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

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.

Cancers of the Mind: Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing.

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

our search is never for a thing, but for the feeling we think the thing will give us.

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.

Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. That’s real strength.

Salt is so humble that when something goes wrong, it takes the blame, and when everything goes right, it doesn’t take credit.

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.

Negativity is a trait, not someone’s identity. A person’s 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 wouldn’t want someone to judge us by our worst moments, we must be careful not to do that to others. When someone hurts you, it’s because they’re 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.

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. … You’re my teacher.

But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too.

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

Too often we love people who don’t love us, but we fail to return the love of others who do.

Because the only thing that stays with you from the moment you’re 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.

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.

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

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?

It is impossible to build one’s own happiness on the unhappiness of others.

Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don’t take everything personally—it is usually not about you.

As Pema Chödrön says, “You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.

This ten-year-old monk added, “When you get stressed—what changes? Your breath. When you get angry—what 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.

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

Here’s 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 don’t expect anything in return, but what we get is the joy of service. It’s an exchange of love. 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.

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

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.

When you deal with fear and hardship, you realize that you’re 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 what’s actually worth being afraid of and what’s not.

There is toxicity everywhere around us. In the environment, in the political atmosphere, but the origin is in people’s 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.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness

If you want a new idea, read an old book. —attributed to Ivan Pavlov (among others)

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.