The Chinese xinyuan , and Sino-Japanese shin-en , is a Buddhist term meaning "hear-/mind-monkey" - "unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconstant, confused, indecisive, uncontrollable." Over the last couple weeks in Rishikesh , I've spent a lot of time watching the monkeys - watching how they eat like us, sleep like us, and at times even seem to think like us. The monkeys here are smart - they know exactly the best time to snatch a bag of fresh vegetables, and can even apparently unscrew bottled water. Still, something is different. If you watch the monkeys closely, you can anticipate their movements, as they are quite predictable. One species of monkeys is quite amiable towards humans, while another aggressive. One likes bananas, and other mangoes. However, it is quite difficult to predict the actions, likes, and dislikes, of each human being passing on the street. We suffer the existential crisis and are all on a search for something m...
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