By The Backyard Buddhist
There comes a moment in almost every meditation practice when we realize something that can feel deeply frustrating:
We sit down to meditate, and our mind immediately starts doing everything except meditating.
We remember conversations from ten years ago. We replay arguments that never happened. We plan grocery lists. We mentally renovate the kitchen. We wonder what’s for dinner. We imagine becoming enlightened. We imagine not becoming enlightened. We think about how well we’re meditating, and then we think about how badly we’re meditating.
In Buddhism, this restless, wandering tendency is often called the “monkey mind.”
And if we’re not careful, we can spend years believing that the purpose of zazen is to somehow get rid of it.
I know I did.
When I first began practicing Zen, I assumed meditation was supposed to produce a quiet mind. I thought that if enough thoughts appeared, something had gone wrong. I imagined that experienced practitioners sat on their cushions floating in vast oceans of perfect silence while I sat wrestling with a troop of caffeinated monkeys.
What I’ve learned over the years is that this misunderstanding is itself one of the monkey’s favorite tricks.
The problem isn’t that thoughts appear.
The problem is that we believe they’re supposed to stop.
The Mind Produces Thoughts
One of the most important realizations in Sōtō Zen is surprisingly simple:
The brain produces thoughts.
That’s what it does.
The heart beats.
The lungs breathe.
The mind thinks.
Expecting the mind not to think is a little like expecting the heart not to beat.
Kōdō Sawaki Roshi once said:
“Thoughts are not an obstacle to zazen.”
That statement is almost shocking when we first hear it.
Many of us arrive at meditation believing thoughts are the enemy.
Sawaki says they aren’t.
The enemy is our attachment to them.
The enemy is the habit of climbing aboard every passing train of thought and riding it wherever it goes.
A memory appears.
We follow it.
A fantasy appears.
We follow it.
A worry appears.
We follow it.
And before long we’ve left the meditation hall entirely and are wandering through a landscape built entirely from imagination.
The problem isn’t the appearance of thought.
The problem is boarding the train.
Clouds in an Empty Sky
Dōgen Zenji repeatedly returned to a fundamental insight:
The mind’s true nature is not disturbed by thoughts.
Thoughts arise within awareness the same way clouds arise within the sky.
The sky doesn’t fight the clouds.
It doesn’t demand their removal.
It doesn’t congratulate itself when they’re gone.
It simply remains sky.
Many of us spend years trying to clear away clouds.
Zen asks us instead to discover the sky.
In Fukanzazengi, Dōgen writes:
“Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.”
This teaching can seem mysterious.
But I don’t think Dōgen is speaking about suppressing thought.
Nor is he describing blankness.
He’s pointing toward a relationship with thought that isn’t grasping and isn’t rejecting.
Thoughts come.
Thoughts go.
Awareness remains.
This is nonthinking.
Let the Monkey Run
One of my favorite teachings comes through the lineage of Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi.
Uchiyama often compared the mind to a monkey.
But unlike many spiritual traditions, he didn’t recommend beating the monkey into submission.
He didn’t recommend trapping it.
He didn’t recommend strangling it with concentration.
Instead he suggested allowing the monkey to do what monkeys do.
Run.
Jump.
Swing.
Chatter.
Meanwhile, we simply sit.
This sounds passive until we actually try it.
The impulse to control the mind runs deep.
We want results.
We want silence.
We want mystical experiences.
We want enlightenment.
The monkey wants all these things too.
Sometimes the monkey even wants to become a Buddha.
Uchiyama Roshi writes:
“Opening the hand of thought is the foundation of zazen.”
Notice he doesn’t say eliminate thought.
He says open the hand.
The thought may still be there.
What’s gone is the grasping.
The Great Joke of Meditation
One of the greatest ironies of Zen practice is that the harder we try to force stillness, the more agitated we become.
We’ve all done it.
We sit down.
A thought appears.
We swat it away.
Another appears.
We swat that away.
Soon we’re exhausted from fighting our own minds.
Meditation becomes mental whack-a-mole.
The effort itself becomes the disturbance.
Sawaki Roshi put it beautifully:
“Zazen is good for nothing.”
At first this sounds absurd.
But he’s pointing toward something profound.
The moment we sit with a goal, the monkey gets involved.
The moment we sit to become enlightened, the monkey starts measuring progress.
The moment we sit to become peaceful, the monkey begins checking for peace.
The monkey loves self-improvement projects.
Zazen is not self-improvement.
It is self-forgetting.
Returning Again and Again
People often ask me:
“What should I do when my mind wanders?”
My answer is always the same.
Notice it.
Return.
That’s it.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing mystical.
No self-criticism required.
Notice.
Return.
Notice.
Return.
Notice.
Return.
This cycle is not failure.
It is the practice itself.
Every return is an act of awakening.
Every return is a moment of mindfulness.
Every return is a tiny relinquishment of attachment.
When we judge ourselves for wandering, we’ve simply become attached to another thought.
The practice remains the same.
Notice.
Return.
The Compassionate View
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the monkey mind is often trying to protect us.
Many thoughts arise from fear.
Many arise from unresolved grief.
Many arise from anxiety.
Many arise from old wounds.
The monkey isn’t necessarily malicious.
Often it’s frightened.
Often it’s lonely.
Often it’s trying to help in the only way it knows how.
This realization changes the tone of practice.
Instead of waging war against the mind, we begin meeting it with compassion.
Instead of demanding silence, we offer patience.
Instead of becoming frustrated, we become curious.
The monkey loses much of its power when it is no longer treated as an enemy.
Just Sitting
Sōtō Zen’s great gift to the world is the practice of shikantaza—”just sitting.”
Not achieving.
Not fixing.
Not suppressing.
Not transcending.
Just sitting.
Thoughts arise.
Just sitting.
Emotions arise.
Just sitting.
Monkey chatter arises.
Just sitting.
This is why Dōgen taught that zazen is not a method for becoming Buddha.
It is the expression of Buddha itself.
We don’t sit in order to become something else.
We sit because this very moment is already complete.
The monkey may still chatter.
The mind may still wander.
The weather of consciousness may still change.
Yet beneath all of it is the simple act of sitting upright in the middle of reality.
Nothing needs to be added.
Nothing needs to be removed.
Just this.
Just sitting.
Just breathing.
Just being.
And eventually we discover that the monkey was never the problem.
Our attachment to the monkey was.
When we stop wrestling with it, the monkey settles down on its own.
And sometimes, if we’re very lucky, it sits quietly beside us on the cushion.
At least for a little while.
Gassho.
Bibliography
Dōgen Zenji. Shōbōgenzō. Various translations.
Dōgen Zenji. Fukanzazengi (Universal Recommendation for Zazen).
Uchiyama, Kōshō. Opening the Hand of Thought. Wisdom Publications.
Uchiyama, Kōshō. The Wholehearted Way. Tuttle Publishing.
Sawaki, Kōdō. To You. Translated teachings of Kōdō Sawaki.
Sawaki, Kōdō and Uchiyama, Kōshō. The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kōdō.
Okumura, Shohaku. Realizing Genjokoan. Wisdom Publications.
Okumura, Shohaku. Living by Vow. Wisdom Publications.
Matsuoka, Soyu. The Kyosaku: A Zen Teacher’s Life and Teachings.
Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Weatherhill.
Warner, Brad. Don’t Be a Jerk. New World Library.
Deshimaru, Taisen. The Zen Way to the Martial Arts. Arkana.
Yasutani, Hakuun. The Three Pillars of Zen. Anchor Books.
The Pāli Canon, especially Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10) and Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118).
