Due to the stress levels this year my ability to focus has taken a big hit.  I see it in a variety of places and at a variety of times.

I usually sleep well, but when I wake, I wake to a racing mind. It's not racing toward any destination. It's just racing.  Often it's filled with throwaway thoughts. It takes me a while to get it under control. Sometimes it will settle of its own accord. Other times I will have to deliberately pull it in with meditation.

When I start work there are times when just the act of starting work is very difficult.  There are other times when I am able to start okay.  Sometimes I can get fairly deeply into the day before I get derailed.

It doesn't take much to derail me.  Something unexpected.  Something trivial.  Something irritating.  Whatever focus and motivation I had just goes away and I find myself caught in a mind-loop that won't let go.  The monkey has his hand in the jar and is not going to let go, even though he is trapped.

I can see it in the evening, at the end of the day, when I just want to stare blankly at the wall.  Once I stop for the day that is it, I'm done.  Consequently I am losing a good section of time where I am most personally productive - the evenings.

Another place I can see it is writing.  I have been having a hard time writing with any sort of attention to detail. It is far to easy to let myself be distracted and then just...do nothing.

I know that part of it is the mind/body healing from the high levels of stress.  I know that eventually I will make it through and return to a time where focus comes more naturally, more easily.  In the interim though it is irritating me.

So, let me just finish this up and post it.  Then we will see if I can focus back and pull myself out of  my focus-free mind.  Let go monkey! Let go!

Some Thoughts on Complexities

I spent some time today thinking about the various complexities that enter our lives.  It takes a certain discipline and a certain will to learn to ignore them.  Most complexities are imaginary.  They are the result of our minds creating associations between things where those associations really don't exist.  Oh, there is cause and effect - the causal chain is simply how the world works.  But, sometimes we assume a cause and effect and where there really isn't one.  This is illusion in action.  One of the things we can do to attain a greater state of awareness of what is real and what is not real is to simply pay attention to the causal chain, really pay attention to it.  If we focus and meditate on the causal chain, if we walk through the parts of the chain, if we consider the relationships and the sequence, we can often pierce the veil of illusion. Life is not entirely a cluster of random events, but it is very close to that. Our mind loves complexities - we can perceive them, we can understand them, we can even embrace them - but we need to be careful of the illusion.  We need to be careful of the times when we create our illusory complexities and then act as if they are real.

The Day Unexpected

The Day Unexpected

I woke up early this morning and spent the first hour or so laying there and reading from Django Wexler’s “The Thousand Names”.  I followed that leisurely start with a hot cup of coffee and a bowl of Special K. I tossed a few text back and forth with T.R. before finally starting the inevitable morning commute.  My monkey-mind, much beloved and terribly exasperating, started chattering and jumping around.  I used a few counter-measures to hold it at bay.  I took a different route to work.  I focused on going with the flow.  I stopped to gas up the SUV.  When I arrived at the office, I visualized being armored and I repeated a simple mantra - “Stay tight. Stay focused.”  I started the day weaving through all of the steps necessary for a project go-live.  I reviewed documents. I reviewed checklists. I updated the cut-over plan.  I moved smoothly into the first meeting of the day and…

The day unexpected appeared.

The project I have been working on, the project that was scheduled to go live later this week is suddenly on hold. Technically, we are ready to go.  The portion of the project I am responsible for is sitting in the box, ready to be deployed. The customer is not ready to go.  The customer feels they did not communicate well enough or deeply enough to their core constituency.  They need to plan their portion of the roll-out again.  All of the pressure that was inside of me, that was building to completion at the end of the week, is gone. Poof.  We’re on hold for future direction.  In my experience, most programs that get this close to completion and the stop…they are done.  They are not revivable.  This one might make it.  They seem convinced they are heading in the right direction and it is more a problem of execution than a problem of concept.  They may be right. I give them about a fifty-fifty shot at salvaging their work.

My Monkey Mind Chimes In

I was very cranky when I woke up this morning. I slept well enough, but my monkey mind was spinning about work almost immediately upon waking.  It got a pretty solid grip and me and just did not want to let go, complaining about all of the small injustices and incompetences that have plagued us for the last several years, then layering on top of it the general sense of pointlessness that has been a hallmark of that time as well.

