Top highlights from Think Like a Monk
Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.
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Cancers of the Mind: Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing.
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The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are.
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our search is never for a thing, but for the feeling we think the thing will give us.
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In 1902, the sociologist Charles Horton Cooley wrote: 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.
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Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. Thats real strength.
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Salt is so humble that when something goes wrong, it takes the blame, and when everything goes right, it doesnt take credit.
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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.
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Negativity is a trait, not someones identity. A persons true nature can be obscured by clouds, but, like the sun, it is always there. And clouds can overcome any of us. We have to understand this when we deal with people who exude negative energy. Just like we wouldnt want someone to judge us by our worst moments, we must be careful not to do that to others. When someone hurts you, its because theyre hurt. Their hurt is simply spilling over. They need help. And as the Dalai Lama says, If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.
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Because the only thing that stays with you from the moment youre born until the moment you die is your breath. All your friends, your family, the country you live in, all of that can change. The one thing that stays with you is your breath.
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Find me someone who has gone to the darkest parts of their own character where they were so close to their own self-destruction and found a way to get up and out of it, and I will bow on my knees to you. Youre my teacher.
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Too often we love people who dont love us, but we fail to return the love of others who do.
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Albert Einstein said, If you cant explain something simply, you dont understand it well enough.
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But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too.
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When you learn to navigate and manage your breath, you can navigate any situation in life.
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It is impossible to build ones own happiness on the unhappiness of others.
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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.
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Mudita is the principle of taking sympathetic or unselfish joy in the good fortune of others. If I only find joy in my own successes, Im limiting my joy. But if I can take pleasure in the successes of my friends and familyten, twenty, fifty people!I get to experience fifty times the happiness and joy. Who doesnt want that?
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As Pema Chdrn says, You are the sky. Everything elseits just the weather.
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If you dont break your ego, life will break it for you.
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This ten-year-old monk added, When you get stressedwhat changes? Your breath. When you get angrywhat changes? Your breath. We experience every emotion with the change of the breath. When you learn to navigate and manage your breath, you can navigate any situation in life.
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Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Dont take everything personallyit is usually not about you.
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According to the Gita, these are the higher values and qualities: fearlessness, purity of mind, gratitude, service and charity, acceptance, performing sacrifice, deep study, austerity, straightforwardness, nonviolence, truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, perspective, restraint from fault finding, compassion toward all living beings, satisfaction, gentleness/kindness, integrity, determination.
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Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness
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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
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There is toxicity everywhere around us. In the environment, in the political atmosphere, but the origin is in peoples hearts. Unless we clean the ecology of our own heart and inspire others to do the same, we will be an instrument of polluting the environment. But if we create purity in our own heart, then we can contribute great purity to the world around us.
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When you deal with fear and hardship, you realize that youre capable of dealing with fear and hardship. This gives you a new perspective: the confidence that when bad things happen, you will find ways to handle them. With that increased objectivity, you become better able to differentiate whats actually worth being afraid of and whats not.
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Heres the life hack: Service is always the answer. It fixes a bad day. It tempers the burdens we bear. Service helps other people and helps us. We dont expect anything in return, but what we get is the joy of service. Its an exchange of love. When youre living in service, you dont have time to complain and criticize. When youre living in service, your fears go away. When youre living in service, you feel grateful. Your material attachments diminish.
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Monks understand that routine frees your mind, but the biggest threat to that freedom is monotony. People complain about their poor memories, but Ive heard it said that we dont have a retention problem, we have an attention problem.
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Complainers, like the friend on the phone, who complain endlessly without looking for solutions. Life is a problem that will be hard if not impossible to solve. Cancellers, who take a compliment and spin it: You look good today becomes You mean I looked bad yesterday? Casualties, who think the world is against them and blame their problems on others. Critics, who judge others for either having a different opinion or not having one, for any choices theyve made that are different from what the critic would have done. Commanders, who realize their own limits but pressure others to succeed. Theyll say, You never have time for me, even though theyre busy as well. Competitors, who compare themselves to others, controlling and manipulating to make themselves or their choices look better. They are in so much pain that they want to bring others down. Often we have to play down our successes around these people because we know they cant appreciate them. Controllers, who monitor and try to direct how their friends or partners spend time, and with whom, and what choices they make. You can have fun with this list, seeing if you can think of someone to fit each type. But the real point of it is to help you
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I wish is code for I dont want to do anything differently.
