Taming our Monkey Mind

“You question everything, but do you  question your thoughts?”
or its not “Cognito, ergo sum”,
its “Dubito, cognito, ergo sum”. 

Park Troopers

In Buddhist meditation the concept of the “monkey mind” refers to our mind’s incessant chatter. Like a monkey swinging through the tree-tops from branch to branch, so our thoughts chatter on, endlessly. This isn’t necessarily a problem, except that so much of our thinking is ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future in an unhelpful monologue that takes away from the present – where we are most capable of impacting our happiness and well-being.

Things turn darker when we get started on the self-criticism band-wagon. Here an incidental comment or event can cascade within seeming split-seconds into a full blown beating-ourselves-up session. For example, I was a few minutes late to pick up my son the other day from camp. As I walked in, ready with my apologies, all it took was one look – not even a comment, mind you – from one of the other parents and within seconds and without any conscious awareness on my part, I was in “I’m so self-absorbed, I really need to make more of an effort to put my son first, I’m the world’s worst mother” mode.

Huh?

THAT is monkey mind at work for you.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the Noble Prize winning psychologist, lays out our two modes of thought. System 1 thinking is fast, instinctive, automatic and emotional. System 2 is slower, more deliberate and logical. It’s not that one system is better than the other. Our survival as a species depends on System 1 thinking. System 1 is the system that causes us to act within milliseconds to threats and dangers. This doesn’t apply just to the age-old man-meets-saber-tooth-tiger scenario. When was the last time you slammed on the brakes in your car, averting disaster, with your System 2 mind only catching up a few seconds later that what you saw out of the corner of your eye was a car that wasn’t stopping for a red light, or brake lights going on in front of you, and you weren’t even aware of them until after you’d hit the brakes?

System 1 computes problems like “war and ….?”, and “2+2 = ?” effortlessly and quickly. System 2, on the other hand, is involved in solving problems like “17*24 = ?” or parking in a tight space. It is also System 2 thinking to realize we are thinking, and to evaluate the quality and validity of our thinking.

We spend most of our time in System 1 mode. It’s efficient, it conserves energy, it’s fast, and its short-cuts and rules of thumb do a really good job most of the time of getting us through the day with the least amount of effort possible. Which brings me back to our monkey minds. Precisely because System 1 thinking is so effortless, it can chatter on, seemingly without pausing for breath, all day long…and night. Trying to shut System 1 up is like trying to stop yourself from breathing. It may be possible, but you may die in the attempt.

But the untamed and out of control monkey-mind can ruin our lives. It can cause us to react emotionally and out-of-all proportion to actual circumstances. I’m a few minutes late to pick up my son and I’m the world’s mother? I don’t think so.

It was at my first Refuge Recovery meeting in Malibu, California last year that I head the phrase “You question everything, but do you question your thoughts” for the first time. And it pulled me up short. Because that was me in a nutshell a few years back. My monkey-mind System 1 narrative had a basic re-occurring theme of “you’re a failure, you’re a failure, you’re a failure”. It’s no wonder that that lead to my eventual collapse.

Are we our thoughts?

No, no and again no.

Have you ever had a thought that – if you had carried it into action would probably have been illegal? Or have you ever idly noticed as you were speeding down an interstate that it would only take a split-second yank on the steering wheel and kaboom, crash, that would be you gone?

We all have these thoughts. They are perfectly normal. And they say nothing at all about who we are as people. It is our values and our behavior and our choices that determine who we are, not our unruly and uncontrolled and often highly unreliable monkey minds in System 1 thinking mode. Or, in the words of of Dumbledore "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." 

It is us, the thinker, not the thought, who is in control.

Can our thoughts define us?

Yes, if we let them. If we take them as truth. If we let our System 1 thoughts rule too many of our choices and our behavior. If we don’t take the time to sit still and tame our monkey minds.

“Cognito, ergo sum” goes the Latin phrase ascribed to Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” But this is not true to Descartes's actual intent. That is better summarized as “Dubito, cognito, ergo sum”: i.e. “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am”. One word. And that word is crucial. Doubt your thoughts, question them, hold them to the same standard as you would a dearly beloved friend berating herself.

Monkey mind is with us – it’s a fact of our existence and of our brains. We can no more stop ourselves from thinking than we can from breathing. But we can tame our monkey minds. All it takes is a simple doubt: “Really? How true is that”. That’s all it takes to bring our System 2 mode online. And just like first learning to drive required all of your focus and attention, to now being something you can now do seemingly without thinking, so too does the practice of taming of our monkey minds by asking this simple question become effortless.
​
Just as quickly as I was saying to myself “I’m a terrible mother”, I was thinking “Screw that, I’m just a mum juggling three-bazillion balls – like every other mother on this planet.” And I reached down and gave my son a huge hug and the camp leader gave me a warm smile of welcome.

---