For me, the last several years truly emphasize the importance of good senior leadership. We’ve been like a rudderless ship without it. We’re supposed to be notified of our reorganization sometime this month. I hope it is sooner rather then later and I hope it is in a good direction.  I am not sure how much longer I am willing or able to endure the incompetence. Today was a very rough day in that aspect.  As I drove in my brain kept repeatedly telling me “Don’t do it! Turn around! Go home! Don’t make that turn! Drive right on by! Don’t open the door! Turn around and walk out.”  It was a pretty constant chatter until I reached my seat.

The chatter has let up  a little, but it was rough on that commute.  We’ll see how the day goes. Hopefully, it will shape up and I’ll be able to pull something productive out of the day. Then again, maybe it will be a wasted day. (That was my monkey mind, chiming in with it’s two cents right there.)

Sliding Into The Evening

Okay, it was a much better day today.  All days start with the sleep of the night before and I got an excellent nights sleep.  I crawled into bed at 9:00 PM, read a few pages in the magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, then went out like a light.  I had a great dream about a naked woman wrapped in butterscotch sheets and slept clean through the night. I woke at about 4:30 AM (my normal time) after that solid seven and a half hours of sleep.  I was alert and vibrant.

The morning was spent with waffles and coffee, then a call with TR, then off to the office.  My Monkey Mind went half crazy on the drive in, so I focused on slowing the day down and doing one thing after another and keeping a running list of what I accomplished. 

That is one of the things I learned in stress management.  When you are in a time of feeling completely overwhelmed keep a running list of your accomplishments through the day. If, during the day or at the end of the day, you feel like you didn't accomplish anything or that you spun your wheels all day, you can simply look at the list and it will help you realize that you are doing fine - working hard and steady, moving forward, completing tasks and that it is the environment around you that is chaotic.

I worked ten steady hours. I got things done.  I moved toward goals.  There was minimal wasted time, minimal wasted effort.  The day was filled with productive work. Yes, there is a tremendous amount of chaos at work, but it is not my chaos - it is the chaos of the world around me.  One of the more interesting things I spent the time doing today was listening to a webcast from our vice presidents discussing what is going on and what their future plans are.  It was interesting and amusing and at times quite a contrast to what is actually happening on the ground level.

For example, one of the things they cited as an example was they wanted to do was start whittling back all the customization and make the processes simpler and more direct.  Uh, except that is exactly the opposite of what we actually did over the last year plus on the big project.  Where we made things more customized and more complex.  So, there is obviously a disconnect their somewhere.

But, I have to say, as I slide into the evening. All in all it was a good day on this side of the universe. Whoever you are and wherever you are I hope your day was the same.

Scarcely A Ripple

Okay, let's start over.  Sometimes when I go to write an entry here, I get midway through it and I realize it doesn't make a lot of sense or it doesn't serve any purpose.  At that point, I'll often stop myself and start over.

As we go through our lives and listen to our own self-talk, we can become aware of the things that are going on in our minds. Sometimes I find that I have amazingly negative self-talk. I was telling T.R. the other day that sometimes, in the morning, if I happen to struggle to get my contact lens in, I can find myself swearing at the contact lens.  That is pretty pointless behavior.  They are inanimate pieces of plastic.  It's not like they are plotting again me overnight, lying in the case, and the right one says to the left one "Okay, no matter what he does tomorrow, you cling to his finger as tightly as you can, we'll see how many different profanities we can get him to swear!".

So much of our difficulties in life come from those times when our expectations don't line up with the world that unfolds.  We expect the contact lens to go in easily.  They don't.  We swear. Insert pretty much any subject you want in the place of contact lens.  When that happens to me, I need to pull myself carefully into the moment and realign my expectations with the world that unfolds.  That is not always an easy thing to do.  So, today, as I move through the day, I am going to try and be authentically in the moment and not let my expectations get away from me.

It's move of a question of making sure my expectations line up with the world that unfolds - taking those small adjusting movements that pull the world as I want it into alignment with the world that is. The world that is simply is. It is not going to adjust to meet me.  It is simply going to be what it is.  The adjustment has to happen on my part.  So, I think that will be the theme of my day - adjustment - adjust and see if the worlds will line up and I can move through them with scarcely a ripple.  Wish me luck.

The Fierce Little Mind Dance

When I woke up this morning my monkey mind was sitting there, waiting to pounce.  I woke up at 4:00 AM sharp and was lying there in bed, sliding into the morning when in rapid succession my mind through up first one set of negative thoughts, then another, and another.  Each of them was work related, but they each were nothing I could do anything about at 4:00 AM.  Then, to complicate the dance of the monkey mind, when I tried to let each issue rise up naturally, so it could be considered, I mentally jumped to another subject.  It was a pretty fierce little mind dance to start the day.

