Five Causes of "Monkey Mind"

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Vens. Nyanatiloka, Nyanaponika

"Monkey mind" is mental frenzy brought on by the Five Hindrances (patheos.com)

Successful meditation is greatly hampered by monkey mind (Bliss Blog/Beliefnet.com)

 

Shut up, shut up, shut up (childhoodrelived.com)

Normally, we do not notice that the mind/heart is constantly swinging from branch to branch in a ceaseless frenzy seeking entertainment. Like cartwheels and kaleidoscopes, "More and more stimuli!" it demands. "A constant flow of new and novel stimulation!" it insists in fits and tantrums, pulling on its hairy bootstraps to yank itself from the peril of the doldrums.

But when we sit in an attempt to meditate, then it becomes crystal clear: This mind is no sane, serene human mind. It is like a wild monkey!

If we were to be with what is...monkey mind?

This is a common experience for new meditators -- and a frustrating reality for seasoned meditators as well. Approaching the cushion is like visiting a zoo. So what to do? Many antidotes are provided by the Buddha in various sutras.

However, what is the cause, what is at the root of all this monkeying around in distraction, frustration, desperation with the doors of the senses unguarded? There are five causes that hinder and obstruct the heart/mind preventing serenity and insight:

1. sense desire (craving for sensuality)
2. aversion (anger, annoyance, fear)
3. sloth and torpor (boredom and sleepiness)
4. restlessness and remorse (flurry and worry)
5. skeptical doubt (uncertainty and wavering).

Hear no Kardashian, see no Kardashian, speak no Kardashian (not even Kendall and Kylie)

 

Solutions

Let go. Monkey mind is a monkey trap

The antidotes are replacing them with their opposites, substituting for example doubt with confidence/trust or craving desire with renunciation.

This can be accomplished by focusing on the harm done when they are allowed to hinder the heart/mind. Then there is a natural withdrawal. One becomes dispassionate, lets go, and no longer takes an interest in these obsessions. However, this release is only temporary, possibly lasting the entire meditation period.

Not all "meditation" is a sitting session, even if that tends to be the most intensive period of practice, of walking the path the Buddha pointed out as the way to ultimate freedom. 

The overcoming of these Five Hindrances by the meditative absorptions (jhanas) is a way of temporarily suspending them. Such an achievement will make one seem and feel very "saintly" (and, indeed, this is how most of the world's religions define sainthood as it sometimes entails miraculous powers). For purified in heart, mentally clear and at peace, one's conduct is full of effortless restraint. But this is called "overcoming through repression" (vikkhambhana-pahāna).

These obstructive hindrances disappear forever only when we enter the noble or supermundane paths (and become nobly enlightened individuals. Skeptical doubt (misgivings about whether this is the path to enlightenment) vanishes when we reach stream entry. Craving sense desires, aversion, and worry vanish on reaching non-returning. Sloth, torpor, and restlessness vanish when we become arhats.

• More info about their origination and how to overcome them: AN I, 2; VI, 21; SN XLVI, 51

The Five Mental Hindrances

Ven. Nyanaponika (BPS.lk, Wheel #26) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

"Without having overcome these five, it is impossible for a meditator, whose insight thus lacks strength and power, to know one's own true good, the good of others, or the good of both. Nor will a person be capable of realizing that superhuman state of distinctive achievement, the knowledge and vision enabling the attainment of full enlightenment.

 

"But if one has overcome these five hindrances and impediments, these overgrowths of the mind/heart that stultify insight -- then it is possible that, with strong insight, a meditator can know one's own true good, the good of others, and the good of both. And one will be capable of realizing that superhuman state of distinctive achievement, the knowledge and vision enabling the attainment of full enlightenment (AN 5:51).

"One whose heart is overwhelmed by unrestrained covetousness will do what one ought not do and neglect what one ought to do.

"And through that, one's good name and one's happiness will come to ruin.
 
"One whose heart is [further] overwhelmed by aversion... sloth and torpor... restlessness and remorse... skeptical doubt will do what one ought not do and neglect what one ought to do. And through that, one's good name and one's happiness will come to ruin.
 

"But if a noble disciple has seen these FIVE as defilements of the heart/mind, one will give them up. And by doing so, one is regarded as one of great wisdom, of abundant insight, clear-seeing, well endowed with wisdom. This is called "endowment with wisdom" (AN 4:61). More

The Mindfulness in Meditation

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, partial wiki edit

Mindfulness is crucial, we all agree, but what is mindfulness? Just being "mindful"?

