Think Like a Monk

by Jay Shetty

  DHARMA IS OF THE BODY

  Instead of listening to our minds, we must pay attention to how an idea or activity feels in our bodies. First, when you visualize yourself in a process, do you feel joy? Does the idea of it appeal to you? Then, when you actually do the activity, how does your body respond? When you’re in your element, you can feel it.

  Alive. For some people, being in their dharma means they feel a calm, confident satisfaction. For others, there is a thrill of joy and excitement. In either case, you feel alive, connected, with a smile on your face. A light comes on.

  Flow. In dharma, there is a natural momentum. You feel like you’re in your lane, swimming with the current, instead of struggling through a resistant surf. When you are truly aligned, there is a sense of flow—you come out of your own head and lose track of time.

  Comfort. In your dharma, you don’t feel alone or out of place, no matter who comes or goes or where you are physically; where you are feels right, even if the place where you feel right is traveling the world. I don’t like the feeling of danger, but I have a friend who loves fast cars and Jet Skis. The danger—the worst-case scenario—is the same for both of us, but for him it is worth it, or the danger itself is a joy. On stage, I’m in my element, but someone else would shut down.

  Consistency. If you have a great time snorkeling on vacation, that doesn’t mean snorkeling, or being on vacation for that matter, is your dharma. Being in your dharma bears repeating. In fact, it gets better the more you do it. But a single event is a clue to what energy you like, when and how you feel alive.

  Positivity and growth. When we’re aware of our own strengths, we’re more confident, we value others’ abilities more, and we feel less competitive. The inclination to compare yourself to others may not go away completely, but it shrinks because you only compare yourself to people within your area of expertise. Rejection and criticism don’t feel like assaults. They feel like information that we can accept or reject, depending on whether they help us move forward.

  DHARMA IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

  Once you have a sense of your dharma, it’s up to you to set up your life so that you can live it. We’re not always going to be in a place or a situation where others recognize our dharma and bend over backward to help us fulfill it. As we all have experienced at one time or another, bosses don’t always tap into their employees’ potential. If you’re reading this chapter thinking My manager needs to understand dharma—then she’ll give me the promotion, you’ve missed the point. We will never live in an idyllic world where everyone constantly lives their dharma, with occasional pauses for their bosses to call and ask if they’re truly fulfilled.

  It is our responsibility to demonstrate and defend our dharma. The Manusmriti says that dharma protects those who protect it. Dharma brings you stability and peace. When we have the confidence to know where we thrive, we find opportunities to demonstrate that. This creates a feedback loop. When you safeguard your dharma, you constantly strive to be in a place where you thrive. When you thrive, people notice, and you reap rewards that help you stay in your dharma. Your dharma protects your joy and your sense of purpose and helps you grow.

  STRETCH YOUR DHARMA

  A person who isn’t living their dharma is like a fish out of water. You can give the fish all the riches in the world, but it will die unless it’s returned to the water. Once you discover your dharma, strive to play that role in every aspect of your life. Follow your passion in the workplace. Take up community issues using the same skill set. Be in your dharma with your family, in sports, in relationships, during days out with friends. If my dharma is to be a leader, I’m probably the one who should be planning the family holidays. I will feel meaning in that role. But if I’m a leader and I’m not playing that role, I’ll feel insignificant and frustrated.

  Perhaps you are thinking, Jay, it makes no sense to stick to your dharma. Everyone knows that you should push yourself. Try new things. Venture out of your comfort zone. Though your dharma is your natural state, its range is further than your comfort zone. For instance, if your dharma is to be a speaker, you can go from an audience of ten to an audience of a hundred, scaling the size of your impact. If you speak to students, you can start speaking to CEOs.

  It’s also important to stretch your dharma. I’m not the most outgoing person in the world, but I go to events and meetings because I know connecting with people serves my purpose. Going against your dharma is a bit like roller skating. You feel off-balance, slightly out of control, and exhausted afterward. But the more you understand yourself, the more solid your footing. You can consciously skate off in a new direction for a higher purpose. Understanding your dharma is key to knowing when and how to leave it behind.

  Our dharmas evolve with us. A British expat, Emma Slade, lived in Hong Kong, where she worked as an investor for a global bank managing accounts worth more than a billion dollars. “I loved it,” says Slade. “It was fast, it was exciting.… I ate balance sheets for breakfast.” Then in September 1997, Slade was on a business trip in Jakarta, Indonesia, when an armed man pushed a gun into her chest, robbed her, and held her hostage in her hotel room. She says that as she lay cowering on the floor, she learned the value of a human life. Fortunately, police arrived before Slade was physically harmed. Later, when police officers showed her a photograph of the man slumped against the hotel wall surrounded by spatters of blood, Slade was shocked to feel sadness and compassion for him. That feeling stuck with her and led her to pursue the question of her real purpose.

