HIGHLIGHTS: Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty

I finished reading Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty last week and I thought I’d go back and take note of everything that I highlighted while reading.

Below is everything that resonated with me while reading:

Think Like A Monk

• When someone needs you to listen, don’t be a savior. If we try to be problem-solvers, then we become frustrated when people don’t take our brilliant advice. The desire to save others is ego-driven. Don’t let your own needs shape your response.
• Competition breeds envy
• “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” Petty, negative thoughts and words are like mosquitos. Even the smallest ones can rob us of our peace.
• It’s important to find our significance not from thinking other people have it better but from being the person we want to be.
• 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, I’m limiting my joy. But if I can take pleasure in the successes of my friends and family — ten, twenty, fifty people! — I get to experience fifty times the happiness and joy. Who doesn’t want that?
• The longer we hold onto fears, the more they ferment until eventually they become toxic.
• Try shifting from I am angry to I feel angry. I feel sad. I feel afraid.
• Having this perspective calms down our initial reactions and gives us the space to examine our fear and the situation around it without judgment.
• A monk mind practices detachment.
• 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.
• Fearing that our parents will die is a hurtful fear because we can’t change the truth of the matter
• Detachment is the ultimate practice in minimizing fear
• Detaching from your fears allows you to address them
• Fear makes us fiction writers
• “Good thing, bad thing, who knows?”
• It’s often said that when the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change, that is when we change.
• 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.”
• “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.”

Breathwork

• Find a comfortable position — sitting in a chair, sitting upright with a cushion, or lying down
• Close your eyes
• Lower your gaze (yes, you can do this with your eyes closed)
• Make yourself comfortable in this position
• Roll back your shoulders
• Bring your awareness to
• Calm
• Balance
• Ease
• Stillness
• Peace
• Become aware of your natural breathing pattern
• Lower your left ear to your left shoulder as you breathe in — and bring it back to the middle as you breathe out
• Lower your right ear to your right shoulder as you breathe in — and bring it back to the middle as you breathe out
• Really feel the breath, with no rush or force, in your own pace, at your own time

Breathe to calm and relax

• Breathe in for a count of 4 through your nose in your own time and at your own pace
• Hold for a count of 4
• Exhale for a count of 4 through your mouth
• Do this for a total of 10 breaths

Breathe for energy and focus

• Breathe in through your nose for a count of 4
• Exhale powerfully through your nose for less than a second (like an engine pumping in your lungs)
• Breathe in again through your nose for a count of 4
• Do this for a total of 10 breaths

Breathe for sleep

• Breathe in for 4 seconds
• Exhale for longer than 4 seconds

• We’re not supposed to gravitate to our favorite ways to serve, but rather to help out wherever and however it’s needed
• 55% of our communication is conveyed by body language, 38% is tone of voice, and a mere 7% is the actual words we speak
• The magic formula for dharma — Passion + Expertise + Usefulness = Dharma
• Our society is set up around strengthening our weaknesses rather than building up our strengths. In school, if you get three As and a D, all the adults around you are focused on that D.
• Some of us live outside our dharma because we haven’t figured out what it is
• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos makes it a priority to get eight hours of sleep every night, saying that less sleep might give you more time to produce, but the quality will suffer. So if you’re going to rise early, you need to turn in at an hour that allows you to get a full night’s rest.

A New Morning Routine — T.I.M.E.

