Linguistic and Cultural Background
"Mind-monkey" 心猿 is an exemplary animal metaphor. Some figures of speech are cross-linguistically common, verging upon linguistic universals; many languages use "monkey" or "ape" words to mean "mimic", for instance, Italian scimmiottare "to mock; to mimic" < scimmia "monkey; ape", Japanese sarumane 猿真似 "copycat; superficial imitation", and English monkey see, monkey do or to ape). Other animal metaphors have culture-specific meanings; compare English chickenhearted "cowardly; timid'; easily frightened" and Chinese jixin 雞心 "heart-shaped; cordate".
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"'.
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