  Slade quit her job and began exploring yoga and the nature of mind. In 2011, she traveled to Bhutan, where she met a monk who left an indelible impression on her (been there!). In 2012, she became a Buddhist nun, and Slade (now also known as Pema Deki) felt she’d finally found peace. Yet that feeling of compassion she’d felt for the man who attacked her returned, and Slade realized she needed to do something to put her compassion into action. So in 2015 she founded a UK-based charity called Opening Your Heart to Bhutan, which seeks to meet the basic needs of people in rural areas of East Bhutan. Though she found fulfillment in becoming a nun, it was never her dharma to sit in a cave and meditate for the rest of her life. She now deploys her financial acumen in a way that serves herself and others more richly. Says Slade, “The skills of old have been very useful in bringing me now a very meaningful and happy life.” Slade compares her experience to the lotus flower, which begins in the mud then grows upward through the water as it seeks light. In Buddhism, the lotus represents the idea that the mud and muck of life’s challenges can provide fertile ground for our development. As the lotus grows, it rises through the water to eventually blossom. The Buddha says, “Just like a red, blue, or white lotus—born in the water, grown in the water, rising up above the water—stands unsmeared by the water, in the same way I—born in the world, grown in the world, having overcome the world—live unsmeared by the world.”

  “Jakarta was my mud,” Slade says in her TEDx Talk, “but it was also the seed of my future development.”

  * * *

  Remember the whole equation of dharma. Dharma isn’t just passion and skills. Dharma is passion in the service of others. Your passion is for you. Your purpose is for others. Your passion becomes a purpose when you use it to serve others. Your dharma has to fill a need in the world. As I’ve said, monks believe that you should be willing to do whatever is needed when there’s a higher purpose (and monks live this fully), but if you’re not a monk the way to see it is that the pleasure you feel in doing your passion should equal how much others appreciate it. If others don’t think you’re effective, then your passion is a hobby, which can add richness to your life.

  This doesn’t mean every activity outside your dharma is a waste of time. For all of us there are activities in life that are competence-building and activities that are character-building. When I was first asked to give talks, I built competence in my dharma. But when I was asked to take out the trash, it built my character. To build you
r competence without regard for character is narcissistic, and to build character without working on skills is devoid of impact. We need to work on both in order to serve our souls and a higher purpose.

  * * *

  Knowing your purpose and fulfilling it is easier and more fruitful when you use your time and energy wisely every day. In the next chapter we will talk about how to get the best start to your day and how to follow through from there.

  SIX ROUTINE

  Location Has Energy; Time Has Memory

  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

  There are twelve of us, maybe more, sleeping on the floor, each on a thin yoga-type pad, covered by a simple sheet. The walls of the room are made of packed cow dung that feels like rough plaster and gives the place a not-unpleasant earthy smell. The unfinished stone floors are worn smooth, but a far cry from memory foam. There are no finished windows in this building—we’re in an interior room that keeps us dry in the rainy season and has plenty of doors for ventilation.

  Although I sleep here every night, there is no particular space that I consider “mine.” We steer clear of ownership here—no possessions, no material attachments. Right now the room is dark as a cave, but from the tenor of the birds outside, our bodies know that it’s 4 a.m.—time to wake up. We’re due at collective prayers in half an hour. Without speaking a word, we move to the locker room, some of us showering, some of us pulling on our robes. We wait in line to brush our teeth at one of the four communal sinks. No one from the outside world is witness to our activity, but if they were, they would see a group of seemingly well-rested men, all of whom appear perfectly content to be getting up at this early hour.

  * * *

  It wasn’t always that easy. Every morning my brain, desperate to remain shut down just a little bit longer, thought of a different excuse for why I should sleep in. But I pushed myself to adopt this new routine because I was committed to the process. The fact that it was hard was an important part of the journey.

  Eventually, I learned the one infallible trick to successfully getting up earlier: I had to go to sleep earlier. That was it. I’d spent my entire life pushing the limits of each day, sacrificing tomorrow because I didn’t want to miss out on today. But once I finally let that go and started going to sleep earlier, waking up at four became easier and easier. And as it became easier, I found that I could do it without the help of anyone or anything besides my own body and the natural world around it.

  This was a revelatory experience for me. I realized I had never in my life begun my day without being startled in one way or another. When I was a teenager, my morning summons came in the form of my mother screaming “Jay, wake up!” from downstairs. In later years, an alarm clock performed the same thankless task. Every day of my life had begun with a sudden, jarring intrusion. Now, however, I was waking up to the sounds of birds, trees rustling in the wind, a stream of water. I woke to the sounds of nature.

  At last I came to understand the value in it. The point of waking up early wasn’t to torture us—it was to start the day off with peace and tranquility. Birds. A gong. The sound of flowing water. And our morning routine never varied. The simplicity and structure of ashram mornings spared us from the stressful complexity of decisions and variation. Starting our days so simply was like a mental shower. It cleansed us of the challenges of the previous day, giving us the space and energy to transform greed into generosity, anger into compassion, loss into love. Finally, it gave us resolve, a sense of purpose to carry out into the day.

  In the ashram, every detail of our life was designed to facilitate the habit or ritual we were trying to practice. For example, our robes: When we rose, we never had to think about what to wear. Like Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, and Arianna Huffington, all of whom have been known to have their own basic uniforms, monks simplify their clothing so as not to waste energy and time on dressing for the day. We each had two sets of robes—one to wear and one to wash. In similar fashion, the early morning wake-up was designed to launch the day in the right spirit. It was an ungodly hour, yet it was spiritually enlightening.