• Thankfulness
• Insight
• Meditation
• Exercise
• As much as 75% of the HGH in our bodies is released when we sleep, and research shows that our highest bursts of HGH typically come between 10 p.m and midnight, so if you’re awake during those hours, you’re cheating yourself of HGH.
• Kevin O’Leary said that before he goes to sleep he writes down three things he wants to do the next morning before he talks to anyone besides his family
• Every night when you’re falling asleep, say “I am relaxed, energized, and focused. I am calm, enthusiastic, and productive.” The emotion you fall asleep with at night is most likely the emotion you’ll wake up with in the morning.
• Every day the monk asked us to keep our eyes open for something different, something we’d never before seen on this walk that we had taken yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Spotting something new every day on our familiar walk was a reminder to keep our focus on that walk, to see the freshness in each “routine”, to be aware.
• Being present is the only way to live a truly rich and full life
• Studies have found that only 2% of us can multitask effectively; most of us are terrible at it
• Our thoughts are like clouds passing by. The self, like the sun, is always there. We are not our minds.
• Simply repeat an ancient samurai saying that the monks use: “Make my mind my friend,” over and over in your head.
• When anxious thoughts arise, instead of indulging them, we respond with compassion. “I know you’re worried and upset, and you feel like you can’t handle this, but you are strong. You can do it.”
• In the end, it’s your mind that translates the outside world into happiness or misery
• Our ego is often what holds us back from true knowledge
• When we are humble, we are open to learning because we understand how much we don’t know
• “You are who you are when no one is watching”
• When you’re sitting in a group of people, waiting for someone to finish talking so you can tell your fabulous story or make a witty comment, you’re not absorbing the essence of what’s being said. Your ego is chomping at the bit, ready to show how clever and interesting you are.
• Are we ashamed or grateful when we discover we were wrong about something? Are we defensive or intrigued when we find information that contradicts something we believe? If we aren’t open-minded, we deny ourselves opportunities to learn, grow, and change.
• The two things to remember are the bad we’ve done to others and the good others have done for us
• 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.
• When salt is used in the best way possible, it goes unrecognized. Salt is so humble that when something goes wrong, it takes the blame, and when everything goes right, it doesn’t take credit.
• Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don’t take everything personally — it is usually not about you.
• You are not either your success or your failure
• When the monkey mind, which amplifies negativity, tries to convince us that we’re useless and worthless, the more reasonable monk mind counters by pointing out that others have given us their time, energy, and love. They have made efforts on our behalf.
• OM NAMO BHAGAVATE VASUDEVAYA
• “Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.”
• “The salt is the pain of life. It is constant, but if you put it in a small glass, it tastes bitter. If you put it in a lake, you can’t taste it. Expand your senses, expand your world, and the pain will diminish. Don’t be the glass. Become the lake.”
• We often expect too much of others when we don’t have a clear sense of their purpose in our lives
• Sexual energy is not just about pleasure. It is sacred — it has the power to create a child. Imagine what it can create within us when it’s harnessed. Certified sex educator Mala Madrone says, “Celibacy by conscious choice is a powerful way to work with your own energy and harness the power of life energy.”
• Minister and philosopher Paul Tillich said, “Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”
• Nobody wants to sit with you at dinner while you’re on the phone. This is where we confuse time and energy. You can spend a whole hour with someone, but only give them ten minutes of energy.
• Think like monks do, in terms of energy management not time management. Are you bringing your full presence and attention to someone?
• Listening intentionally means looking for the emotions behind the words, asking questions to further understand, incorporating what you’ve learned into your knowledge of the other person, doing your best to remember what they said, and following up where relevant. Listening also involves creating an atmosphere of trust, where the person feels welcome and safe.
• Love is a verb. Love is an ability. Love is the absence of judgment. Love is patient. It is kind. Love is all you need.
• …until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex; but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hand inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.

Keeping love with your partner alive

• Find new in the old
• Find new ways to spend time together
• Serve together
• Meditate and chant together
• Finally, envision together what you both want from the relationship

• “We are all connected; to each other, biologically. To the Earth, chemically. And to the rest of the world, atomically.”
• “Plant trees under whose shade you do not plan to sit.”
• Selflessness is the surest route to inner peace and a meaningful life. Selflessness heals the self.
• Moving from the sufficiency mindset to the service mindset means changing our relationship with ownership — the more detached we are, the easier it is to let go of our time and money.
• True service doesn’t expect or even want anything in return.
• We can heal our mental challenges by helping other people with their physical needs
• There are approximately 152 million child laborers in the world, and Kailash Satyarthi has taken on an enormous amount of pain in his effort to end child labor.
• “You don’t need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough.”
• When you’re living in service, you don’t have time to complain and criticize. When you’re living in service, your fears go away. When you’re living in service, you feel grateful. Your material attachments diminish. Service is the direct path to a meaningful life.
• “At your own pace, in your own time.”
• “This too shall pass.”
• “Live everything.”
• “This moment is yours.”
• “Brush your shoulders off.”
• The monk method. Start with 21 minutes once a day, using a time to give yourself seven minutes each for breathwork, visualization, and mantra. When you are ready for more, expand to 21 minutes twice a day, ideally first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
• There is no measure of success, no goal, and no end to a meditation practice. Don’t look for results. Just keep doing it. Practice consistently for four to twelve weeks and you’ll start to notice the effects. You have to develop a practice before you know what you’re missing.
• Monks try to be present in the moment, but we are always conscious of now and forever. We measure our lives not by how big or small our impact is, but by how we make people feel.
• The most common regrets dying people express:
• I wish I’d expressed my love to the people I care about
• I wish I’d don’t more for other people
• I wish I’d taken more pleasure in life
• I wish I hadn’t worked so much
• Imagine how rewarding it will be to look back on a life where you have a been a teacher while remaining a student