Mind your Mind – Fragility, Screws and Monkeys

So the infamous Raincoaster draws my attention to ranting journalists from the blessed beeb.

Now, I think it’s easy to see that there’s some serious head fucking going on there. That Scientology guy makes ridiculous reactions to every action. If a journalist (normally pictures of calm and objectivity…theoretically) starts shouting at you like that, then I’d expect cowering, squaring up or simply running away. Instead he just repeats his point, rhythmically, with no letting up. It’s an excellent method of maintaining the level of anger in your target.

And lets just imagine being forced to sit through 19 minutes of kids with needles in their eyes and holocaust denial (well not denial, but ludicrous misreadings of history). That’s brainwash material right there..surely. Now I’m not saying that Beeb reporters are never going to lose it, everyone loses it sometimes, but I can’t believe that that reaction came from anything other than someone being seriously screwed with.

I’d like to see Louis Theroux do the Scientologists.

Anyway, I guess the point is that you’ve got to be careful with your head.

There’s some seriously sensitive machinery in there, and everything you do, see and hear affects it.

If you start to feel out of control, you’ve got to take a break. If stimulus is frustrating and making you lose touch, then get away from it. It’s important to know how to keep yourself calm.

You see, I’ve had a few breaks in my time. It’s not nice. You’ve got to learn when to get off those kind of rides, and that means recognising when you’re on one before you pull out of the station.

I can’t really explain more than that. But watch out for your mind.

I like to think of it as being mindful (Buddhist terminology) of your mind. It’s a form of awareness. Don’t just think things, but look at how and why you’re thinking things. It’s a difficult process, and it may be one best suited to more meditative times in your life (I don’t suggest doing it whilst driving, but then, people chew gum and drive, so maybe I’m the one with concentration problems. Actually, scratch that…I have massive concentration problems).

So does this post have a point. I guess not, if I were you I’d read yesterdays effort…I enjoyed it much more.

But yeah, steer clear of people who want to control the way you think. Be mindful of your mind and learn when to trust it and when to kick it up the arse.

When trying to focus in T’ai Chi, an image that my teacher explained stuck with me. He talked about a Chinese word that translates as ‘Monkey Mind’ and it’s the lack of focus that happens when trying to do standing practice (basically finding the right position and standing in it. It’s really good stuff despite how it sounds). Anyway, you’re supposed to be keeping your mind focused upon the Dāntián (the centre of gravity and root of the chakras or some such; essentially it’s the source of movement and strength for most of the T’ai Chi stuff) whilst remaining in position. In fact you have to focus their quite often.

Anyway, he explained the focus, the attention of the mind, as being like a monkey that likes to wander around and play, and you’ve just got to notice it when it happens, and then bring it back to the centre. Now, this may have simply been a way of me to remain distracted, but my mind (quite visual at times) cooked up this image of a monkey. A tiny monkey sitting in the lotus position in my belly (the Dāntián), then occasionally opening an eye, then the other, and stretching its arms out, slowly picking up its legs and wandering around into the air around me. At this point I’d notice the monkey had moved. I’d send out a little miniature me, who’d take the monkey by the hand and lead it back to my centre, where it’d obediently assume the lotus position. Attention is successfully bought back to the centre.

So our mind is like a monkey, swinging from branch to branch, playing and toying and learning from the world around it. That’s all well and good, but make sure that you’re the one leading it, and that you let it take a rest, a sit and a chance to focus.

I think that’s a terrible analogy….but I don’t care.

I try to look after my monkey mind.