Navigating Nepal: The Year of the Monkey

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. – Anais Nin

I’m astounded by people who want to “know” the Universe, when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown –Woody Allen

Ms. Nin must have been in a contemplative mood when she authored that quote, since usually her writings were significantly more racy and blushing with her erotica and sensual suggestions of living lustfully in the world. Mr. Allen on the other hand, I bet was right where he usually seems to be: commenting in that delightfully endearing and neurotic way on a basic tension of being human: how to feel connected to something bigger than our immediate world when the daily challenges of just being in that world seem daunting enough.

That tightrope of balancing the rippling clarity of sensing something more with working out the mechanics of reaching that clarity is one that I also bet everyone of us recognizes –we feel the tickles of something fluttering inside that nudges us in a direction that feels intuitively clear but the stubborn minds’ eye wants to “know” what it is before making a move. Therein lies the trick –in order to know what’s ahead, steps need to be taken and it’s not possible to just leap to the end of the street. I mean, who would start a movie, and then just jump to the final scene in order to know what happens? No one, that’s who. Most of us can breezily say that in such a scenario, you have to just watch to scenes unfold and be available for what comes on the screen. You can’t force the screen anymore than you could start the movie knowing how it ends (ok ok, I get it about films like the Titanic –since the ending is already known, the challenge is how to make the story line interesting. What were we all doing before meeting Jack and Rose…) the point being, there’s something to be said for just showing up and seeing what happens.

But there’s lots more to said for just dealing with what many Buddhist teachings call “monkey mind.” What is that, you may ask. Think about it. Monkey Mind is when the mind just leaps, swings, screeches and yelps day and night with chatter and distracting projections of “what if.” Note the distinction between the brain and the mind. The brain is just a collection of bio-chemical and physical traits that create a pile of grey matter inside a skull. It is a tangible, actual thing that you can look at, pick at and scan. The mind, on the other hand, is a construct of that stardust from the universe that creates thoughts, feelings, impressions, fears, desire, anger and all those other good things that humans and creatures experience over a lifetime. The brain doesn’t “do” anything beyond the chemical –but the mind, left to its own devices, is a force to be reckoned with.

I don’t lie awake at night at 3am because my brain wanders into darker corners of uncertainty and anxieties. I don’t pace the hallways like Medusa at 4am looking out at the stormy Kathmandu skies because my brain is fluttering like a jar full of butterflies. When I do those things –and it’s not often but has happened, particularly when jetlagged (thanks body chemistry) – it’s because I have chosen a certain record from the collection of my musical monkey mind. And I’m playing it at full volume. The mind can seem very far from being a soothing friend. It can be the farthest thing from a warm hug, a smile from a friend, or a kiss from a loved one. Instead, monkey mind can be a powerful cocktail of doubts, questions, uncertainty that causes me to turn around and look back as if I can hear the tail of monkey mind swishing up and getting ready to greet me.

Monkey mind can also be a very good friend to get you into that place of darkness. I read once that the darkness of the deep night is in some cultures considered a sacred and coveted space of enlightenment and revelations. It is there, in the deep night, that the most powerful and revealing insights come to us through the slivers of star or moonlight that trickle down from that universe above. It is there, in the sleepiness and solitude –and sometimes sadness—that moments spark into helping us understand that something is changing. That we are changing.

The months of this past year have held many such moments. Moments of looking out the window while deep rains poured down, hitting the glass so hard that I felt sure any moment the windows would crack and the rain would just wash away the doubts and questions and desire alive in my mind to reach out to something that felt unclear. Other moments were in the pre dawn light, where birds were waking up and the blanket of night lifted away to reveal the sounds of morning sweeping and little temple bells starting to ring. At those moments, the puffs of incense coming into my nose tickled me in more ways than one.

But monkey mind is not all deep contemplation. It’s also talking with dear friends who say something insightful like “I’m more than 40 years old, I don’t have to put up with this shit anymore” that results in a belly laugh of understanding so obvious and clear that it’s worth a week of meditation regarding a sense of peace and acceptance. It’s skyping with a delightful little 4 year old who says “I want you to read me a story here on the couch please.” And you realize that yes, I want to sit on that couch over there. These moments set into motion a series of little hops, sparks and desires that then become concrete steps, decisions, choices and conversations. And it’s figuring out that Ms Nin was onto something –that staying in that little bud really does become a bit of a pain, and that the pain of kicking it out and saying “what the hell, why not” does actually feel a whole hell of a lot better.

And who gets lost in Chinatown anyway.