  I would never wake up that early, you may be thinking. I can’t think of a worse way to start the day. I understand that perspective since I used to feel the same way! But let’s take a look at how most people currently start their day: sleep researchers say 85 percent of us need an alarm clock to wake up for work. When we wake up before our bodies are ready, the hormone melatonin, which helps to regulate sleep, is usually still at work, which is one of the reasons we grope for the snooze button.

  Unfortunately, our productivity-driven society encourages us to live like this. Maria Popova, a writer who’s best known as the curator of Brain Pickings, writes, “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.”

  Then, once we’ve woken up after too little sleep, nearly a quarter of us do something else that starts us out on the second wrong foot of the day—we reach for our cell phones within one minute of waking up. Over half of us are checking messages within ten minutes. A majority of people go from out cold to processing mountains of information within minutes every morning.

  There are only six cars that can go from zero to sixty miles per hour in under two seconds. Like most cars, humans are not built for that kind of sudden transition, mentally or physically. And the last thing you need to do when you’ve just woken up is to stumble straight into tragedy and pain courtesy of news headlines or friends venting about gridlock on their commute. Looking at your phone first thing in the morning is like inviting one hundred chatty strangers into your bedroom before you’ve showered, brushed your teeth, fixed your hair. Between the alarm clock and the world inside your phone, you’re immediately overwhelmed with stress, pressure, anxiety. Do you really expect yourself to emerge from that state and have a pleasant, productive day?

  In the ashram, we started each morning in the spirit of the day we planned to have, and we trained ourselves to sustain that deliberateness and focus all day long. Sure, that’s all fine and good if your daily schedule involves prayer, meditation, study, service, and chores, but the outside world is more complex.

  EARLY TO RISE

  Here is my first recommendation: Wake up one hour earlier than you do now. “No way!” you say. “Why would I want to wake up any earlier than I do right now? I don’t get enough sleep as it is. Besides, yuck!” But hear me out. None of us wants to go to work tired and then get to the end of the day feeling like we could have done more. The energy and mood of the morning carries through the day, so making life more meaningful begins there.

  We’re used to waking up just before we have to get to work, or to a class, or to a workout, or to shuttle children off to school. We leave ourselves just enough time to shower, eat breakfast, pack up, etc. But having “just enough time” means not having enough time. You run late. You skip breakfast. You leave the bed unmade. You can’t take the time to enjoy your shower, brush your teeth properly, finish your breakfast, or put everything away so you’ll return to a tidy home. You can’t do things with purpose and care if you have to speed through them. When you start the morning with high pressure and high stress, you’re programming your body to operate in that mode for the rest of the day, through conversations, meetings, appointments.

  Waking up early leads to a more productive day. Successful businesspeople are already onto this. Apple CEO Tim Cook starts his day at 3:45 a.m. Richard Branson is up at 5:45. Michelle Obama rises at 4:30. But it’s important to note that while lots of high-impact people rise early, there’s also a movement among top executives to reclaim sleep. 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 nee
d to turn in at an hour that allows you to get a full night’s rest.

  Life gets more complicated if you have kids or a night job, so if these or other circumstances make the idea of waking up an hour earlier unfathomable, don’t despair. Start with manageable increments (see the Try This below). And notice I didn’t name a specific time for you to get up. I’m not asking for 4 a.m. The hour doesn’t even have to be early—the goal is to give you enough time to move with intention and do things completely. That spirit will carry through the day.

  Create a time cushion at the beginning of the day or you’ll spend the rest of the day searching for it. I guarantee you will never find that extra time in the middle of the day. Steal it from your morning sleep and give that sleep back to yourself at night. See what changes.

  TRY THIS: EASE INTO AN EARLIER WAKE-UP

  This week, wake up just fifteen minutes earlier. You’ll probably have to use an alarm, but make it a gentle one. Use low lighting when you first wake up; put on quiet music. Don’t pick up your phone for at least those bonus fifteen minutes. Give your brain this time to set a tone for the day ahead. After one week of this, roll your wake time back another fifteen minutes. Now you have half an hour that is all yours. How will you choose to spend it? You might take a longer shower. Sip your tea. Go for a walk. Meditate. Spend a moment cleaning up after yourself before you step out the door. At night, turn off the TV and phone and get in bed whenever you feel the first twinge of fatigue.

  FOUND TIME

  Once you’ve created space in the morning, it is yours alone; nobody else controls how you use it. Given how much of our time is controlled by our obligations—job, family, etc.—this free time is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. You might go about your ordinary routine, but feel the space and leisure created by more time. Maybe you have time to make your own coffee instead of grabbing it en route. You can have a conversation over breakfast, read the paper, or use your newfound time to exercise. If you have a meditation, you can start the day with a gratitude visualization practice. Maybe, as health experts are fond of recommending, you’ll park further from work to add a bit of a walk to your morning. When you create the space, you’ll realize it fills with what you lack most of all: time for yourself.