I got up and meditated for a while, there in the morning darkness, until my mind settled a bit.  Then, I padded around the dark apartment for a while, just stretching and being “present”, settling into the feel of my body as I walked.  After I stilled a bit, I opened the patio door and stepped out onto the patio.  I stood there for a couple of minutes and let the cool morning air totally embrace me.  Somewhere in the distance a single bird was singing, softly. 

Then, back into the apartment, into a hot shower.  I came out of the shower, wrapped myself in a towel, and then stood there in front of the mirror, shaving.  I’ve switched over to shaving with a classic safety razor and, after some practice, I am getting pretty good at it.  There is peace in the zen ritual of classic shaving - the hot towel, the shaving brush and lather, the smooth slide of the razor.

So, showered and shaved and in somewhat better condition, mentally. I started the day. Breakfast was a bowl of Special K and a cup of coffee.  The commute in was smooth.  In work my monkey mind continued it’s dance for a while, so I hit it with another 10 minutes of classic zen mediation, sitting and staring at the wall, sliding back into the moment.

I’ve started the weaving dance of meetings and teleconferences, so I am hoping to stay better centered in the moment as I go through the day. I’ve got a fairly full slate of meetings this morning, but a more settled afternoon.  Lets see if I can make it through this without the continuation of the fierce little mind dance.

A Two Movie Day - Argo and Seven Psychopaths

Today was a two movie day. First, I saw “Argo”, and then “Seven Psychopaths”.

 Of the two movies “Argo” was definitely the better movie. It was directed by, and starred, Ben Affleck. If you haven't seen the trailers or read the publicity about the movie it concerns itself with the rescue of six Americans from Iran during the hostage crisis. It is a simple, taut, tale. It is alternately funny and intense. Alan Arkin and John Goodman bring much of the comic relief in the movie as a makeup artists and the producer, respectfully. I would definitely recommend it, it's well worth the price of admission and it demonstrates that Ben Affleck has turned into a very good director, at least in my opinion

“Seven Psychopaths” was a more uneven movie. Parts of it bordered on brilliant, but parts of it missed entirely. The cast was outstanding, but unfortunately, too much of the writing was self-indulgent. It felt a lot like a scriptwriter writing a movie about a scriptwriter which is always a failing in Hollywood I think. They say you should write about what you know and unfortunately for scriptwriters that means too often they write about scriptwriters. But, with Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, and Colin Farrell you can hardly go totally wrong. The parts of it that work are worth the price of admission.

After the movie Tony and I stopped at Red Robin for dinner. I had the blue ribbon Burger and steak fries which is pretty good. After dinner I drifted home, I watched a bit of TV, then took a nice nap. I didn't really sleep, instead I kind of tossed and turned, and then eventually gave up and got up. I watched an episode of “Ghost Hunters” and I'm contemplating watching something else off the DVR into the meeting

Today is Day 12 of my personal journey. As such days ago it wasn't too bad. There are always moments when the monkey mind kicks in, when you feel the emptiness, when you're not sure what to do. Then I think you take a deep breath, maybe another deep breath, and you trust to the journey itself. Everything in life happens for a reason or at least that is what I believe. It can be hard to believe when what happens hurts us but it remains to nonetheless. I keep moving forward. I keep taking one day at a time. I keep trying to keep the monkey mind under control.

Cities of the Plain

What a day.

I went to bed a little early last night, read a bit, and was sound asleep by about 8:30 PM. Consequently, I woke up and rolled out of bed, showered, and was working by about 4:00 AM. It was a frustrating day - I was trying to work my way through my e-mail backlog, but I only made a bit of head way. It seemed that every time I managed to work one piece out, two more arrived.  By the end of the day, I was tired and frustrated.

There was a bright spot in the day, they had a masseur in giving neck and shoulder massages, so I managed to get a massage later in the day. All in all though, it was a lost cause of a day and a lost cause of a week, as far as project progress is concerned.  Tomorrow is a new day, so I get to do it all over again.

After work, I came home and took a short nap, then picked up Tony at the airport, returning from his vacation in Arizona and Minnesota, and we stopped at the Hickory Pit for dinner, then I dropped him off at his apartment. We watched a bit of the VP debate on the TV at the restaurant and then I watched the wrap on the television. I am sure there will be plenty of analysis about who did what to who when and where tomorrow.

