Excerpt from the book

"The Zen Wisdom and the Monkey Mind":

The first monkey, with his hands covering his eyes, was called Mizaru. He personified the principle of “see no evil,” reminding all who crossed his path of the importance of not focusing on the bad in people and situations, nor obsessing over negative or harmful thoughts.

The second monkey, with its hands covering its ears, was called Kikazaru. He represented the idea of “hear no evil,” teaching others not to listen to gossip or harmful words that could cause discord and harm.

The third monkey, with its hands covering its mouth, was known as Iwazaru. He exemplified the concept of “speak no evil,” encouraging others to think before they speak and to use their words only for goodness and truth.

Together, the three monkeys taught everyone the importance of avoiding harmful thoughts, words and actions, to focus on seeing the positive in people and not the negative, to avoid listening to and spreading gossip and harmful words and to use words wisely and goodness.

Their simple but profound message taught everyone to strive to cultivate purity of heart and maintain a clear and calm mind.”

Long ago, there lived a great Emperor, renowned for his wisdom and kindness. One day, while the Emperor was away from his palace, an unexpected visitor arrived: a Demon, crimson-skinned with fierce fangs and glowing eyes. Without ceremony, the Demon climbed onto the Emperor’s throne, acting as though he owned the place.

The courtiers soon noticed this uninvited guest and cried out in horror: “Who dares sit on our Emperor’s throne?! Begone!”

The louder they shouted, the larger the Demon grew. Their anger and insults made his eyes blaze even more intensely, and his body expanded to fill almost the entire throne room. Terrified, the courtiers continued to yell: “Get out of here, foul creature!”

But the more they raged, the taller and more imposing the Demon became.

Right at that moment, the Emperor returned. His attendants ran to him, pleading that he banish the Demon immediately. But the Emperor only glanced over and said gently: “Welcome, dear guest! Please, make yourself at home.”

The Demon froze in astonishment—and suddenly shrank in size. The Emperor reached out his hand: “You may stay as long as you wish.”

Upon hearing those words of gracious hospitality, the Demon shrank even further, confusion now replacing his previous fury. Everyone in the palace stood still, watching. The Emperor smiled calmly and added, “Would you like some tea? Allow me to have you served.”

The more kindness and acceptance the Emperor showed, the faster the Demon dwindled. The anger and fear that had once fueled the Demon were gone, and with nothing to feed on, his power vanished. Soon he was hardly bigger than a mouse. Then, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared completely.

From that day on, everyone at court remembered: anger and hostility only feed our monsters, but kindness and calm acceptance take away their very ground to stand on.

i (21M) was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder, and i have been meditating consistently (missing a day or two on rare occasions). i wanted to ask people with GAD who have been meditating and practising mindfulness about their experiences, insights, and advice.

kindly share!

Start to put more attention to your breathing, Especially when you are in extreme performance BUT don’t need to and you need to keep your energy. Make sure to breathe slowly and lower your heart rates, keep the flow of the breathing.

Hi all,

Undergraduate student who has always had random mental chatter / overactive inner monologue. Specifically, whenever I stop deliberately focusing on my surroundings, random songs or movie snippets will start playing involuntarily through my head. I don't suffer from anxiety or racing thoughts -- my mind is literally just random, chaotic junk.

While I am able to turn off the mental chatter somewhat easily while meditating, whenever I attempt to focus on a task that requires thinking (such as studying / reading a book), my brain starts to chatter away and cannot be stopped on command, no matter how hard I try to focus on the task at hand.

For this reason, has anyone managed to turn off the mental chatter while studying, and achieve sole focus? And if so, how?

For context, I have been practicing focus meditation for the past few months (i.e. focusing on thoughts and removing unnecessary ones whenever they pop up), but it has not helped much with studying.

Any true success stories would be deeply, deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,

nihaomundo123

I’ve been bullied for 9 years as a child in primary school. I was treated like some alien, nobody wanted to be my friend. They didn’t even have a particular reason.

This continued throughout high school, university and later life. Every friend I seemed to make usually wanted to ghost me, or go away or treat badly, despite the amount of kindness I would try to give them.

As a result, I live thinking I’m a burden to everyone I meet. I find it incredibly hard to make new friends for the fear they will ghost me or treat me badly. I have trust issues with friendships and don’t really know how to get through that - I’m lonely but I don’t want to be with people that make me feel alone.

