This "mind monkey" metaphor is not only found in Buddhist writings such as Chan or Zen, Consciousness-only, Pure Land, and Shingon, but it has also been adopted in Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Chinese poetry, theater, and literature.

Other animal metaphors have culture-specific meanings; compare English chickenhearted "cowardly; timid'; easily frightened" and Chinese jixin (雞心 [lit.

The four morphological elements of Chinese xinyuanyima or Japanese shin'en'iba are xin or shin (心 "heart; mind"), yi or i (意 "thought"), yuan or en (猿 "monkey"), and ma or ba (馬 "horse").

The psychological components of the "mind-monkey will-horse" metaphor are Chinese xin or Sino-Japanese shin or kokoro (心 "heart; mind; feelings, affections; center") and yi or i (意 'thought, idea; opinion, sentiment; will, wish; meaning').

Compare these Digital Dictionary of Buddhism glosses For example, take the Buddhist word Chinese xin-yi-shi or Japanese shin-i-shiki 心意識 [lit.

The animal components of the "mind-monkey will-horse" metaphor are Chinese yuan or Japanese en ("gibbon; monkey; ape; 猿) and ma or ba ("horse"; 馬).

Other common Chinese "monkey" names include feifei ("hamadryas baboon"; 狒狒), hou ("monkey; ape"; 猴), and mihou (獼猴 or muhou; 母猴) or husun ("rhesus macaque"; 猢猻), Victor H. Mair[2] reconstructs Old Sinitic *mug-gug, which "probably ultimately derives from the same African word as English 'macaque'" and is reminiscent of Sanskrit "maraṭāsana ('monkey posture')" (see Hanumanasana).

[3] One of the 2nd-century BCE Mawangdui Silk Texts depicts 28 Daoist gymnastic exercises, many of which are named after animals, including number 22 muhou ("macaque").

In the present day, "Monkey Kung Fu" (猴拳; houquan; 'monkey fist/boxing') is a Chinese martial arts style and xinyuanyima ("mind-monkey will-horse") is a Daoist breath meditation technique.

For the Chinese, Edward H. Schafer says, He was invested with sanctity by ancient tradition, endowed with prodigious qualities, and visibly stamped with the marks of his divine origin.

[10] Carr suggests the subsequent line about xiang ma (象馬 "elephants and horses") having unruly natures could have affected the later yima ("idea-horse") term.

[11] The Mengyu chanhui shi (蒙預懺悔詩 "Poem Repenting Foolish Pleasure") is attributed to Emperor Jianwen of Liang (503-550 CE), who was a renowned author.

This Buddhistic poem has numerous graphic variants, including these sanxun (三循 "three disciplines") for sanxiu (三修 "three cultivations"; meditation on impermanence, awareness, and selflessness) and liuyi (六意 "six ideas") for liunian (六念 "six recollections"; mindfulness about Buddha, dharma, sangha, precepts, almsgiving, and heaven).

Based on these contextual graphic inconsistencies, Carr suggests the possibility that a scribe transposed Jianwen's original yima (意馬 "idea-horse") as aima (愛馬 "love-horse").

This record of the Consciousness-Only (Yogacara) Buddhism, has a memorial dated 657 CE that parallels yima ("idea-/will-horse") with qingyuan (情猿 "emotion-/feeling-monkey"): "Now if you wish to entrust your thoughts to the Chan sect, you must make your mind as pure as still water, control your emotion-monkey's indolence and fidgeting, and restrain your idea-horse's haste and galloping."

The common xinyuanyima "mind-monkey will-horse" phrase dates back to a bianwen ("Vernacular Chinese transformation text") narrative version of the Weimojie suoshuo jing (above) that was discovered in the Mogao Caves.

"[14] The Song dynasty poet Zhu Yi [zh] (1098–1186 CE) reversed the Tang lyrical xinyuanyima expression into yimaxinyuan ("will-horse mind-monkey").

Congshan (從善; 939-987), seventh son of the figurehead Emperor Yuanzong of Southern Tang, confesses: "Long ago in my youth, my ideas were like a horse and my mind was like a monkey.

The preeminent translator Anthony C. Yu[17] describes controlling the mind-monkey and will-horse as "a theme central to the entire narrative and which receives repeated and varied developments."

[18]Many Xiyouji scholars allegorically interpret xinyuan "heart-/mind-monkey" as the protagonist monkey-man Sun Wukong and yima "idea-/will-horse" as the dragon prince White Horse that enters the story in chapter 15.

His c. 1205 "Tozanjō 登山状 "Mountain Climbing Description"[21] uses iba with shin'en: "When you wish to enter the gate of determined goodness, then your idea-horse runs wild within the bounds of the six sense objects [rokujin 六塵 < Ayatana: "form, sound, smell, taste, tangibility, and dharma"].

When you wish to enter the gate of scattered goodness, then your mind-monkey gambols and jumps across the branches of the ten evil deeds [jūaku 十悪: killing, stealing, adultery, lying, cursing, slandering, equivocating, coveting, anger, and false views]."

It used shinsen 心船 "heart/mind boat" meaning "imaginary journey" with iba 意馬 "idea/will horse" and wrote arasaru 荒猿 "wild monkey" for arasu (荒す "treat roughly/wildly"): "I rowed the mind-boat for make-believe.

"For this reason, even if you reside somewhere with remote mountain streams and desolate tranquillity, and sit in silent contemplation, you will only be passing idle time because you are isolated from the road of the mind-monkey and idea-horse."

So if this pine tree is the pole of Absolute Reality, then these two prisoners are a greedy monkey – no, a cat – and a horse running wild; and they are just like the idea-horse and mind-monkey."

[22] Of the two animals in this metaphor, the "monkey" phrase was stronger than the "horse" because xinyuan "mind-monkey" was occasionally used alone (e.g., Wuzhenpian) and it had more viable variants (e.g., qingyuan 情猿 "emotion-monkey" in Ci'en zhuan).

Dudbridge[23] explains how "the random, uncontrollable movements of the monkey symbolise the waywardness of the native human mind before it achieves a composure which only Buddhist discipline can effect.

For instance, Sam yuen yi ma (心猿意馬) – the Cantonese pronunciation of Xinyuanyima ("mind-monkey will-horse") – was a 1999 Hong Kong movie (known in English as "The Accident") by Stanley Kwan.