Strategies for taming the monkeymind

[Guest guest]

Trust the practice. The best strategy for "taming

down the most ferocious of monkey minds" is not to try

to. The very fact that you’ve posted this message

means that you’re already developing the ability to

observe yourself and your mental processes

dispassionately – if you can recognise your monkey mind state

then you’re not lost in it. If you just recognise and

accept that monkey minded is how you happen to be at

that moment, and keep practicing, then over time it

will probably diminish. (I nearly said "go away", but

that would be achieving perfect focus and true

enlightenment. Which, of course, you might eventually)<br><br>I

used to find that for the first ten or fifteen minutes

of any kind of physical exercise – going for a run,

doing a yoga practice, whatever – my mind would seethe

with all kinds of mental negativity and poison –

anger, fear, hate, feelings of trappedness, whatever.

This really worried me until I had been practicing

yoga for a while, then I stopped being afraid of it.

At first I learned to see it as something that –

although it was an unpleasant and frightening experience –

would go away after a short time. That made it less

frightening. Then I came to see it as the practice boiling off

metal and emotional toxins, in the same way as it

purifies the body physically. Now it happens a lot less

and doesn’t scare me when it does.<br><br>Compassion

for yourself comes from accepting and not judging

wherever you happen to be, and asana practice is one of

the great ways of learning this – not thinking you’re

an especially bad person because your headstand is

wobbly today, or an especially good person because it

isn’t, or whatever. Eventually it spreads out from your

asana practice into the rest of your life and your

relations with other people. You can’t be truly kind to

others until you’ve learned to be kind to yourself.

Which, as Takeitup expressed so well recently, is the

point really. <br><br>All of which can be summarised a

lot more succinctly as ... "do your practice, and all

is coming". But I think somebody already said that.

[Guest guest]

I agree that awareness of the monkey mind's

activity is the first step in allowing it to quiet. I

understand that one of the fundamental precepts in yoga and

meditation (I gathered this from Stephen Cope's excellent

book "Yoga and the Quest for True Self") is the

development of the "witness", which is observing with

detachment the mental gymnastics your mind does as you

practice. Witnessing means not choosing "for" or "against"

anything, not berating or glorifying thoughts or

emotions--rather, you just watch that you are having them. I've

noticed in my practice that my mind has quieted more,

just naturally. I used to feel like a terrible yogi

(not very good witnessing, as I judged myself!)

because I would compare my practice to others', placing

myself in a "hierarchy" in class, noticing whose

practice was stronger, whose was less adept. I felt

horrible doing it--yoga as competitive sport!--but it was

just part of my upbringing and family culture to

compare and compete, so it was all I knew. I also think

my mind did not want to let go and be in the

practice, because it can be so hard. Ashtanga gets right

into all of our limitations, mental and physical, and

challenges us to be okay with them. I find that as I accept

my limitations, they dissolve, but it took a while

to get there.<br><br>My monkey mind, and the

judgment it used to be so fond of, has really mellowed now

when I practice. I'm too busy trying to stay with my

breath, keep them bandhas pulled up, etc. I do find that

when I have a more distracted day, counting my inhales

and exhales in beats helps. I count a slow 1-4 for

each inhale and exhale, doing 5-7 breaths. Somehow

giving your breath a kind of metronome is quite good for

focusing it.<br>Good luck with your practice!

[Guest guest]

Sitting quietly for a while before starting.<br>

or<br>do sirasana (headstand) for fifty breaths or five

minutes, this asana requires calm concentration to balance

and so the thought waves become less.<br> or<br>do a

few extra sun salutes as they are invigorating

especially if the sitting part has been reached and there is

an urge to just sit there.<br> or<br>shower before

practice, maybe a little cold at the end as that freshens

you up<br><br>Sometimes it's all just tiredness.

<br>With the six day a week thing.....if you have the

energy and the time that's great, for many people there

is not the time or energy......most super committed

yogis are also yoga teachers or do not have rigid jobs.

This is where short forms and other practices come

into their own. There is no guilt thing or set in

stone rule. In the Bhagavad Gita Krsna tells Arjuna

that even making an earnest effort in yoga and not

succeeding gaurantees a higher rebirth. Yoga originated with

Saddhus who did not have to be at their workstations at a

certain time......and remember even on yoga retreats or

in Mysore the practice is the focus of your day, in

the ordinary world there are other

considerations.....if you can manage six days a week bully for you, if

you can't do what you can.