The Monkey Mind

 The world we perceive, understand, and interact with, has as many interpretations and their understanding as to the people who live on the planet. We see, hear, smell, and feel the fabric of reality around and within us through our dynamic senses. Yet perceiving and interpreting reality into a coherent and cohesive understanding is difficult but not impossible. As such, what we know or believe we know and its further interpretation and communication require discipline, the disciple of writing.                                                                                                                            ...

The Ideal Light "Like a moth drawn to the flame, we gravitate towards the light..."                                                                                              (PC:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436356651378415164/) Why do we do what we do ? Why do we admire beauty ? And in that sense what is beautiful ?   With light, we see the world, its richness witnessed by a spirit of naive wonder untainted by desires. Desires are natural to the majority of humans yet they envoke possessiveness which prevents the admirer to enjoy the moment. Thus, it is said "to desire is to suffer"  And suffering starts and continues when:  "We want what we can never have" and "even if we think we do, ...

 "...  happiness is the greatest desire humanity has craved to experience .."  An ornithologist may spend days, weeks, and months in a  mosquito-infested humid swamp just to capture a glance of an exotic avian. As such, luck plays a major role defined by his or her redeeming personal qualities and environmental viability that invites or prevents the entry from the much sought avian, leading to the momentous happiness or disappointment/depression for the ornithologist. As no man, woman or living beings are the same, the vocation such as ornithologists, for many is highly undesirable. Yet for a few, such professions is a chance in a lifetime, to understand a niche of the world, just waiting to be discovered. Like any experience, one has so imagined or been through, happiness is one that is the most unforgettably subjective.                                    ...

 Life. It is a journey and what a journey it is!  Tragic in its seriousness and funny in its triviality We search to discover meanings within, from truths we find outside, their nature unique  Either disappointed or jubilant, our mind lingers in differences This difference between inside and outside, of what was and what is, as such,   ... a continuous dialogue between ourselves flows; in between the soul and the body. In between truth and feelings, it envokes. As such the truths change but feeling remains  Without words; in the language of life and its silent undercurrents A harmonious rhythm propels us, our soul and body symbiotic, as we wade through the chaos of the world, together. What does the mind do ? It thinks as it should but it is the heart that talks. It is not the physical but that transcendental heart that houses the humane soul, from where kindness spring forth naturally  As naturally as the smile when we wake up full of hope for the com...

Lately, the rain has become strange! As I travel, the sky is open, then as I pass a street, suddenly it starts to get dark, the wind blows and it starts to rain  So, I quicken my footsteps, with an urgency to reach the destination sooner, to prevent myself from being cold, and wet Another street passes by and lo behold! the clouds retreat, carried away by the wind, no more it rains... There is no consistency, no surety in the life, as the second tickle by, there are so many things that are beyond our control, except death, that is the finality That finality is what compels us, moves us. to act, to brave the ocean. The ocean that we know deep down inside, we may not be able to cross. Perhaps, this flesh and bones will melt away, before we reach the shore on the other side. Like those before us, we pray solemnly to the gods, those known and unknown, but when as usual they are deaf to our plea we can only turn to the gods that live within us, the breath in our body, the sanctity in ou...

 "...the gentle rain splattering on the pavements  and the sun playing hide and seek between the clouds as an observer, in the stillness of the moment it dawned to me, at this moment, the future is now..." Future. It is always about hope. Even the most unlucky, the unloved, the loser, has hope The reason? Because we do not know what it is, its manifestation in its entirety we have a hunch if we are instinctive we have a goal if we are an achiever and if we are dreamers, we simply dream, embracing the so-called whisps of lightness, nature has bestowed upon us, going with the flow, onwards, in the imagination of the subconscious, fueling our creations through art, trying to paint the reflection of the majesty we have perceived as best as possible... But if we believe, the future is tomorrow, something that will happen, soon...  that time will only tell,  we will only keep on hoping, never to realize what we truly are striving for, if we only look towards the horizon be...

Life. We are living at a full stop. Waiting for the pandemic to pass. Life to resume back to normal. We have hope, well HOPE! Capitalized and bold, that's how we HOPE to start our life after that full stop. And as we focus on now: that "." Our attention is captivated and held as a prisoner Our perspective is pulled into the full stop, which was just a dot, that smallness transcends into colossal awareness. The circle of darkness becomes darker and darker, as more we focus our lens. Surrounded by the darkness, there is hurt, there is pain, there is death We could smell, the stretch of decay. We could hear the cries of sorrow. And feel the aura of loneliness.   The heaviness becomes heavier as it weighs us down deeper and deeper into the darkness. We become more aware than ever, attuned to the small changes around us, eyes closed, mind open, we reach out towards the core of that existence In the beginning, there is fear, but as time becomes irrelevant, it gives way to patie...

