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

by Jay Shetty

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

Quotes

spread within social circles. If a friend who lives within a mile of you becomes happier, then the chance that you are

“Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.”

“Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do.”

In a study published in a 2011 edition of the journal Personal Relationships, sixty-eight married couples agreed to have an eight-minute talk about a recent incident where one spouse “broke the rules” of the marriage. The couples then separately watched replays of the interviews and researchers measured their blood pressure. In couples where the “victim” was able to forgive their spouse, both partners’ blood pressure decreased. It just goes to show that forgiveness is good for everyone.

When you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. When you squeeze someone full of pain, pain comes out. Instead of absorbing it or giving it back, if you forgive, you help diffuse the pain.

When you cause pain and others cause you pain, it’s as if your hearts get twisted together into an uncomfortable knot. When we forgive, we start to separate our pain from theirs and to heal ourselves emotionally. But when we ask for forgiveness at the same time, we untwist together. This is a bit trickier, because we’re much more comfortable finding fault in other people and then forgiving it. We’re not used to admitting fault and taking responsibility for what we create in our lives.

I came away with the idea that we have four different emotional reactions to fear: We panic, we freeze, we run away, or we bury it,

They told us that a useful fear alerts us to a situation we can change. If the doctor tells you that you have poor health because of your diet, and you fear disability or disease, that’s a useful fear because you can change your diet. When your health improves as a result, you eliminate your fear. But fearing that our parents will die is a hurtful fear because we can’t change the truth of the matter. We transform hurtful fears into useful fears by focusing on what we can control. We can’t stop our parents from dying, but we use the fear to remind us to spend more time with them.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca observed that “Our fears are more numerous than our dangers, and we suffer more in our imagination than reality.”

It’s often said that when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change, that is when we change.

We used to think it didn’t matter if we dumped our trash in landfills without regard for the environment. If we couldn’t see it or smell it, we figured it would somehow just take care of itself. Yet before regulation, landfills polluted water supplies, and even today they are one of the largest producers of human-generated methane gas in the United States. In the same way, burying our fears takes an unseen toll on our internal landscape.

them

Now I have to practice two things 1.Asking questions again and again why and what are things I am afraid of 2.Practice a lot of detachment.

When there is harmony between the mind, heart, and resolution then nothing is impossible —Rig Veda

Fear. Thakura describes this as being driven by “sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death.” Desire. Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. Duty. Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love. Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them.

Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.”

founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, writes, “As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, we’ll always be left waiting for it.”

Fear, desire, duty, and love are the roots of all intentions. In Sanskrit the word for intention is sankalpa

I want us to learn how to make big and small choices intentionally. Instead of forever climbing the mountain of success, we need to descend into the valley of our true selves to weed out false beliefs.

When I was trying to get close to my fear, I asked myself “What am I afraid of?” over and over again. When I’m trying to get to the root of a desire, I start with the question “Why?”

Monks believe that the man won’t be fulfilled when he finds his fortune, and that if he continues his search for meaning, the answer will always, eventually, be found in service.

Weeds usually grow from ego, greed, envy, anger, pride, competition, or stress. These might look like normal plants to begin with, but they will never grow into something wonderful.

Martin Luther King Jr., said, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

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

According to these monks, “We do not make progress because we do not realize how much we can do. We lose interest in the work we have begun, and we want to be good without even trying.”

In getting you where you want to be, meditation may show you what you don’t want to see.

‘Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps, and whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.’”

Albert Mehrabian showing that 55 percent of our communication is conveyed by body language, 38 percent is tone of voice, and a mere 7 percent is the actual words we speak.

Passion + Expertise + Usefulness = Dharma.

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

The Bhagavad Gita says that it’s better to do one’s own dharma imperfectly than to do another’s perfectly.

Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool underscore in their book Peak, mastery requires deliberate practice, and lots of it. But if you love it, you do it.

Play hardest in your area of strength and you’ll achieve depth, meaning, and satisfaction in your life.

we examine the problem the monk way—instead of looking at specific skills you’ve developed and specific activities that you love, we look beyond them, to their roots.

The Manusmriti says that dharma protects those who protect it.

The Buddha says, “Just like a red, blue, or white lotus—born in the water, grown in the water, rising up above the water—stands unsmeared by the water, in the same way I—born in the world, grown in the world, having overcome the world—live unsmeared by the world.”

Remember the whole equation of dharma. Dharma isn’t just passion and skills. Dharma is passion in the service of others.

but if you’re not a monk the way to see it is that the pleasure you feel in doing your passion should equal how much others appreciate it. If others don’t think you’re effective, then your passion is a hobby, which can add richness to your life.

To build your competence without regard for character is narcissistic, and to build character without working on skills is devoid of impact.

“We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities.”

Truly noticing what’s around us keeps our brains from shifting to autopilot.

Monks understand that routine frees your mind, but the biggest threat to that freedom is monotony. People complain about their poor memories, but I’ve heard it said that we don’t have a retention problem, we have an attention problem. By searching for the new, you are reminding your brain to pay attention and rewiring it to recognize that there’s something to learn in everything. Life isn’t as certain as we assume.

“A lot of the time, creativity comes from structure. When you have those parameters and structure, then within that you can be creative. If you don’t have structure, you’re just aimlessly doing stuff.”

Rules and routines ease our cognitive burden so we have bandwidth for creativity. Structure enhances spontaneity. And discovery reinvigorates the routine.

Kālidāsa, the great Sanskrit writer of the fifth century, wrote, “Yesterday is but a dream. Tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”

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

Location has energy; time has memory. If you do something at the same time every day, it becomes easier and natural. If you do something in the same space every day, it becomes easier and natural.

Just as some instruments sound great together, certain habits complement each other.

if you try to change everything at the same time, they will all become small, equal priorities. Change happens with small steps and big priorities.

Routines are counterintuitive—instead of being boring and repetitive, doing the same tasks at the same time in the same place makes room for creativity.

When the five senses and the mind are stilled, when the reasoning intellect rests in silence, then begins the highest path.