It's Day Ten and I didn't really battle the monkey-mind today, though that was mostly due to being overwhelmed in the office and wrestling with my work related monkey-mind, which was threatening to run out of control. The trip to the airport to pick up Tony was a good distraction as well.

My plan for the evening is to curl up in bed and read a bit, then hopefully get a good nights sleep.  I started reading "Cities of the Plain", but it is going to take me a while to get into it, so I might turn to one of my science fiction magazines to read a short story or two.  Of course, there is a good possibility that once I hit the bed I am going to be five minutes from sleep.  I will let you know how that turns out in the morning.

An Apple A Day

It's an eight meeting today. Normally I would not have even bothered to come into the office today, since I'm basically spending the day pacing around and wearing my telephone headset. It all means that, at the end of the day, I'll be completely fried, especially since I threw myself into work at 5:30 AM.

I am sitting in a scheduling meeting today and, to tell the truth, it's a pure fantasy land meeting. But, it's a pleasant enough fantasy land, especially since I've started to us my Zen tricks to not care about the outcome. I just do the best I can and then leave the rest to the flying monkeys.

My monkey mind was pretty attached today, though the rapid succession of meetings kept me busy enough that it never really got away from me, except for a time or two. I walked and breathed and pulled myself back into the moment.  The scent of the apple pictured above was a great tool to pull me back into the moment, smelling slightly sweet and crisp.

When I go through an emotionally difficult time the tendency to second-guess myself runs wild. The thoughts of the day become "what if, what if, what if..." and they spin around and threaten to run out of control.  But, I replay all the conversations, then think about them, consider what is done and not done, said and unsaid, actions taken and actions not taken - and the weight of things usually becomes apparent, painful, but apparent.

Then of course, wrapped inside of it was a great little section from "The Bowl of Sagi":

October 7th

If is a very high stage on the path of love

When one really learns to love another

With a love that asks no return

A difficult thing indeed, but a thing that we can accomplish.

On Flow

I tried my best to flow through the day and not let my emotions crash over me too often.  There were moments of course, but there always are.  I am deliberately trying to not over think everything. Trying to just flow through the day, to breath, to walk on the earth, to be present. (All credit to the Teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh). So, in the spirit of flowing, in the spirit of being present...

I had breakfast with Bob, over at the Hickory Pit, and from there went over to AMC 14 and saw the new movie, Taken 2, with Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Jensen.  It was exactly what it was supposed to be and enjoyable as a pure popcorn movie.  From there, I met Don at Edgies and shot some pool (lost every single game), and then an early dinner at Red Lobster.  Home, a quick nap, a shower, and this moment.

As I went through the day I was pretty much continuously pulled out of the moment by the monkey mind, by all the unanswered questions that flow through us in emotional times. I am hoping that my mind stills and I am able to enjoy the evening.  I think the shower and the nap helped. Plus, one of my new favorite shows comes on this evening - Copper, on BBC.  If you haven't watched it, I would definitely give it a very high recommendation.

The Tides of Life

Well, it has been a day. The tides of life are flowing strongly. I am still too close to the events to write about them in detail here, in fact, many of the details are still actively swirling around in my mind.  My monkey-mind is reaching out there and grasping at various things that are flowing by and I am in a constant struggle of trying to not let it fasten on things.  Additionally, I have always respected the privacy of other people, so I am sticking to that, even though half of the story is mine.  It was an emotional morning and those emotions rose and fell through the day. This evening was melancholy, so I picked up my guitar and wrote for a while.  I have set that aside for now to let it age a bit, but I do have to say I was happy with the outcome.

It is strange to me, but I think all of the reading I have done in the last year in Zen has influenced me.  I am - not grasping. When I feel my hands grasping I take a deep breath and I relax them.  It helps. I try to be as open and honest as I can in this world, and as tough as this time has been for me emotionally, there is no guilt associated with it.  It is an emotionally tough time, in which I am an active participant, but they are the emotions that arise from being attached. Buddha himself left a wife and child to seek enlightenment (which is always a weird thing to think about, in my book).  I haven't left a wife and child, so it is just something to think about.

I had breakfast with Bob, then wandered a bit, through Fry's and Home Depot, then I came home and took a nap.  After the nap,Tyrone and I drove up to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  Here, in the evening, as mentioned, I spent some time playing and writing, and then watched a pair of Fringe episodes.  I may watch an episode of Haven next, since it is a little too early to go to bed, and, I am fairly certain, that once I crawl into bed the monkey-mind is going to run berserk for a while before it lets me fall asleep.

