Unruly Animal-Mind vs Observer / Guide Mind

Probably the most crucial realization to achieve on the path to mastering the self is that of becoming acquainted with how one's own mind can be quite similar to an unruly horse or an excited monkey.

In this modern age, there are quite a few people who have never ridden a horse although a few may have seen an excited monkey. Too bad. Horse riding is tremendously instructive, particularly with regard to getting the horse to do what you want when it doesn't want to.

Picture this:
You are seated atop a horse and want to head down the trail to the neighbor's ranch. You give a little kick with your heels to get him started, pull the reins to the right and...no dice. Your fine steed has found a particularly tasty patch of clover and stays put. You try again. It turns its head, looks at you as if you are some sort of inconvenience and...goes back to eating clover. Even though you have a clear objective and attempt to command the beast, quite literally it has a mind of its own.

This sort of thing explains why, even though we might know exactly what to do to lose weight, we don't. We might even get a little bit forceful with ourselves and knuckle down to a program, only to be thwarted by the unruly horse of our own mental process.

A somewhat more agitated form of a disobedient mind is sometimes referred to as "monkey mind" because of its tendency to seize upon one thought after another. This is easy to notice in another person when they keep changing the subject of a conversation. We might also recognize it in ourselves when we have difficulty getting to sleep as concerns or action movies scenes keep popping into our heads in spite of our best attempts to drift into dreamland.

In both cases the moment of truth comes when a person recognizes that they are not actually in charge of what their mind does. At that moment, something else wakes up. I call it the Observer. It is the part of ourselves that simply observes. It has a companion which I call the Guide, which selects. These two aspects of self are distinguishable from animal-mind in that they are simple, quiet and direct. For this very reason, the Observer and Guide can be obscured by the dazzling profusion of thoughts offered by the monkey mind and the force of habits of the horse-mind.

Meditation Experiments
Rock-Hopping: Hop from rock to rock in a stream, listening for the interplay of the Observer and the Guide as they quietly say which rock is next. Notice what happens right before winding up in the water.

Sitting: Sit quietly and notice thoughts passing like clouds. Notice how flurries of significance pass through like whirlwinds, distracting the calm.

Overcoming Insomnia: Lie down and breathe, observing breaths passing in and out. When thoughts arise, dismiss them and return to observing breath. (If some thoughts are insistent, such as creative ideas or solutions to problems, write them down so they don't get lost and then return to breath observation). Where is the edge between waking and sleep?