Monkey Mind Simulation

“Monkey Mind” is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”. It is the Monkey mind at work when you walk to the kitchen to get the pair of glasses on the table, see the refrigerator and open it to grab something to eat, realize that you are almost out of milk, get in your car to go buy milk... etc...

With the help of 9 persons, involved either in Zen and/or Martial Arts, I carried out this little experiment to simulate how the “Monkey Mind” works. 

To do this simulation I sent an image to one person who sent me back a short story inspired by that image. From that image I selected a few words, and used Google to generate a new image, which I sent to a second person, etc...

I had to make a choice of the words or expression to use to generate some images in Google, and that when images had been generated, I had to chose one of them to send it to the next person – That is right, I tried to pick “strong” images, which could easily stimulate one's imagination. Somehow, the whole experiment is tainted by my own preferences and bias. That is correct, but it is not a very big problem. After all, the individual Monkey mind is also very tainted by the individual's personality. My point was to illustrate how things work.

Even if the whole thing looks crazy, there is a logic at work behind this monkey mind.

Somehow, I believe this kind of experiment could also be used to study the deep motivations or collective unconscious of a group, or Sangha...

Thanks to all those who participated in this game.

This train only goes East

The nomad was prepared to cut her to bits
 

A log Jam, in the Northwest

Up in the Air

His only chance at salvation was tracking Allison

Some young girls looking for a chance out of poverty

That's why flip-flops are good

We continued our walk along the beach

The sound of the waves soothes troubles and restores peace.

The version including all stories would be too long to post here, it is available here : 

Monkey Mind Simulation - Full version