For most people today, the three monkeys — one covering its eyes, one its ears, one its mouth — are a quaint little meme, an emoji, or a tourist carving. “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” Simple, almost trite.
But behind that familiar pose lies an ancient Buddhist principle that once defined the boundaries of moral discipline, spiritual clarity, and even political wisdom.
And originally, there weren’t just three monkeys — there was a fourth.
🕉️ Where It All Began
In early Buddhist teaching, long before the carving at Nikkō, monks were taught to guard their senses — eyes, ears, tongue, and body — as gateways to the mind. One of the oldest written versions of this concept appears in Sanskrit:
“Na pāpakaṃ paśyet, na pāpakaṃ śṛṇuyāt, na pāpakaṃ bhāṣeta.”
Do not see what is evil, do not hear what is evil, do not speak what is evil.
These weren’t rules about ignorance. They were about awareness.
To “see no evil” meant not to invite darkness into your thoughts.
To “hear no evil” meant to avoid gossip and corrupt speech.
And to “speak no evil” meant mastering one’s own tongue — because in Buddhism, words themselves are actions, capable of wounding or healing.
🇨🇳 The Confucian Thread
As Buddhism spread through China, its moral focus interlaced with Confucian philosophy. In The Analects, Confucius advises:
“非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非礼勿言。”
Do not look at what is improper. Do not listen to what is improper. Do not speak what is improper.
This fusion of Buddhist self-discipline and Confucian decorum created a moral framework emphasizing restraint, balance, and inner harmony — a triad later visualized in Japan through a clever pun.
🇯🇵 From Words to Monkeys
When these teachings reached Japan in the 8th century through the Tendai school of Buddhism, the phrase was translated using the verb ending -zaru — meaning “not to do.”
But zaru sounds identical to saru, the Japanese word for monkey.
So, as Japanese artisans often did, they transformed a linguistic accident into art.
Thus were born:
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Mizaru – “see not” 🙈
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Kikazaru – “hear not” 🙉
-
Iwazaru – “speak not” 🙊
The three monkeys first appeared carved into the stable of Nikkō Tōshō-gū Shrine in the early 1600s. They were not jokes, nor mere decorations — but a moral parable carved in cedar.
🙈 The Forgotten Fourth: Shizaru
Later, a fourth monkey appeared: Shizaru, “do not do.”
Sometimes shown with arms crossed or hands covering its body, this figure completed the ethical circle — Right Action.
It symbolized restraint in behavior, in contrast to the first three, which dealt with perception, hearing, and speech.
Together they mapped perfectly to the Buddhist Threefold Purity:
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Pure in body
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Pure in speech
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Pure in mind
…and by adding Shizaru, they included purity in action as well.
| Monkey | Meaning | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| Mizaru | See no evil | Perception |
| Kikazaru | Hear no evil | Attention |
| Iwazaru | Speak no evil | Speech |
| Shizaru | Do no evil | Action |
This was not superstition; it was practical psychology long before the word existed — a system for protecting the mind by filtering what it absorbs and what it releases.
🌏 From Parable to Pop Culture
When Western travelers saw the carvings centuries later, they took the image literally — “see no evil” as “ignore what’s wrong.”
And so a symbol of moral awareness became, in translation, one of moral blindness.
In time, the three monkeys came to represent either:
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Naïve avoidance (“don’t see what you don’t like”), or
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Stoic wisdom (“guard your mind from corruption”).
The meaning depended entirely on who was holding the lens.
Even Gandhi later adopted the image — returning it to its original moral form — as a guide to truth and non-violence.
Today, the monkeys survive everywhere from carved wood to emojis, reminders of a spiritual idea reduced but never destroyed.
🧘♀️ What They Still Teach
At their heart, the monkeys are not hiding from the world.
They are disciplining perception — choosing which energies to let in, and which to send out.
Their message fits modern life more than ever:
In an age of endless screens, outrage, and noise, to “see no evil” might simply mean turning off the feed that poisons your peace.
Keep your senses clean, your speech kind, your actions measured —
and your mind will follow toward liberation.
That’s the wisdom carved in wood four centuries ago,
and still quietly waiting to be seen.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
Compiled with aid of ChatGPT
