Think Like a Monk

by Jay Shetty

  TRY THIS: RECEIVE FEEDBACK PRODUCTIVELY

  Choose one area where you want to improve. It might be financial, mental and emotional, or physical.

  Find someone who is an expert in that field and ask for guidance.

  Ask questions for clarity, specificity, and how to practically apply the guidance to your individual situation.

  Sample questions:

  Do you think this is a realistic path for me?

  Do you have any recommendations when it comes to timing?

  Is this something you think others have noticed about me?

  Is this something that needs retroactive repair (like apologies or revisions), or is this a recommendation for how to move forward?

  What are some of the risks of what you’re recommending?

  DON’T BUY INTO YOUR OWN HYPE

  If you are so lucky as to be successful, hear the same words those victorious Roman generals heard: Remember you are but a man, remember you will die. (Feel free to tweak the gender.) Instead of letting your achievements go to your head, detach from them. Feel gratitude for your teachers and what you have been given. Remind yourself who you are and why you are doing the work that brings you success.

  Remember the bad and forget the good to keep your own greatness in perspective. In high school I was suspended from school three times for all sorts of stupidity. I’m ashamed of my past, but it grounds me. I can look back and I think, No matter what anyone says about me today or how I think I’ve grown, I have anchors that humble me. They remind me of who I was and what I might have become if I hadn’t met people who inspired me to change. Like everyone, I got where I am through a mix of choices, opportunities, and work.

  You are not your success or your failure.

  Sustain this humility after you’ve achieved something too. When you are complimented, commended, or rewarded, neither lap it up nor reject it. Be gracious in the moment, and afterward remind yourself of how hard you worked, and recognize the sacrifices you made. Then ask yourself who helped you develop that skill. Think of your parents, your teachers, your mentors. Someone had to invest their time, money, and energy to make you who you are today. Remember and give thanks to the people who gave you the skills you’re getting recognition for. Sharing the success with them keeps you humble.

  REAL GREATNESS

  You shouldn’t feel small compared to others, but you should feel small compared to your goals. My own approach to remaining humble in the face of success is to keep moving the goalposts. The measure of success isn’t numbers, it’s depth. Monks aren’t impressed by how long you meditate. We ask how deep you went. Bruce Lee said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

  No matter what we achieve, we can aspire to greater scale and depth. I’m not concerned with vanity metrics. I often say that I want to take wisdom viral, but I want it to be meaningful. How can I reach a lot of people but without losing an intimate connection? Until the whole world is healed and happy, I haven’t finished. Aiming higher and higher—beyond ourselves to our community, our country, our planet—and realizing the ultimate goal is unattainable is what keeps us humble.

  Indeed, our goal of humility is ultimately unattainable.

  The moment you feel like you have arrived, you’re starting the journey again. This paradox is true for many things: If you feel safe, that’s when you’re most vulnerable; if you feel infallible, that’s when you’re at your weakest. André Gide said, “Believe those who search for the truth; doubt those who have found it.” Too often when you do good, you feel good, you live well, and you start to say, “I got this,” and that’s when you fall. If I sat here and said I had no ego, that would be a complete lie. Overcoming your ego is a practice not an accomplishment.

  Real greatness is when you use your own achievements to teach others, and they learn how to teach others, and the greatness that you’ve accomplished expands exponentially. Rather than seeing achievement as status, think of the role you play in other people’s lives as the most valuable currency. When you expand your vision, you realize that even people who have it all derive the greatest satisfaction from service.

  No matter how much you help others, feel no pride because there’s so much more to be done. Kailash Satyarthi is a children’s rights activist who is dedicated to saving kids from exploitation. His NGOs have rescued tens of thousands of children, but when asked what his first reaction was to winning the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, he responded, “The first reaction? Well, I wondered if I had done enough to be getting this award.” Satyarthi is humbled by the knowledge of how much more there is to do. The most powerful, admirable, captivating quality in any human is seen when they’ve achieved great things, but still embrace humility and their own insignificance.

  * * *

  We have been digging deep into who you are, how you can lead a meaningful life, and what you want to change. This is a lot of growth, and it won’t happen overnight. To aid your efforts, I suggest that you incorporate visualization into your meditation practice. Visualization is the perfect way to heal the past and prepare for the future.

  MEDITATION VISUALIZE

  During meditation, monks use visualization for the mind. When we close our eyes and walk our mind to another place and time, we have the opportunity to heal the past and prepare for the future. In the next three chapters we are going to embark on a journey to transform the way we see ourselves and our unique purpose in the world. While we do so, we’ll use the power of visualization to assist us.

