The Monkey-Mind Mantra
Give the restless mind a pointless job so it stops running the show.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 91%
Jackman was introduced to Transcendental Meditation at drama school at 23 and has practised it for nearly three decades. The mechanism he describes is deliberately unmystical: the nature of the mind is to always be working and always be thinking, and the trick to life is not letting that be your master but letting it be a servant, because once it is running the show it is very easy to get off track. The mantra is the assignment. He borrows the traditional image — the mind is often called the monkey mind, and a monkey is very energetic, and if not given something to do it will be mischievous. So the mantra is like telling the monkey to climb to the top of that telegraph pole, then climb back down, then climb back up. Occupied with a pointless errand, it stops causing trouble, and the silently repeated word ends up fading away. His description of the effect is the clearest thing in the episode: when you first pour a glass of water it is cloudy, and then after a period of time it all settles and you see crystal clear through the glass. What he gets is a feeling of things dropping down, of coming home, of experiencing his true self rather than being caught up in the monkey mind or being reactive to life. The energy is not activation energy but what he calls a finer energy — his intention feels clearer, his listening is more purposeful, and things feel easier and more connected.
Origin
Jackman was introduced to Transcendental Meditation at drama school at age 23 and was still practising at 51 at the time of recording, running it twice a day for years before loosening the schedule around 2016.
Core principles
- 01It is the nature of the mind to always be working and always be thinking — you do not get to switch it off, only to reassign it.
- 02The trick to life is not letting the mind be your master but letting it be a servant; once it is running the show it is very easy to get off track.
- 03The monkey mind is energetic, and an energetic monkey that is not given something to do will be mischievous, so the mantra is a chore rather than a message.
- 04The mantra's content is irrelevant; its function is to occupy, which is why it ends up fading away on its own.
- 05The result is settling, not striving — cloudy water left alone goes clear, and you cannot hurry that by stirring it.
- 06Falling asleep in a session is not a failed session; it is evidence of what the body actually needed.
- 07The output is not euphoria but finer energy: clearer intention, more purposeful listening, and things feeling easier and more connected.
How to run it
- 1
Accept that the mind will not stop
Start from Jackman's premise rather than fighting it: the nature of our minds is to always be working, always be thinking. Nothing in this practice attempts to silence that.
Pro tip Reframing the goal from silence to reassignment removes the main reason people quit.
Watch out Trying to force a blank mind is the standard failure and produces the opposite of settling.
- 2
Reframe the mind as servant, not master
Jackman's stated trick to life is not letting the mind be your master but letting it be a servant. He notes that once it is running the show, it is very easy to get off track.
Watch out This is a relationship shift, not a technique — if you skip it, the mantra becomes another thing you are performing.
- 3
Give the monkey a job
Repeat the given mantra silently. Jackman's teaching image: tell the monkey to climb to the top of the telegraph pole, then back down, then back up. The activity is the whole mechanism.
Pro tip The errand does not need to be meaningful — it needs to be occupying.
Watch out Investing the mantra with meaning turns it into thinking, which is the thing you were trying to displace.
- 4
Let the mantra fade
The silently repeated word ends up fading away on its own. You do not decide to drop it and you do not clutch it — you allow it to dissolve as the mind settles.
Watch out Noticing that the mantra has gone and grabbing it back restarts the cycle.
- 5
Let the water settle
Use Jackman's image as the standard for what to expect: cloudy water poured into a glass goes crystal clear if left alone. The sensation he reports is things dropping down and a feeling of coming home.
Pro tip Sometimes he falls asleep, which he treats as totally fine and clearly what his body needed.
Watch out Checking whether it is working yet stirs the glass.
- 6
Measure the finer energy on the way out
Judge the practice on exit state rather than session quality. Jackman does not always come out ready to do a one-hour Peloton class, but he always comes out with a finer energy — clearer intention, more purposeful listening, things easier and more connected.
Pro tip This is why he schedules a second sit on performance days specifically.
Watch out Grading sessions on how peaceful they felt reinstalls the pass/fail standard the practice removes.
In the wild
Jackman relays the image exactly as it was described to him: the mind is often called the monkey mind in some philosophies, and a monkey is very energetic — if it is not given something to do it will be mischievous. So the mantra is basically saying to the monkey, climb to the top of that telegraph pole, and when you get to the top climb back down, and when you get to the bottom climb back up. Given that activity, the monkey stops making trouble and the mantra fades away.
→ A non-mystical mechanical account of why a meaningless repeated word produces stillness, which makes the practice teachable to sceptics.
Asked to describe the effect rather than the method, Jackman reaches for the clearest image in the episode: when you first pour a glass of water it is cloudy, and then over a period of time it all settles and you see crystal clear through the glass, through the water. He says that is exactly what meditation does for him — that feeling where things drop down, a feeling of coming home, of experiencing his true self and not just being caught up in the monkey mind or being reactive to life.
→ A finer energy on exit — intention clearer, listening more purposeful, and things feeling easier and more connected.
Common mistakes
Trying to stop the thinking
Jackman's premise is that the mind's nature is to always be working. A practice built on stopping it is fighting biology and will read as failure every single session.
Treating sleep as a wasted session
Jackman says he sometimes falls asleep and that it is totally fine and clearly what his body needed. Scoring that as a miss adds guilt to a practice designed to remove it.
Expecting activation rather than settling
He is explicit that he does not always come out ready to do a one-hour Peloton class. Expecting a stimulant effect from a settling practice leads people to conclude it does not work for them.
Forcing the sit at a time your body rejects
Jackman gets restless leg syndrome after four or five in the afternoon and finds sitting 20 minutes uncomfortable, so he moved the second session to around lunchtime rather than abandoning it. Fighting the body's clock costs you the whole second sit.
Is it for you?
Best for
People whose work demands repeated high-energy output and who need a reliable way to return to a settled baseline between demands.
Not ideal for
Anyone looking for a quick calming trick, or who needs the immediate stimulation of a workout — Jackman is clear it does not leave him ready to attack a Peloton class.
From the transcript
“the trick to life is not letting that might be your master but to let it be a servant”
“the mind is often called the monkey mind and these some philosophies so monkey you know is very energetic and if not given something to…”
“when you first pour a glass of water it's cloudy”
“i always come out with a finer energy it feels my intention feels clearer my listening is more purposeful”
From the episode
#444: Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, Favorite Exercises, Mind Training, and Much More