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The Buddha was the smartest psychologist I’ve ever read. More than 2,500 years ago he was teaching people about the human mind so that they might understand themselves better and discover that there was a way out of suffering.
Buddha described the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, jumping around, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly. We all have monkey minds, Buddha said, with dozens of monkeys all clamoring for attention.
It’s useless to fight with the monkeys or to try to banish them from your mind because, as we all know, that which you resist persists. Instead, if you will spend some time each day in quiet meditation — simply calm your mind by focusing on your breathing or a simple mantra — you can, over time, tame the monkeys.
They will grow more peaceful if you lovingly bring them into submission with a consistent practice of meditation.
I’ve found that the Buddha was right. Meditation is a wonderful way to quiet the voices of fear, anxiety, worry and other negative emotions.
Meditation could be done in so many ways, for instance:
Observe your thoughts
Notice your experience without getting caught in the experience. Experience your life in this moment without reacting at all to it.
Notice what you are sensing through your eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue.
Examine the actions and expressions of others.
Let feelings and thoughts come into your mind and just slip right on out the door, without judgement of the thoughts, the situation, others, or yourself.
Notice exactly what you are doing. Control what you pay attention to, but not what you see: push away nothing and cling to nothing.
Step inside yourself and observe: watch your thoughts coming and going, like clouds in the sky. Notice each feeling rising and falling like the tides of the ocean.
Describe your experience
Put words to your experience: when a feeling or a thought arises, simply say to yourself–detached from judgement–“I am feeling sad” or “joy is washing over me.”
Label your experiences: notice and categorize your thoughts, feelings and actions.
Describe to yourself the “who, what, where and when” as you observe them.
Describe the activity of your mind: identify your beliefs, assumptions and interpretations as they arise in your mind and then pass like clouds in the sky.
Separate your your assumptions from your observations.
Participate in your life
Enter into your present experience: get involved in the moment! Let go of rumination about the past, the future, yourself or others.
Forget yourself: try setting aside ego (the root cause of “monkey mind”) and become one with whatever it is you are doing.
Act intuitively: take action on the wisdom of your heart and that which you know to be true, like you know the difference between right and wrong. Do just what is needed for each situation in your life, responding spontaneously but not impulsively or compulsively.
Learning to manage your monkey mind is one of the best things you can do to improve your ability to detach from negative thoughts, images and sensations, while decreasing reactivity to stressful events.
I’ve also found that engaging the monkeys in gentle conversation can sometimes calm them down. So, pay attention to how your monkeys act — listen to them and get to know them.
Take time to practice simple meditation on a regular basis. Learn how to change the conversations in your head. Practice kind, loving, positive self-talk.