  Using visualization, we can revisit the past, editing the narrative we tell ourselves about our history. Imagine you hated the last thing you said to a parent who passed away. Seeing yourself in your mind’s eye telling your parent how much you loved them doesn’t change the past, but, unlike nostalgia and regret, it starts the healing. And if you envision your hopes, dreams, and fears of the future, you can process feelings before they happen, strengthening yourself to take on new challenges. Before giving a speech, I often prepare by visualizing myself going on stage to deliver it. Think of it this way: Anything you see in the man-made world—this book, a table, a clock—whatever it is, it existed in someone’s mind before it came to be. In order to create something we have to imagine it. This is why visualization is so important. Whatever we build internally can be built externally.

  Everyone visualizes in daily life. Meditation is an opportunity to make this inclination deliberate and productive. Past or future, big or small, you can use visualization to extract the energy from a situation and bring it into your reality. For example, if you meditate on a place where you feel happy and relaxed, your breath and pulse shift, your energy changes, and you draw that feeling into your reality.

  Visualization activates the same brain networks as actually doing the task. Scientists at the Cleveland Clinic showed that people who imagined contracting a muscle in their little finger over twelve weeks increased its strength by almost as much as people who did actual finger exercises over the same period of time. Our efforts are the same—visualization creates real changes in our bodies.

  I’ve mentioned that we can meditate anywhere. Visualization can help you bring yourself into relaxation no matter what chaos surrounds you. Once I took a two-to-three-day train trip from Mumbai to South India on a crowded, filthy train. I found it tough to meditate and said to my teacher, “I’m not going to meditate right now. I’ll do it when we stop or when it’s calmer.”

  My teacher asked, “Why?”

  I said, “Because that’s what we do at the ashram.” I was used to meditating in the serene ashram, surrounded by a lake and benches and trees.

  He said, “Do you think the time of death will be calm? If you can’t meditate now, how will you meditate then?”

  I realized that we were being trained to meditate in peace so that we could meditate in chaos. Since then I’ve meditated in planes, in the middle of New York City, in Hollywood. There are distractions
, of course, but meditation doesn’t eliminate distractions, it manages them.

  When I guide a meditation, I often begin by saying, “If your mind wanders, return to your regular breathing pattern. Don’t get frustrated or annoyed, just gently and softly bring your attention back to your breathing, visualization, or mantra.” Meditation is not broken when you’re distracted. It is broken when you let yourself pursue the distracting thought or lose your concentration and think, Oh, I’m so bad at this. Part of the practice of meditation is to observe the thought, let it be, then come back to what you were focusing on. If it isn’t hard, you’re not doing it right.

  One important note: We want to choose positive visualizations. Negative visualizations trap us in painful thoughts and images. Yes, the “bad” in us emerges in meditation, but there’s no benefit to imagining ourselves trapped in a gloomy maze. The whole point is to visualize a path out of the darkness.

  There are two kinds of visualization—set and exploratory. In a set visualization, someone verbally guides you through a place. You are at a beach. You feel the sand beneath your feet. You see a blue sky, and you hear seagulls and the crash of waves. An exploratory visualization asks you to come up with your own details. If I ask meditation clients to imagine the place where they feel most at ease, one might see herself riding a bike on a seaside trail, while another might summon a tree house from his childhood.

  TRY THIS: VISUALIZATION

  Here are a few visualizations you can try. I also encourage you to go online to download an app, or to visit a meditation center—there are plenty of options out there to help your practice.

  For the visualization exercises I describe below, begin your practice with the following steps.

  Find a comfortable position—sitting in a chair, sitting upright with a cushion, or lying down.

  Close your eyes.

  Lower your gaze.

  Make yourself comfortable in this position.

  Bring your awareness to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.

  Whenever your mind wanders, just gently and softly bring it back to calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.

  BODY SCAN

  Bring your awareness to your natural breathing pattern. Breathe in and out.

  Bring your awareness to your body. Become aware of where it touches the ground, a seat, and where it does not. You may find that your heels touch the ground but your arches don’t. Or your lower back touches the bed or mat but your middle back is slightly raised. Become aware of all these subtle connections.

  Now begin to scan your body.

  Bring your awareness to your feet. Scan your toes, your arches, your ankles, your heels. Become aware of the different sensations you may feel. You may feel relaxed, or you may feel pain, pressure, tingling, or something totally different. Become aware of it and then visualize that you are breathing in positive, uplifting, healing energy and breathing out any negative toxic energy.

  Now move upward to your legs, calves, shins, and knees. Again, just scan and observe the sensations.

  Whenever your mind wanders, gently and softly bring it back to your body. No force or pressure. No judgment.

  At some point you may come across pain you were not aware of before. Be present with that pain. Observe it. And again breathe into it three times and breathe out three times.

  You can also express gratitude for different parts of your body as you scan them.

