The Monkey Mind, what an apt expression! Anyone who has tried meditation has some idea of what it means. Thoughts pull attention here and there and may seem to take us out of meditation altogether; they become obsessive. Feeding the monkeys is buying into the show of proliferating thought, reifying it, being led off by it. It is taking thought too seriously. A related metaphor is the allegory of a monkey stretching as far as he can to grab the reflection of the moon in water. He cannot understand that he is looking in the wrong place. (cont.)