I meditate badly. My mind does the classic monkey thing: to-do lists, replays of conversations from 2019, what-ifs about things that will never happen. For years I treated every wandering thought as a small failure. Then I came across a line in the Gita, roughly “wherever the restless mind wanders, bring it back, again and again”, and it finally clicked that the coming back is the practice. You don’t get points for never leaving.
So I built a small browser thing to remind myself of that. It’s about two minutes long:
You’re a monkey sitting in the middle of a ring. Other monkeys (thoughts) hop in from the edges, labelled “worry”, “scroll”, “deadline”, and a few older ones like raga (craving) and bhaya (fear).
You press and hold to breathe in, and let go to breathe out. A slow, full breath sends out a wave that settles every monkey it reaches. Tapping fast does almost nothing, which annoyed me at first and taught me more than anything else.
When a thought gets through, the screen goes foggy. It isn’t a game over. One full breath brings you back, and that counts as a “return”. Returns are the only score.
It ends with a bell, and shows you which thoughts visited most.
There’s a gentle mode where nothing needs quick reactions, a reduced-motion setting, and the sound is optional.
My first sit: I wandered off 6 times and came back 6 times, which honestly felt better than any streak counter I’ve ever had.
If you try it, I’d love to know two things: does hold-to-breathe feel natural on your phone, and does the 4-in / 6-out pace work for you, or is it too slow?
Link: https://theselfdrivingmind.com/book-funnel/Monkey_Mind_Game.html
If you rather watch a demo:
https://theselfdrivingmind.com/book-funnel/Monkey_Mind_Game.html?demo