The Monkey Is The Messenger

An engaging, funny, and introductory guide for anyone whose overactive mind gets in the way of starting a regular meditation practice “My mind is so busy, I really need to meditate.” “My mind is so busy, there’s no way I can meditate.” Familiar dilemma? These days just about all of us know we should be meditating, but that doesn’t make it any easier to sit down and face the repetitive thoughts careening around our brains—seemingly pointless, sometimes hurtful, nearly always hard to control. Rather than quitting meditation or trying to wall off the monkey mind, Ralph De La Rosa suggests asking yourself a question: If you were to stop demonizing your monkey mind, would it have anything to teach you? In a roundabout way, could repetitive thoughts be pointing us in the direction of personal—and even societal—transformation? Poignant and entertaining, The Monkey Is the Messenger offers a range of evidence-based, somatic, and trauma-informed insights and practices drawn from De La Rosa’s study of neuroscience and psychology and his long practice of meditation and yoga. Here at last—a remedy for all those who want to meditate but suppose they can’t because they think too much.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The American educational system is the main fuel source of the Little Engine That Could of U. S. society, as it has taught us how to train our attention but has not taught us how to train our attention well. #2 The issue of overstimulation and continuous distraction is as old as the hills. The Buddha could have told you about Killingsworth and Gilbert’s findings 2,500 years ago: Nothing can hurt you more than an untrained mind, and nothing can help you more than a well-trained mind. #3 In meditation, some people try to kill their monkey minds, by thinking that the thinking mind is of no value and just a bunch of garbage on repeat. However, this contradicts a key tenet of neuroscience: the brain can’t not be doing something. #4 The space between things is a key that can unlock the mystery of how we experience the mind and how we might bring it under our own auspices. It’s often called the third thing. Everything we experience involves a subject and an object, but the quality of our relationship to those objects determines the nature of everything we think, feel, say, and take in from the world around us.

An engaging, funny, and introductory guide for anyone whose overactive mind gets in the way of starting a regular meditation practice “My mind is so busy, I really need to meditate.” “My mind is so busy, there’s no way I can meditate.” Familiar dilemma? These days just about all of us know we should be meditating, but that doesn’t make it any easier to sit down and face the repetitive thoughts careening around our brains—seemingly pointless, sometimes hurtful, nearly always hard to control. Rather than quitting meditation or trying to wall off the monkey mind, Ralph De La Rosa suggests asking yourself a question: If you were to stop demonizing your monkey mind, would it have anything to teach you? In a roundabout way, could repetitive thoughts be pointing us in the direction of personal—and even societal—transformation? Poignant and entertaining, The Monkey Is the Messenger offers a range of evidence-based, somatic, and trauma-informed insights and practices drawn from De La Rosa’s study of neuroscience and psychology and his long practice of meditation and yoga. Here at last—a remedy for all those who want to meditate but suppose they can’t because they think too much.

As a Canadian medical student, Karen Trollope-Kumar went to India to study social and preventive medicine and met a young pediatrician named Pradeep. His dream of working in the Himalayan foothills captured her imagination, and the man captured her heart. They married in a Hindu wedding ceremony and pledged to share a life of service and spiritual growth. In this poignant, heartwarming, and gently humorous memoir, Karen recounts an eleven-year chapter of their unusual lives. She and Pradeep worked as medical doctors in the Himalayas, first in a rural hospital and later in remote mountain villages. When disaster struck -- an assassination, an earthquake, a political crisis -- their ideals, their safety, and their relationship are put at risk. The Cloud Messenger is a story of adventure and idealism, culture and medicine, faith and love, and it raises enduring questions: How can we cross religious and cultural boundaries? What happens to our dreams in the face of danger and disillusionment? And when dreams diverge, when one spouse can no longer continue on a certain path, what path do we choose?