So am I. You don't have to accept the hypothetical is true to imagine it, and it's really not that hard to imagine a world, just like this one, except a monkey can talk and may have the power to kill your parents.
Why does the inability to achieve a perfect outcome make the problem meaningless? That does not logically follow.
The point of the koan is not to have you reach the right decision. We'll never need to pick which one of the boy's parents should die; it's irrelevant. What is relevant to us, is how we think and our state of mind. The koan is merely a tool to seek to convey that state of mind to you. The emphasis on "how you think" is the entire point.
Coca-Cola doesn't own soft drink. Plenty of other companies. But what if I want a Coke? You're coming here and telling us Pepsi tastes exactly the same, but you haven't even taken a sip of Coke.

Try taking a sip. Try understanding the koan. If you understand it, grasp the state of mind it's trying to provide, and think it can be found elsewhere, then sure, maintain it that way. But we're telling you you have not grasped the koan yet, and while I consider myself an existentialist just as you do, I didn't find this state of mind in any other philosophy I've read about.

I haven't read the entire thread, so if this is a repeat of another thought, I apologize.

My view on Monkey Mind, is that the Monkey is clouding the mind of the young boy. The monkey, tells the young boy that he "must think". This leads the boy into believing that he can somehow control the fate of his mother or father.

While it is true the mother and father will die under those two scenarios, but fails to mention that his father will still die if he kills the monkey and his mother will still die if he does not kill the monkey.

Like many parts of our life, death is one of life's inevitable scenarios that we have no control over. For someone like me, who often thinks with a Monkey Mind, I find myself believing that I could have done something that would change fate. There is a lot peace in this riddle, especially when you blame yourself for something going wrong that in reality you had no control over.

This reminds me of a peace I get from a line in the Bright Eyes song "At the Bottom of Everything" "I'm happy just because, I found out I am really no one"

I'll bite.

Well the boy could run back to check on his parents, see whether they are in immiediate danger, and then return to the monkey with any new found knowledge that he has aqquired.


This however assumes that the monkey will stay still.

Maybe look around see if there is anyone or anything near by that can shed a third person perspective on what is happening.

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Anyone want to give a critique?

^If you knew that you had a correct view, 'could', 'maybe', and assumptions would not be necessary.

I'm guessing I didn't have the correct view if I can't find a way to apply my previous view to the situation.

The whole thing feels very claustrophobic. Is the boy capable of asking the monkey specefic questions or is inter-action with the monkey pretty much off the hook?

^Fin,

If I understand this correctly, you're not supposed to question the koan through its actual text, but rather dig deeper within yourself. The koan is written the way its written and nothing is supposed to be changed or modified. You're supposed to interpret the text the way it's written and no other way.

Maybe I'm way off, but that's sort of how I interpreted the way to go about this.

I'm still stuck on the whole 'monkey being a messenger' and 'what the boy wants' though. I haven't given up!

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Journal/Blog: journal-little-panda-vt135329.html

You're right, I should be paying more attention to the actions and thoughts being presented.

Is this meant to be solved? It seems as though this is never ending mystery and complex wrapped in infinite confusion. I highly doubt that this state was ever meant to be solve :/.

The boy has to look within himself at his relationship/knowledge of the monkey...

Has he previously been warned of this character? Is the Monkey someone he once offended or maybe a deal with?

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When you have a problem, the first step is to pay attention to the problem and identify what is going wrong and what this means and whether this is important to the way you conduct yourself.

If directly confronting the problem yields no answer then introspection and other external sources of knowledge may give you an answer which the problem itself refuses to provide.

No idea yet.

What village?

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*Justice renders the WEAK his due*
My Journal
here-vp445642.html#445642

It's fascinating to me that this little tale hails from West Africa; it seems the way they 'practice' the tale isn't too different from the ways of those old robe wearing folks in Asia. Those old guys NEVER tell you their answers, choosing rather to offer counterpoints and more questions. However, they do love sharing stories so here's a story that was told to me by one particular robe wearing dude a while back: (Attempting to do it in his voice as accurately as possible)

Hey, did you meet _____, the cute little 5 year old boy? He comes here every Sunday with his parents and he's full of mischief; he's always inspecting a new part of this temple. So I began asking him some questions, "Hey, where did you come from?"

After some thought, he answered, "I came from home!"

Quickly I added, "Where did you come from before that?"

He looked curious enough but threw his hands up and told me, "I don't know."

Every Sunday he came and every Sunday I would ask, "Hey, where did you come from?" And then I would continue to ask him, "Where did you come from before that?"

He's a smart boy. After many Sundays, I got him to continue back to the point where he answered, "I came from mommy's belly."

So I asked him, "Where were you before you were in mommy's belly?" Ha ha ha . . . this stumped him.

The first few times, he looked confused, curious . . . as if he was really thinking about it, and he would confess, "I don't know."

Of course I kept at it. . . and the next few Sundays, I could see he was trying to avoid me, ha ha ha. When I confronted him the last time and asked, "Where were you before you were in your mommy's belly?"

He stared at me with big enlarged eyes and screamed, "NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! . . . .

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(And the monk startled the shit out of me by screaming that "NOOOOO!!!!" with his huge freakin' eyes starin' down at my face.) - ha, ha, ha?

All actions have results

True love, peace and joy have no opposite – because they don’t come from a filter. Your core has no opposite. It doesn’t want anything, only the ego does. It doesn’t identify with anything, so it doesn’t get upset from any loss. It doesn’t get upset by anything, for without any filters, everything just is. The thoughts have no filters to pass through, and without any filters, nothing is bad or good – everything just is.

And where exactly does that take you in the problem presented?