  

The Buddha was wide awake (oRi0n/flickr

Mindfulness (Pali sati, Sanskrit smṛti, "memory, recollection, awareness") is a spiritual and psychological faculty (indriya). According to the Buddha's teaching it is of vital importance along the path to enlightenment. 

 

It is, in fact, one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. "Right" mindfulness (sammā-sati) is the seventh factor or fold of the Noble Eightfold Path. 

Mindful meditation may also be traced back to the earlier Upanishads, which are part of sacred Brahminical scriptures prevalent in India at the time of the Buddha.*

 

Enlightenment (bodhi) is a state which has overcome greed (craving), hatred (aversion), and delusion (ignorance). These impediments, even if only temporarily (allowing a glimpse of nirvana, which entails stream entry) have been abandoned and are absent from the mind/heart.

Mindfulness is an attentive awareness of the true nature of things (the reality of the present moment even when beset by the illusions of being permanent, personal, or able to satisfy our desires). Mindfulness is an immediate an antidote to delusion. It is considered, in this sense, a spiritual power (bala).

 

Meditation with mudra (mysecretpsychiclife.com)

This spiritual/mental faculty becomes a "power" when it is coupled with clear comprehension (sampajanna) of whatever is taking place.

 

The Buddha taught the establishment of four "foundations" of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna). These ar part of the insight meditation practices the Buddha taught in addition to the establishment of serenity.

Those pursuing enlightenment maintain as much as possible a calm awareness of (1) body, (2) sensations, (3) mind, and (4) phenomena (dharmas). 

 

The practice of mindfulness supports analysis (the breaking down or partitioning of things into their constituent parts) resulting in the arising of wisdom (paññā, prajñā). Self is anatta (not-self), an impersonal composite. Self is ever-changing, and that change can be discerned directly. A key innovation of the Buddha's teaching was that meditative absorption must be combined with liberating insight (vipassana) or insight practices to produce final wisdom.

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Smṛtyupasthāna Sūtra) is an early text dealing with the proper establishment of mindfulness the Buddha was referring to.

 

Mindfulness practice, as inherited from Buddhism, is now very successfully being employed in psychology and some self-help programs to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, and in the prevention of relapse in depression and addiction. [See also mindfulness (psychology).] More

• Mindfulness has a separate meaning of "recollection," with which its ordinary practice should not be confused. 

Recollection

Mindful Christy Turlington (sportforus.com)

Recollection or active-contemplation (anussati) is more about memory, remembering, turning, ratiocination, cogitating, scrutinizing, evaluating, thinking over, pensively considering or "rotating" a theme in mind, which is the actual meaning of the English word "meditation." 

 

The Buddhist word commonly translated as "meditation" is bhavana, which has the much broader meaning of cultivation, self development, or literally "bringing into being."

 

For example, one may recollect the qualities of the Buddha, features of the body, death and its inevitability (for those who do not, food one is about to eat, feelings (sensations), mind (conscious states), or mind-objects.

 

These are all fully defined practices, so no one need think that simply "thinking" about these is in any way practicing Buddhist mindfulness meditation.

 

Even if the Upanishads mention smrti, that would hardly constitute a pre-existing "mindfulness practice," which the Buddha blazed a trail to as part of the way to liberation. Everything, every ingredient, must have existed. The Buddha did not invent new things. Rather, he developed the perfections (paramitas) which enabled him to gain liberation with the capacity to teach his rediscovery.

 

Long before the Buddha, there had been other buddhas (supremely enlightened or enlightened-without-teaching). But no one was teaching, nor capable of successfully establishing the Dharma regarding the path to enlightenment, prior to the Buddha. When were the previous buddhas? They are prehistoric, and the Buddha mentioned many of them. Ages ago, epochs ago, aeons ago (and the various kinds of aeons or kalpas ago), there had been others to make this liberating discovery.

 

Meditators in other traditions were not becoming enlightened, as the Buddha later pointed out, for lack of realization or a viable teaching (dharma) to gain liberation. That is now available in the Dharma, the Buddha's teaching concerning enlightenment, which is technically called the Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma, a term translated as the "37 Requisites of Enlightenment."

• *Miller, Fletcher, and Kabat-Zinn, 1995, "Three-year follow-up and clinical implications of a mindfulness meditation-based stress reduction intervention in the treatment of anxiety disorders."  General Hospital Psychiatry 17 (3): 192–200.