  (Animation Credit: Elenor Kopka, giphy.com) When we do not know something, we google it. When we have some free moments, we check popular social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or even Tiktok The world we live in, is abstract, we in our mind space exist in the world created on the 2D and 3D of technology shared by people who live lives unlike ordinary many me's It has become an instinct to search for answers online, to entertain the already over-stuffed mind, to be dazzled by the extraordinary when you are more surprised by ordinary than the perfection so displayed The more we search the more lost we have become The jargons through simplified cannot fully define the turbulent feeling of a confused mind There is a feeling of need to be fulfilled, that fleeting immediate need that feels hollow as we scroll away It's more a habit rather than the search for meaning, for we are too tired we feel too tired to chat online with people we have listed as friends anymore, the c...

Boredom. Pain. Hunger. Loneliness. Insomnia.  These are the things we experience on our own, it is personal. With those five, we will truly know the truth of things as they are. The truth is, we are almost always alone when we experience them and so are the loved ones of ours, with whom we cannot be always there holding their hands, offering a pair of welcoming ears, or a dependable shoulder. When they are suffering, all alone, low and hurting inside, so much, they can only endure in silence. Though we don't want or allow our loved ones to go through those same experiences, the cycle repeats itself. The baptism of boredom, pain, hunger, loneliness, and insomnia, it is how each of us grows, it is how we mature, mentally, socially, and spiritually.  All of us are imperfect and being imperfect, we do make mistakes. It is easier to forgive ourselves, but difficult to forgive others. Yet post-baptism of the aforementioned experience teaches us to empathize, to understand the meanin...

Take a moment. Breathe Deep as long and deep as possible. Loosen your body. Slowly, let your breath go. By letting go, not only the tension of the entire day but an inner knot of lethargy is undone. Relaxation. It is the physical path of liberation. We give so much time to things, that have no inner connotation with ourselves, we forget our own needs. Work, Study, or even entertainment, there is a limit to how much we can be continuously engaged into. Take a break, let your mind refresh, it is the psyche path of liberation  As human beings, once upon a time, to define the natural forces of nature, we bestowed divinity to those forces. There were times when we could neither understand nor control the external forces which changed the life not only of our own but the entire community we are deeply related to. We gave them the names of gods, demons, and spirits. Fear, the primitive emotion of the caveman psyche led us to the pacification of those divinities with the sacrifice of life ...

Even the ordinary is fascinating when curiosity sparks the inferno of the pursuit from the newborn Monkey Mind, undampened by succeeding challenges more challenging than the first. It is not the answer that fascinates the enquiring mind, it lies in the question. The question leading to more questions... The more we ask, the more we realize, "Ignorance never is a bliss" Being ignorant is not an excuse, never was, is, or will be Realizing which, we search for answers but are confronted by more questions we realize caressing the surface of any issue is never going to work so we delve deeper and deeper to the excruciating detail and it is truly engrossing, the feeling that one feels when one thinks In the silence of oneself, we meditate, searching for a pattern, refuting the discrepancy in logic,  and then, we forget, to eat, drink, sleep, talk, love,  and when reaching the farthest limit,  we forget even ourselves. Pleasure reading has always been one of the greatest delight...

Life .  It is a Battlefield.  It starts with waking up early. Then, grudgingly take one step then another to the bathroom. *Splash* *Splash* smash your face with cold water. find yourself wide awake. let the water run inside your mouth, clear the stuffy nose, check your breath, return and make your bed. A sneak peeks at your cell phone. Check the time, check FB, then Insta, then check yourself out in the front camera. Put it back on the bedside. Take a couple of steps towards the mat. Then stretch your unwilling body, let the flow of body take its natural course, the rejuvenation starts.  After warm-up some yoga, it is tough, to maintain the positions, to take the next step, with legs, those small hands, still, you gotta do what you gotta do Never Give Up! Likewise, we struggle with each moment of our lives, from the tiny-whiny things to the bigger stuff. We are doing it not with a resignation of the inevitable but with hope deep down inside of us, that something will get...

The Monkey Mind Behind every successful " The Monkey Mind " man, there exists a stalwart woman; she may be his doting mother or his dearest wife or the supportive girlfriend, or any female or a team of females related to him by blood or by marriage or friendship, who wiser beyond her/their years looks after him as long as he could remember. Perhaps it is vice versa for some, but it is another story not for the author to tell. Well, "The Monkey Mind" is mentioned in the middle path i.e. Buddhism, "Such is the state of monkey mind defined by restlessness, confusion, and indecisiveness" The focus of such state of mind is on the uncontrollable aspect of the living, which is further elaborated with the quote; "no man with The Monkey Mind is controllable until he is married off or is in a sincere relationship". Then the creature is tamed, for better or for worse. After marriage or when engaged in a sincere relationship that ties the everlasting knot, ...