Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Monkey Mind

like most humanoids, i am burdened with what the buddhists call the "monkey mind" - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. from the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. this in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. happy thoughts make me happy, but - whoop! - how quickly i swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's remembrance of angry moment and i start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. you are, after all, what you think. your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
the other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. you are always digging in the past or poking (me: what? facebook?) at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment.

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