Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day

by Jay Shetty

Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

When you learn to navigate and manage your breath, you can navigate any situation in life.”

The only way to build a meaningful life is to filter out that noise and look within.

When we tune out the opinions, expectations, and obligations of the world around us, we begin to hear ourselves.

When we criticize others, we can’t help but notice the bad in ourselves. But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too.

We’re wired to conform. Your brain would rather not deal with conflict and debate. It would much prefer to lounge in the comfort of like-mindedness.

Don’t judge someone with a different disease. Don’t expect anyone to be perfect. Don’t think you are perfect.

For every negative person in your life, have three uplifting people.

We may never completely purge ourselves of envy, jealousy, greed, lust, anger, pride, and illusion, but that doesn’t mean we should ever stop trying.

We think freedom means that we can pursue all our desires. Real freedom is letting go of things not wanted, the unchecked desires that lead us to unwanted ends.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

Monks are considered quiet because they are trained to choose their words so carefully that it takes some time. We choose words carefully and use them with purpose.

The less time you fixate on everyone else, the more time you have to focus on yourself.

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life. —Buddha

THE CAUSE OF FEAR: ATTACHMENT. THE CURE FOR FEAR: DETACHMENT

“Find what you’re afraid of most and go live there.”

“I wish” is code for “I don’t want to do anything differently.”

You can’t be anything you want. But you can be everything you are.

as Steve Jobs put it in his 2005 Stanford commencement address, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. —the Dalai Lama

The emotion you fall asleep with at night is most likely the emotion you’ll wake up with in the morning.

Visualization doesn’t change your life, but it changes how you see it.

If you don’t have structure, you’re just aimlessly doing stuff.”

Being present is the only way to live a truly rich and full life.

It may sound silly, but the best way to overwrite the voices in your head is to start talking to them. Literally.

If your mind says, “You can’t do this,” respond by saying to yourself, “You can do it. You have the ability. You have the time.”

Treat yourself with the same love and respect you want to show to others.

“make your mind your friend,”

What belongs to you today, belonged to someone yesterday and will be someone else’s tomorrow.”

You are not your success or your failure.

Monks aren’t impressed by how long you meditate. We ask how deep you went.

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.”

Think like monks do, in terms of energy management not time management.

“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

Monks don’t make grand gestures. Love is in the small things.

Service is the direct path to a meaningful life.