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The arrogant ego desires respect, whereas the humble worker inspires respect.
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use an anti-anxiety technique called 5-4-3-2-1. We are going to find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
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Aspects of Love, Everything you do in the day from washing to eating breakfast, having meetings, driving to work watching television or deciding instead to read everything you do is your spiritual life. It is only a matter of how consciously you do these ordinary things
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Being present is the only way to live a truly rich and full life.
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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.
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First, we become aware of a feeling or issuewe spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes fromwe stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behaviorwe swap in a new way of processing the moment. SPOT, STOP, SWAP.
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But monks believe that when it comes to happiness and joy, there is always a seat with your name on it. In other words, you dont need to worry about someone taking your place. In the theater of happiness, there is no limit. Everyone who wants to partake in mudita can watch the show. With unlimited seats, there is no fear of missing out.
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Jim Carrey once said, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that its not the answer.
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If you are satisfied with who you are, you don't need to prove your worth to anyone else.
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People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
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When we acknowledge that all of our blessings are like a fancy rental car or a beautiful Airbnb, we are free to enjoy them without living in constant fear of losing them. We are all the lucky vacationers enjoying our stay in Hotel Earth.
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When you are hired for a job, take a moment to reflect on all the lost jobs and/or failed interviews that led to this victory. You can think of them as necessary challenges along the way. When we learn to stop segmenting experiences and periods of our life and instead see them as scenes and acts in a larger narrative, we gain perspective that helps us deal with fear.
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TRY THIS: AUDIT YOUR TIME Spend a week tracking how much time you devote to the following: family, friends, health, and self. (Note that were leaving out sleeping, eating, and working. Work, in all its forms, can sprawl without boundaries. If this is the case for you, then set your own definition of when you are officially at work and make extra work one of your categories.) The areas where you spend the most time should match what you value the most. Say the amount of time that your job requires exceeds how important it is to you. Thats a sign that you need to look very closely at that decision. Youre deciding to spend time on something that doesnt feel important to you. What are the values behind that decision? Are your earnings from your job ultimately serving your values?
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As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, well always be left waiting for it.
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It is also important to share your own thoughts and dreams, hopes and worries. The vulnerability of exposing yourself is a way of giving trust and showing respect for another persons opinion. It enables the other person to understand the previous experiences and beliefs you bring to whatever you do together.
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A quote from Al, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammed, best explains the monk idea of detachment: Detachment is not that you own nothing, but that nothing should own you. I love how this summarizes detachment in a way that its not usually explained.
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When you learn to navigate and manage your breath, you can navigate any situation in life
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saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.
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If you follow your bliss, he said, doors will open for you that wouldnt have opened for anyone else
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We say things to ourselves that we would never say to people we love
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If you want a new idea, read an old book. attributed to Ivan Pavlov (among others)
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The grass is greener where you water it.
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Theres nothing intrinsically wrong with cloudy or multifaceted intentions. We just need to remember that the less pure they are, the less likely they are to make us happy, even if they make us successful. When people gain what they want but arent happy at all, its because they did it with the wrong intention.
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Make a list of five people you care about, but also feel competitive with. Come up with at least one reason that youre envious of each one: something theyve achieved, something theyre better at, something thats gone well for them. Did that achievement actually take anything away from you? Now think about how it benefitted your friend. Visualize everything good that has come to them from this achievement. Would you want to take any of these things away if you could, even knowing that they would not come to you? If so, this envy is robbing you of joy. Envy is more destructive to you than whatever your friend has accomplished. Spend your energy transforming it.
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that the mud and muck of lifes challenges can provide fertile ground for our development. As the lotus grows, it rises through the water to eventually blossom.
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This is the first step to building your monk mind.
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May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.
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Happiness is feeling good about yourself, having close relationships, making the world a better place. More
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