats. However, we have the luxury of relative security that allows us to explore the meaning of life beyond mere survival. And to confront the monkey mind is to let it do what it does naturally and simply observe what happens.  “That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -Lenny Bruce is not afraid.”  With such a thought, we may be tempted to wonder where it came from or what it means.  We may be tempted to judge it as peculiar or at least interesting.  However such thoughts and actions tend to only encourage the monkey mind, and generally this not a good thing.  The goal, really, is to train the monkey mind, or more accurately, train the conscious mind to not automatically respond to what the monkey mind is throwing at us.  

“Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs.”  Let it go, observed but absent judgement or action.  “Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then.” Observe and ignore. “Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed.” Observe, let go.  “Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, brightlight, feeling pretty psyched.”  observe, let go.

As I have shared before, we have a new puppy living with us and with her the humane society gave us a video on how to train her, or more accurately,how to train us to elicit the desired responses from the dog. The video told that the best way to train a dog to stop jumping is to not respond to it.  The dog is jumping to receive attention and to push it away, get mad,or in any way respond to it is to encourage the behavior. Rather, it is best to ignore the jumping and reward a more positive behavior, such as sitting. If we train ourselves to react appropriately, then the dog will act accordingly.  If we train ourselve to react appropriately, then the monky mind will act accordingly.  The dog jumps on us because it is seeking attention.  The monkey mind, the subconscious mind, is throwing thoughts at  us because it is seeking attention.  But while we can understand why a dog would be seeking attention, but would cause our subconscious mind to seek attention? 

If the monkey mind is keeping us up at night or doesn’s allow to be without distraction for even a short time, then there is a good chance that something in our life, our job, a relationship, the body, is not working and needs our immediate attention.  When we can learn to live in partnership with our monkey mind, our unconscious mind,  instead of ignoriing it or judging it, we can begin to learn from it.  We may in fact learn that those apparently random thoughts are not so random after all and complex patterns may begin to be evident,  or more accurately, a map, the map of our own lives.  

Ever questioned the meaning of life, the purpose for existence, who you really are, the answers to those quesitons and more are within us and all aroiund us and we don’t see.  And why don’t we see, because we choose not to. To confront the monkey mind, the subconscious mind, is to confront our deepest fears and our worst mistakes.   To confront the monkey mind is to confront the many unqestioned assumptions we carry form childhood, to confront the monkey mind is to separate what is truly us and what was learned before we were ever aware that we were learning. It is not easy and it most assuredly is not pretty, but the reward is beyond compare.   The reward is to experience the truth of existence.   Our symbols  our stories, our words point to the truth.  Personal and scientific knowledge suggest  the truth.  But it takes real effort to experience the truth.  

A few weeks ago I suggested that much of religion, spirituality, may be summed up with the idea, “Be not frogs!”  The idea seemed to resonate with many people,And it seems to me, if it is not too much of a mixed metaphor, that the means to “Becoming not frogs” is confronting the monkey mind.