Oh, that reminds me, I finished reading William Gibson's "Zero History".  I would highly recommend it, it was thoroughly enjoyable.  I am not sure what I am going to start reading next, but I have some other books in line.

The Speed of Thought

The human mind is an incredible thing. The speed with which our thoughts arise, move, change, transform, and fall away can often astound me. Because of the journey I’ve been on over the last period of time, I have been focusing on simplification, both externally, by purging myself of many of my possession, and internally, by trying to do a better job of focusing on the “here and now” and not letting my thoughts (the monkey mind) run away from.

I won’t kid you, it has been a struggle. If I had to characterize it, I would say that I went from being in the here and now 1 out of 10 moments to, maybe, 2 out of 10 moments. The main difference is that now I am often more aware of when the monkey mind has taken hold and is in the processing of running away with thoughts that are not real.

I got back from lunch a short while ago, and because it has been a quiet and very productive day, I decided to simply take a walk around the building. I was probably a quarter of the way into the walk when I realized that my monkey mind was in a complete runaway state. It was merrily dashing through all sorts of imaginative thoughts, good, bad, confused, and indifferent. I was deep down a tangent when the realization of it came to me.

It was so dazzling I was amazed as the speed and ferocity of that little monkey mind dashing all around. I took a series of deep breaths and concentrated, as best I could, and simply walking down the hallway without the monkey mind getting away from me. In itself that can be a difficult things because, what my mind did, instead of concentrating on being in the hallway, it started to write this article, right there, as I walked down the hallway and tried to focus the monkey mind on being in that moment, my mind was more than willing to skip ahead to this moment.

Like I said, it was pretty dang awesome. I managed to reel it in and get it focused so that I was able to simply walk down the hall, but it took an effort of will and it keep threatening to get away from me again.

Thinking About The Monkey Mind

Let me take something I jotted down on my Blackberry as my jumping off point for today's entry.

"I wonder sometimes at the wars I fight inside my head. I wonder - why? Am I so undisciplined I cannot control my own thoughts? Or do I move toward conflict like a moth moves toward a flame, beguiled and doomed."

I jotted that down over the weekend - now, I don't actually remember exactly when or where, but it was at some point when I was out running errands. What I was referencing was the ability of the imagination to take something (an event, a conversation, an encounter) that is unreal - and spin it toward the negative. I may be walking down the hall at work and I start thinking about a teleconference or a meeting that is coming up and in my brain I start running through all of the possible negative encounters that might arise.

Now, according to my stress therapist, some degree of rehearsal is good - for example, if I am going to call a customer and I know that the customer is going to be challenging, or going to act or react in a certain way, then some rehearsal is a good thing because it allows me to enter the scenario prepared.

However, sometimes I have a tendency to spin entirely imaginary encounters to the negative, to rehearse for contingencies that are never going to happen. Now that I am more aware of this, when it does happen, I am able to intervene, to take a closer look at the imaginary circumstances and conclude that the probability of them happening is very small and so successfully set them aside. There are a variety of techniques that work for this - my favorite is to visualize the particular thought stream as a monkey, sitting on your shoulder, picking at you. Then, consciously, pick the monkey up, set him down and send him scampering on his way. That is probably just because I happen to enjoy visualizing everyone I work with as a Flying Monkey, from the Wizard of Oz.

But, what still continually amazes me is that all to often I have to pull my thought stream back in, I have to send the monkey scampering on his way, because while I wasn't watching the thought stream took the imagination into a negative place. I suspect that is probably the next level of discipline, preventing the mind from going there. Beginning in a good place and staying in that good place - being realistic, being pragmatic, but also being benevolent and compassionate. Imagine positive and affirming encounters and incidents, when that is appropriate. (The reality of the work world is simple - not ever encounter is going to be positive or affirming, given the very ordinary distribution of people's attitudes and behaviors. But, why imagine it as such?

It is something that periodically has me scratching my head, and probably will for a while as I work my way through it. So, feel free to set your monkey down over hear next to mine and they can amuse themselves while we enjoy the day.

(It turned out to be a truly beautiful, if a bit cold, California evening - with blue skies and sunshine, trees opening up and blooming, pollen count rising, and a cool wind blowing. Spring is here, but Winter is just not quite ready to let us go.)

