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

by Jay Shetty

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

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. —Bhagavad Gita 3.35

“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Let that blow your mind for a moment. Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us—or, more accurately, what we think others think of us.

When we tune out the opinions, expectations, and obligations of the world around us, we begin to hear ourselves. In that silence I began to recognize the difference between outside noise and my own voice. I could clear away the dust of others to see my core beliefs.

time reflects values.

Who you surround yourself with helps you stick to your values and achieve your goals.

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.

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

or fail to do.”

Negativity—in conversation, emotions, and actions—often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding).

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

The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.

The key to real freedom is self-awareness.

First, we become aware of a feeling or issue—we spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes from—we stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behavior—we swap in a new way of processing the moment. SPOT, STOP, SWAP.

If you want the negativity between yourself and another person to dissipate, you have to hope that you both heal. You don’t have to tell them directly, but send the energy of well-wishing out into the air. This is when you feel most free and at peace—because you’re truly able to let go.

We needn’t reduce our thoughts and words to 100 percent sunshine and positivity. But we should challenge ourselves to dig to the root of negativity, to understand its origins in ourselves and those around us, and to be mindful and deliberate in how we manage the energy it absorbs.

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

The longer we hold on to fears, the more they ferment until eventually they become toxic.

When we track our fears back to their source, most of us find that they’re closely related to attachment—our need to own and control things.

We realize that everything—from our houses to our families—is borrowed. Clinging to temporary things gives them power over us, and they become sources of pain and fear. But when we accept the temporary nature of everything in our lives, we can feel gratitude for the good fortune of getting to borrow them for a time. Even the most permanent of possessions, belonging to the most wealthy and powerful, don’t actually belong to them. This is just as true for the rest of us. And for many—indeed most—of us, that impermanence causes great fear.

“It is not possible to control all external events; but if I simply control my mind, what need is there to control other things?”

I realized I had to take responsibility for my life. My parents might be upset, they might not—I had no control over that. I could only make decisions based on my own values.

yet come to pass. Fear makes us fiction writers. We start with a premise, an idea, a fear—what will happen if… Then we spiral off, devising possible future scenarios.

Life isn’t a collection of unrelated events,

“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.”

Happiness can be elusive—it’s hard to sustain a high level of joy. But to feel meaning shows that our actions have purpose. They lead to a worthwhile outcome.

When we live intentionally—with a clear sense of why what we do matters—life has meaning and brings fulfillment.

But life is more meaningful when we define ourselves by our intentions rather than our achievements.

If something is important, it deserves to be experienced deeply.

I learned something that has been crucial in curbing these dangerous, self-destructive thoughts. Our thoughts are like clouds passing by. The self, like the sun, is always there. We are not our minds.

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

“All spiritual teaching—this is not an oversimplification—is about how to be present to the moment.… But the problem is, we’re almost always somewhere else: reliving the past or worrying about the future.”

In the darkness of the ego we think we’re special and powerful and significant, but when we look at ourselves in context of the great universe, we see that we only play a small part. To find true humility, like the firefly, we must look at ourselves when the sun is out and we can see clearly.

“You’re looking at how they’re behaving today,” he said. “I’m looking at how far they’ve come.” The monk was remembering the good they’d done and forgetting the bad. He didn’t take their behavior as a reflection of himself, or of their respect for him. He took a longer view that had nothing to do with himself.

The ego wants everyone to like you. High self-esteem is just fine if they don’t. The ego thinks it knows everything. Self-esteem thinks it can learn from anyone. The ego wants to prove itself. Self-esteem wants to express itself.

Instead of comparing ourselves to others, we cleanse our minds and look to improve ourselves. Instead of wanting to prove ourselves, we want to be ourselves, meaning we aren’t distracted by external wants.