  Do this all the way to the tip of your head. You can move as slowly or as quickly as you like, but don’t rush.

  CREATE A SACRED SPACE

  Visualize yourself in a place that makes you feel calm and relaxed. It might be a beach, a nature walk, a garden, or the top of a mountain.

  Feel the ground, sand, or water beneath your feet as you walk in this space.

  Without opening your eyes, look left. What do you notice? Observe it and keep walking.

  Look right. What do you notice? Observe it and keep walking

  Become aware of the colors, the textures, and the distances around you.

  What can you hear? The sounds of birds, water, or air?

  Feel the air and wind on your face.

  Find a calm, comfortable place to sit down.

  Breathe in the calm, balance, ease, stillness, and peace.

  Breathe out the stress, pressure, and negativity.

  Go to this place whenever you feel you need to relax.

  PRESENCE AND MENTAL PICTURE

  Often the mental pictures we have form simply from the repetition of an activity rather than because we have chosen them. Visualization can be used to intentionally turn a moment into a memory. Use this visualization to create a memory or to capture joy, happiness, and purpose. It can also be used to deeply connect with an old memory, returning to a time and place when you felt joy, happiness, and purpose. If you are creating a memory, keep your eyes open. If you are reconnecting, then close them.

  I 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.

  First, find five things you can see. Once you’ve found all five, give your attention to one at a time, moving your focus from one to the next.

  Now find four things you can touch. Imagine you are touching them, feeling them. Notice the different textures. Move your focus from one to the next.

  Find three things you can hear. Move your focus from one to the next.

  Find two things you can smell. Is it flowers? Is it water? Is it nothing? Move your focus from one to the next.

  Find one thing you can taste.

  Now that you have attended to every sense, breathe in the joy and happiness. Take it inside your body. Let yourself smile naturally in response to how it makes you feel.

  You have now captured this moment forever and can return to it anytime through visualization.

  PART THREE GIVE

  NINE GRATITUDE

  The World’s Most Powerful Drug

  Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.

  —Pema Chödrön

  Once we have trained the mind to look inward, we are ready to look outward at how we interact with others in the world. Today it is common to talk about amplifying gratitude in our lives (we are all #blessed), but attaching a hashtag to a moment is different from digging to the root of all we’ve been given and bringing true, intentional gratitude to our lives every day.

  Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast defines gratitude as the feeling of appreciation that comes when “you recognize that something is valuable to you, which has nothing to do with its monetary worth.”

  Words from a friend, a kind gesture, an opportunity, a lesson, a new pillow, a loved one’s return to health, the memory of a blissful moment, a box of vegan chocolates (hint, hint). When you start your day with gratitude, you’ll be open to opportunities, not obstacles. You’ll be drawn to creativity, not complaint. You will find fresh ways to grow, rather than succumbing to negative thoughts that only shrink your options.

  In this chapter we’re going to expand our awareness of gratitude and why it’s good for you. Then we’ll practice finding reasons to be grateful every day; we’ll learn when and how to express gratitude for both small gifts and those that have mattered most.

  GRATITUDE IS GOOD FOR YOU

  It’s hard to believe that thankfulness could actually have measurable benefits, but the science is there. Gratitude has been linked to better mental health, self-awareness, better relationships, and a sense of fulfillment.

  One way scientists have measured the benefits of gratitude was to ask two groups of people to keep journals during the day. The first group was asked to record things for which they felt grateful, and the second was asked to record times they’d felt hassled or irritated. The gratitude group reported lower stress levels at the end of the day. In another study, college students who complained that their minds were filled with
racing thoughts and worries were told to spend fifteen minutes before bed listing things for which they were grateful. Gratitude journaling reduced intrusive thoughts and helped participants sleep better.

  TRY THIS: KEEP A GRATITUDE JOURNAL

  Every night, spend five minutes writing down things you are grateful for.

  If you want to conduct your own experiment, spend the week before you start writing down how much sleep you get. The following week, keep a gratitude journal and in the morning write down how much sleep you got. Any improvement?

  GRATITUDE AND THE MIND

  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. Gratitude for their kindness is entwined with self-esteem, because if we are worthless, then that would make their generosity toward us worthless too.

  Gratitude also helps us overcome the bitterness and pain that we all carry with us. Try feeling jealous and grateful simultaneously. Hard to imagine, right? When you’re present in gratitude, you can’t be anywhere else. According to UCLA neuroscientist Alex Korb, we truly can’t focus on positive and negative feelings at the same time. When we feel grateful, our brains release dopamine (the reward chemical), which makes us want to feel that way again, and we begin to make gratitude a habit. Says Korb, “Once you start seeing things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for.” It’s a “virtuous cycle.”