Been trying to practice mindfulness to improve my anxiety, rumination, overthinking, etc., but now my anxiety has latched onto mindfulness. Whenever I try to practice mindfulness, it’s like I’m straining and concentrating really hard to be as mindful as possible, examining every sound, color, sight, taste, feeling, thought, etc. but to no avail. I know it’s supposed to feel like letting go and relaxing, but it’s like I’ve forgotten how to relax. Even the act of trying to let go and relax is a massive chore that requires strenuous but fruitless effort. I try to observe the thoughts and let them flow, but in doing so I end up getting lost in them or pushing at them, all while I struggle to retain focus on my breath and my surroundings. No matter what I do every day is so stressful and anxious.

I haven’t been allowing myself to ponder or indulge creativity. I used to dream up creative ideas or stories in my head, ponder deeply about life, cultivate hopeful visions of the future, cherish memories, process my emotions and pains from the past. Now I’m too focused on my strict anxiety-driven version of mindfulness to do any of those things. And I’ve basically decided in my mind that all of those things are threats. Whenever one arises it gets stomped out. And it can be very hard to tell the difference between genuinely pondering, and ruminating or engaging with intrusive thoughts.

I want to know what I’m doing wrong here. If someone has any advice please help me out! I’d really appreciate it.

Whole energy is concentrated here when you do not run away from the uneasiness of sadness, embarrassment, insult, shame, any irritating situation. Thought is not able to gather relief by complaining or by solacing.

Discomfort is disturbance in the nervous system. It is healed automatically giving way to relief, pleasure. Relaxed and conscious action emerges.

The illusion sees discomfort as a threat as in the case of physical danger and reacts giving way to all the complications of living.

1. silent meditation: sitting still and letting the thoughts flow, focussing and acknowledging that my entire body is separate than my mind where my thoughts are flowing freely (i can separate my mind + thoughts from the body and let them flow while knowing my body is there sitting). sometimes, i also start focusing on the imaginary black spot in between my eyes during the mind-body separation, which mostly leads to more thoughts to originate and flow.

2. breathing/mindful meditation: sitting and focussing on my in-breadth and out-breadth (saying stuff like-breathing in/out i know i’m breathing in/out). i breathe through any thoughts that arise, bringing my focus back to my breathing (the present moment)

what i have noticed for each type of meditation relative to the other type of meditation- •30 or more mins of silent meditation: more calm, slightly more anxious, slightly less confident . •30 or more mins of breathing meditation: less calm, more confident, less anxious

both when compared to no meditation: much calmer, more confident, less anxious

in any case, i do both daily, usually sitting meditation right after breathing meditation.

I struggle with turning to the internet every time I feel bored, stressed, anxious, depressed, you name it.

My issue is more so with going onto Reddit because I am able to listen to a YT video while working on something with my hands. With reddit, I have to have my full attention on it in order to read a post, write comments, or work on a post of my own.

I've always had an inner voice telling me that I need to stop using Reddit so much, but I'd never listen to it. It was only a few months ago that I fully acknowledged that I had an addiction to begin with. Still, I didn't make any steps back then to stop, but I want to, now.

I'm fed up with my behavior, and I'm fed up with how much time I've wasted because of the addiction. It hasn't been good for my mental health, either. I cringe and feel sad whenever I think of all the productive things I could have been doing instead. I'm never getting that time back, but the next best thing is to start right now.

I think that another reason why it's lasted this long is because I was always using Reddit/the internet as a crutch, but I was too afraid, lazy, or unmotivated to do something about it. I strongly believe that the reason why I relied so much on Reddit for my entertainment and source of interaction with other people, especially in the past few years, is because I don't really have any friends.

I know it is not my fault for why I lost the majority of my friendships. I left my friend group because they decided to show support to the best friend of the man who SA-ed me.

However, it is my fault that I haven't made any steps to make new friends. I know that I am lonely and use the internet as my daily dose of social interaction. But obviously, the only thing that it's done for me is cause this addiction. Admittedly, going on the internet and speaking to people on Reddit is very fun. But like with all fun things, it's very important to not get addicted to it. I let this get out of hand.

I will still use the internet, but I need to reduce my usage by at least 90%. I especially need to stop opening up Reddit every chance I get. From now on, the only Reddit interactions I will accept for myself are posting my art and responding to comments and messages about my art.

I know it's going to be difficult, but I really want this for myself. I know that for the sake of my mental health and general wellbeing, I need it.