Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Hope for all those who want to meditate but feel they can't because they think too much: A remedy. Making friends with the infamous "monkey mind" to make it a means for awakening. It's a common story. Someone wants to take up meditation, but they take themselves to be one of those people for whom it just doesn't work because they think too much. And they give it up in frustration after an hour or a couple weeks or a year. But though it is often taken to be the scourge of meditators, repetitive and excessive thinking is an experience common to everyone. The Buddha famously called it "monkey mind," and that term has become nearly a household phrase. At worst, when people sit down to meditate and invariably find themselves distracted, subtle and not-so-subtle forms of self-aggression and self-recrimination tend to ensue over an experience that is as natural as it unpreventable. At best, the monkey mind is viewed as an obstruction to a deeper way of being; something to ignore, a pest to move beyond. Such an idea often crops up in today's mindfulness culture, in which a myth prevails that meditation is about "emptying out thoughts" or "shutting off the mind."
The truth is, says Ralph De La Rosa, repetitive thinking is a natural function of the human organism that, like all other aspects of our being, serves a purpose--one that is bound up with the activity of awakening. When we stop dismissing this tendency and instead turn toward it, we can discover far-reaching implications in service of well-being, emotional intelligence, cultivating lovingkindness, healing trauma, and developing compassion. The Monkey Is the Messenger is an unpacking of just that. It will issue a call for readers to end the war they wage with themselves and to meet their minds in a manner that is appropriately informed, efficacious, and enjoyable.
Synopsis
An engaging, funny, and introductory guide for anyone who's overactive mind gets in the way of starting a regular meditation practice "My mind is so busy, I really need to meditate."
"My mind is so busy, there's no way I can meditate."
Familiar dilemma? These days just about all of us know we should be meditating, but that doesn't make it any easier to sit down and face the repetitive thoughts careening around our brains--seemingly pointless, sometimes hurtful, nearly always hard to control. Rather than quitting meditation or trying to wall off the monkey mind, Ralph De La Rosa suggests asking yourself a question: If you were to stop demonizing your monkey mind, would it have anything to teach you? In a roundabout way, could repetitive thoughts be pointing us in the direction of personal--and even societal--transformation?
Poignant and entertaining, The Monkey Is the Messenger offers a range of evidence-based, somatic, and trauma-informed insights and practices drawn from De La Rosa's study of neuroscience and psychology and his long practice of meditation and yoga. Here at last--a remedy for all those who want to meditate but suppose they can't because they think too much.