1. Introduction to The Monkey Mind Podcast

The Monkey Mind is meditation podcast to train the mind to slow down and be Still.  When the mind is Still  clarity arises, and we experience a sense of inner peace and happiness.   This is a production of TheCEOMonk.com, the publisher of the book:  “A CEO, an Entrepreneur, a Tourist and the Monk.

Introduction to Meditation.

There are many meditation methods being practiced all over the world and is not restricted to any race or religion.  I used to look at meditation as an activity, like working out at the gym or attending a yoga class.  The techniques had helped me to ease stress and tensions in my life.  In the past 3 years, my journey in meditation took a drastic turn when I decided to go deeper by spending a year to learn meditation from Monks in temples and forest in Thailand.  In 2017, the sudden death of my Mom created a vacuum in my life that lead me towards this path.  Having many unanswered question about life and death, I turned towards books and religion, only to be disappointed when these information lead me towards “believe” and “faith” base theology - with no explanations that I could accept.

A talk by a Monk at a meditation center, Dhammakaya Center in Singapore, convinced me that meditation is the key to the door into deeper understanding of the Law of life and death - a law that was not sufficiently explained by religion, science, logic or maths.  There was only one path to be fully indulge in learning meditation - The path of a monk’s life.

It took half a year to cleared all of my personal and business commitments before I could commit to be ordained as a Theravada Monk with a temple, Dhammakaya temple - to learn the simple ways of a monk’s life.  In this process I was hoping that the simplicity would help me empty my mind, cleanse it, attain complete stillness, and maybe give me a new perspective to redesign how to live the rest of my life.

I immersed in an intensive 45-day training as a monk.  Head completely shaved, wore only saffron robe, slept in a 1-men size tent, ate from alms donated, chanted buddha’s scriptures and meditated daily.  The most difficult part of that journey was not having a watch to tell time and a phone to stay in contact with anyone.  Waking up at 4am and eating only 2 meals was less difficult than I had expected.  The second most difficult was to keep the mind clear from passing judgements and expressing opinions on everything.   

After completing the 45-day training, I disrobed and return to my normal life.  Everything outside had not changed a bit, yet everything inside me had changed.  Today, I continue to practice and spread the knowledge meditation to help more people attain the inner peace that we all had ignored and forgotten. 

Most people seek happiness by working hard to attain success.  We pursue goals that we set.  Aspire to be in position higher than our current.  Acquire objects we want to own.  It could be money, wealth, assets, relationship, or dreams of being somebody of importance.  And in this journey, we refuse to be happy for who we already become.  By wanting things we do not have we create discontentment of what we currently own.  Hence we are perpetually never satisfied or happy with ourselves. We either worried of the future (uncertainty, fear, yearning etc) or burdened by our past (guilt, shame, disappointment etc)

Meditation would help the mind to settle down to a state of stillness.  When we learn to meditate, we learn not to Stir up the dust around our life.  Eventually, we even learn to simplify our needs, so as not to clutter our life with more dust or desires.  So the combination of less dust and less stirring create clearer mind, which translates to a life that is happier and more content.

The Monkey Mind Podcast

This podcast contains episodes of guided meditations suitable for beginners, new practitioner and experience meditators.  They are re-scripted and translated from compilation from many meditation masters during my past 2 years meditation in forest, temples, and private sessions.  These voice recordings had guided me to maintain a consistent commitment to daily meditation after the Monkhood training  - The different instructions in each new episodes offer different angle to meditation, motivating the mind to look forward to new episodes as a companion.

Format:

Each episode has a title indicating the purpose of the meditation.  A short teaching of techniques before we begin to meditate with the voice guided instruction and background music.  Sessions could last from 10mins to 30 mins - depending on the topic.

How to use:

You may use these sessions whichever way they suit your styles and preferences.  Here are 3 suggested ways you could get started:

1. Sequentially: Play each episode from beginning to end as one meditation practice.  The duration ranges from 10, 20, 30 minutes.  Recommend to do it in the morning just as you wake up or evening just before you sleep. 
2. Favourite list: Play a different episode everyday.  Save your favourite episode into a favourite playlist.  You may repeat your favourite episode by playing from the playlist
3. Mix and combine episodes. For long meditation, you may create a special playlist by adding selected episodes in any order you preferred.  Set auto-play on your audio player.  This would allow uninterrupted playback for all episodes on the playlist.

Finally. 

I had listened to these episodes many times, meditating as I record and correcting glitches while adding new ones each time I return from my quarterly week-long meditation retreats in the forests.

I am sharing these audio track in this podcast to enable you the listener to learn to meditate and continue practicing meditation daily.   I wish everyone meditates daily. It is an effective solution to manage anger and stress, while providing a clearer mind to make wise decision daily.

You may Start your meditation practice by playing the  first episode.

The  Monkey Mind podcast is a production of TheCEOMonk.com.