Defaulting To The Dancing Mind

I probably should have included this is my earlier fragments, as it is something that was wandering through my imagination over the last week or so. I was thinking about the difficulty of “finding the moment” in the modern age. As I move though each day, I often find myself “somewhere other than the present”. I am thinking about past events. I am contemplating future events. I am thinking about past events that only happened in my imagination. I am contemplating future events that will only happen in my imagination.

When I catch myself doing thing I make the effort to “find the moment”, that is to pull myself back into the here and now. I am usually successful, but often only for a while. Then, suddenly, I become aware that I am somewhere else in my imagination as I walk down the hallway.

I find myself frequently contemplating the unreal. I may be imagining past events and imagining different outcomes or I may be anticipating future events and rehearsing for them. I may be mentally practicing the options, or trying to get my brains wrapped around future outcomes.

I definitely find myself defaulting to the dancing mind.

A Sluggish Day So Far

It has been hours since the day began and I feel like I am finally gaining some clarity. I made a mistake last night that had unintended consequences. I stayed up until about midnight reading. I woke up about three for no particular reason. I woke up at five when my nephew was heading out to work. There was the decision point - I should have gotten out of bed when my nephew left for work. But - I thought - I can squeeze one more hour of sleep out - so I stayed in bed. And now, most of the morning, has been a journey through the monkey mind, full of distractions.

I woke at seven from a dream of trying to administer a yahoo email list. I wanted to just do a bulk update, it was an easy thing - but it was the wrong thing to do. I knew I had to go through each of several hundred records one by one. When I woke up, I could not shake that list from my mind. The strange thing of course is - there is no such list. I do not administer an yahoo email lists - but it was a real dream and the challenge of the task stayed in my mind and I could not quite shake it on the drive into work.

I got into the office and hit the wall of meetings that is sometimes typical of a Monday morning. I have basically been in five (going on six) hours of meetings. The last one is wrapping up and I am going to go out and get something for lunch, then come back and try and salvage some productive work from the day. In the ten minute windows of time between meetings I've gone and done a quick walk around the building to try and get some blood flowing, hoping that will help pull me into a more alert stage, but it really hasn't worked. I feel - sluggish, lacking clarity, today. I think I just need some more sleep.

But, of course, that means when I go home tonight I am going to be tempted to take an extended nap, which will cascade into the nights sleep. So, instead, I think I will go out and do something after work tonight, in order to keep the rhythm going, so that I can fall asleep naturally at some point during the night. I do have an errand to run - I never did get my laundry done yesterday, so that is a good thing that will keep me moving this evening. But, all in all, so far today has been sluggish.

The Tale of the Monkey Mind

I seem to mention the Monkey Mind often enough that I thought I would write a little bit about it for those that are unfamiliar with the concept. It arises from Buddhism and is culturally engrained in both China and Japan.

Ann Pizer describes it as "The monkey-mind jumps from thought to thought like a monkey jumps from tree to tree. Rather than existing in the present moment, the monkey mind focuses on one thought after another, and these thoughts distract us from existing in the present."

http://yoga.about.com/b/2007/01/18/quieting-the-monkey-mind.htm

The monkey mind, at least my monkey mind, is capable of evoking some pretty powerful emotions that have no correspondence to the current moment, sometimes no correspondence to the real world at. They can be entirely thought-constructs. If you have ever had an imaginary argument with someone about something that never happened and most likely never will happen, then you have felt that monkey mind at work.

There are a lot of other places the monkey mind likes to jump out of. If you are in a relationship and struggling with the battles of a past relationship, that is the monkey mind. If you are at work and bearing the wounds of a previous job, that is the monkey mind. If you see something you don't like in one time and space and then carry it into the next time and space, that is the monkey mind. The monkey mind loves to pull you from the present by distracting you with the not present.

Personally, a huge step for me has been recognizing the monkey mind and simply knowing that it is there. Knowing it is there is a good step toward working its way toward the true experience of the present.

The Tao Stills The Monkey Mind

I woke this morning and the monkey-mind was doing a dance inside my head.

I made it a point to take a few minutes this morning and meditate on the here and the now, a few minutes to try and still the monkey mind and be where I was, not where I was not.

I opened an email from a list I subscribe to and one section of it contained a quote from the Tao.

It resonated with me as I attempted to still the monkey mind.

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself you reconcile all beings in the world.”

– Lao Tzu (Chapter 67, Tao Te Ching)