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

by Jay Shetty

Okay, your intention is to make your life more exciting. Notice how different that is from “I want money.” Your intention is still driven by the desire for personal gratification, but now you know two things: First, you can add more adventure to your life right now without spending more money. And second, you now have the clarity to decide if that’s something you want to work hard for.

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.

External goals cannot fill internal voids. No external labels or accomplishments can give me true confidence.

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

If you truly define yourself by your job, then what happens when you lose your job? If you define yourself as an athlete, then an injury ends your career, you don’t know who you are.

When you identify your intentions, they reveal your values.

If the changes you make are internal, you’ll feel better about yourself and you’ll be a better person. If your relationship doesn’t improve, you’ll still be the better for it.

As you cleanse yourself of opinions and ideas that don’t make sense with who you are and what you want, I recommend using breathwork as a reminder to live at your own pace, in your own time. Breathwork helps you understand that your way is unique—and that’s as it should be.

When you align with your breath, you learn to align with yourself through every emotion—calming, centering, and de-stressing yourself.

When you protect your dharma, your dharma protects you.

When your natural talents and passions (your varna) connect with what the universe needs (seva) and become your purpose, you are living in your dharma.

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

every task is an essential organ. None is less important than the others, and none of us is too important to do any chore. If you think you’re too good for something, you succumb to the worst egotistical impulses, and you devalue anyone who does that chore.

The four varnas are the Guide, the Leader, the Creator, and the Maker. These labels aren’t directly tied to specific jobs or activities.

Creators Originally: merchants, businesspeople Today: marketers, salespeople, entertainers, producers, entrepreneurs, CEOs Skills: brainstorming, networking, innovating

Guides Originally and today: teachers, guides, gurus, coaches, mentors Skills: learning, studying, sharing knowledge, and wisdom A coach and a mentor no matter what role they play Want to bring out the best in the people in their life

Leaders Originally: kings, warriors Today: military, justice, law enforcement, politics Skills: governing, inspiring, engaging others

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.

“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.”

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

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

“As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.”

The Gita defines detachment as doing the right thing for its own sake, because it needs to be done, without worrying about success or failure. That sounds simple enough, but think about what it takes to do the right thing for its own sake. It means detaching from your selfish interest, from being right, from being seen in a certain way, from what you want right now. Detaching means escaping the hold of the senses, of earthly desires, of the material world.

Only by detaching can we truly gain control of the mind.

“Detachment is not that you own nothing, but that nothing should own you.”

“If you ruminate on sadness and negativity,” he explained, “it will reinforce a sense of sadness and negativity. But if you cultivate compassion, joy, and inner freedom, then you build up a kind of resilience, and you can face life with confidence.”

“Under the bright sun, many of us are gathered together with different languages, different styles of dress, even different faiths. However, all of us are the same in being humans, and we all uniquely have the thought of ‘I’ and we’re all the same in wanting happiness and in wanting to avoid suffering.”

The arrogant ego desires respect, whereas the humble worker inspires respect.

If you don’t break your ego, life will break it for you.

The two things that we were told to forget are the good we’ve done for others and the bad others have done to us.

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

Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary. —Pema Chödrön