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What is "monkey mind"?
roots
Veteran
And does the term have a reference in a tradition or a scripture?
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Beats me
As I get it, "monkey mind" is the fun stuff -- the stuff referred to by Buddhists as "deluded." It's the stuff that makes your heart soar today and crash and burn tomorrow. Such ups and downs can get pretty monotonous, not to mention painful, so some Buddhists make a conscious decision to find a more even keel -- to adopt a practice that promises to provide a more level-headed approach.
Attachments and expectations are examined and in that examination, there is an opportunity to set aside the notion that there is something, somewhere, that doesn't change. It's not that anyone "gets rid of" monkey mind ... it's just that being tricked by it is no longer so necessary.
The opposite of "monkey mind" is "just monkey mind."
My two cents.
@roots Do you want to know what it means or where the term came from ?
It is as @genkaku mentioned and the term is used in most if not all schools/traditions ...
The third link of Dependant Origination "Vijnana" (consciousness) quite often shows a monkey leaps thoughtlessly from one thing to another, easily tempted and distracted by sensations. Monkey energy pulls us away from ourselves and away from the dharma.
See the third paragraph in this sutta:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.061.than.html
It is very easy to trick monkey mind.
This is meditation with intention or the co-opting of monkey. The most extreme examples of training are usually associated with the sadhana of vajrayana. Monkey is overloaded with sounds, ritual objects, visualisation etc.
In Therevada, counting or abiding on the breath occupies and calms monkey.
In Zen we become monkey but she stops gibbering ... the 'just monkey mind' that @genkaku describes.
What is that monkey? A mantra? OK then ...
OM MONKEY PEME HUM [ monkey tricked me
]
"Mind monkey or monkey mind, from Chinese xinyuan and Sino-Japanese shin'en 心猿 [lit. "heart-/mind-monkey"], is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_monkey
The mind that hops from one distraction to another.
That cannot dwell in mindfulness and equanimity.
I wish I knew why we ask so many questions when we know the answers cannot be known. Hope I find my keys before it's too late. I have to remember to fix that screen too.
Wow, meditation is done already?
But the answer IS known. We know what a monkey mind is, and we now know there is reference (Thanks, @SpinyNorman for the Sutta reference) so the question IS answered.
Your keys are where you left them. And that screen won't fix itself.
When am I NOT meditating?
Thanks all!
In the Pali Canon, the basis for the idea of 'monkey mind' can found in suttas such as SN 12.61 and Sn 4.4, the imagery being that the mind, like a monkey, swings from one branch to another, never resting or staying the same. Depending on the context, it can refer to impermanence (i.e., mind as not-self) as well as the mind of one unskilled in meditation (i.e., lack of concentration).