THINK LIKE A MONK

The principle of "selfless sacrifice" says that we should plant trees under whose shade we did not plan to sit.

"A layperson who is consciously aiming to be continuously alive in the Now is a monk."

Monks can withstand temptations, refrain from criticizing, deal with pain and anxiety, quiet the ego, and build lives that brim with purpose and meaning.

I didn't want to know humility or compassion and empathy only as abstract concepts, I wanted to live them. I didn't want discipline, character, and integrity to just be things I read about. I wanted to live them.

The Bhagavad Gita is considered a kind of universal and timeless life manual.

Meditation and mindfulness are beneficial,

Gratitude is good for you, 

Service makes you happier.

Never before have so many people been so dissatisfied-or so preoccupied with chasing "happiness." Our culture and media feed us images and concepts about who and what we should be, while holding up models of accomplishment and success. Fame, money, glamour, sex-in the end none of these things can satisfy us. We'll simply seek more and more, a circuit that leads to frustration, disillusion, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and exhaustion.

I like to draw a contrast between the monk mindset and what is often referred to as the monkey mind. Our minds can either elevate us or pull us down. Today we all struggle with overthinking, procrastination, and anxiety as a result of indulging the monkey mind. The monkey mind switches aimlessly from thought to thought.

"Thinking like a monk" posits another way of viewing and approaching life. A way of rebellion, detachment, rediscovery, purpose, focus, discipline-and service. The goal of monk thinking is a life free of ego, envy, lust, anxiety, anger, bitterness, baggage. To my mind, adopting the monk mindset isn't just possible --- it's necessary. We have no other choice. We need to find calm, stillness, and peace.

"The first thing we teach them is how to breathe."

"Why?" I asked.

"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 i is your breath."

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."

First, we will let go,

Second, we will grow,

Third, we will give.

Three very different types of meditation that I recommend including in your practice: breathwork, visualization, and sound.

How would a monk think about this? That may not be a question you ask yourself right now --- probably isn't close at all --- but it will be by the end of the book.

PART ONE

LET GO

Ch.1

IDENTITY

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".

Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us or, more accurately, what we think others think of us. 

We live in a perception of a perception of ourselves.

Society's definition of a happy life is everybody's and nobody's. The only way to build a meaningful life is to filter out that noise and look within. This is the first step to building your monk mind.

IS IT DUST OR IS IT ME?

Gauranga Das offered me a beautiful metaphor to illustrate the external influences that obscure our true selves.

We are in a storeroom, lined with unused books and boxes full of artifacts. Unlike the rest of the ashram, which is always tidy and well swept, this place is dusty and draped in cobwebs. The senior monk leads me up to a mirror and says, "What can you see?"

Through the thick layer of dust, I can't even see my reflection. I say as much, and the monk nods. Then he wipes the arm of his robe across the glass. A cloud of dust puffs into my face, stinging my eyes and filling my throat.

He says, "Your identity is a mirror covered with dust. When you first look in the mirror, the truth of who you are and what you value is obscured. Clearing it may not be pleasant, but only when that dust is gone can you see your true reflection."

The foundation of virtually all monastic traditions is removing distractions that prevent us from focusing on what matters most --- finding meaning in life by mastering physical and mental desires. Some traditions give up speaking, some give up sex, some give up worldly possessions, and some give up all three. In the ashram, we lived with just what we needed and nothing more.

Values are really practical. They're a kind of ethical GPS we can use to navigate through life. If you know your values, you have directions that point you toward the people and actions and habits that are best for you. Just as when we drive through a new area, we wander aimlessly without values; we take wrong turns, we get lost, we're trapped by indecision. Values make it easier for you to surround yourself with the right people, make tough career choices, use your time more wisely, and focus your attention where it matters. Without them we are swept away by distractions.

As a monk, I learned early on that our values are influenced by whatever absorbs our minds. We are not our minds, but the mind is the vehicle by which we decide what is important in our hearts. The movies we watch, the music we hear, the books we read, the TV shows we binge, the people we follow online and offline. What's on your news feed is feeding your mind. The more we are absorbed in celebrity gossip, images of success, violent video games, and troubling news, the more our values are tainted with envy, judgment, competition, and discontent.

Observing and evaluating are key to thinking like a monk, and they begin with space and stillness. For monks, the first step in filtering the noise of external influences is a material letting go.

We can't address our thoughts and explore our minds when we're preoccupied. Nor does just sitting in your home teach you anything. There are three ways I suggest you actively create space for reflection. First, on a daily basis I recommend you sit down to reflect on how the day went and what emotions you're feeling. Second, once a month you can approximate the change that I found at the ashram by going someplace you've never been before to explore yourself in a different environment. This can be anything from visiting a park or library you've never been to before to taking a trip. Finally, get involved in something that's meaningful to you --- a hobby, a charity, a political cause.

No matter what you think your values are, your actions tell the real story. What we do with our spare time shows what we value. For instance, you might put spending time with your family at the top of your list of values, but if you spend all your free time playing golf, your actions don't match your values, and need to do some self-examination.

The ways we spend our time and money reveal what we value.

A 60-minute TV show ("Flew by!") 

A 60-minute lunch with family ("Will it ever end!") 

Everyday coffee habit ($4/day, almost $1,500/year) ("Need it!") 

Fresh healthy food choices (an extra 1.50/day, about $550/year) ("Not worth it!")

15 minutes scrolling social media ("Me time!") 

15 minutes of meditation ("No time!")

Our teachers at the ashram explained that there are higher and lower values. Higher values propel and elevate us toward happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. Lower values demote us toward anxiety, depression, and suffering. 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. (Notice that happiness and success are not among these values. These are not values, they are rewards the end game.)

The six lower values are greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion, and envy. The downside of the lower values is that they so readily take us over when we give them space to do so, but the upside is that there are a lot fewer of them. Or, as my teacher Gauranga Das reminded us, there are always more ways to be pulled up than to be pulled down.

The ashram gave us monks the opportunity to observe nature, and our teachers called our attention to the cycles of all living things. Leaves sprout, transform, and drop. Reptiles, birds, and mammals shed their skins, feathers, fur. Letting go is a big part of the rhythm of nature, as is rebirth. We humans cling to stuff--- people, ideas, material possessions, copies of Marie Kondo's book -- thinking it's unnatural to purge, but letting go is a direct route to space (literally) and stillness. We separate ourselves----emotionally if not physically--from the people and ideas who fill up our lives, and then we take time to observe the natural inclinations that compel us.

Choices come along every day, and we can begin to weave values into them. Whenever we make a choice, whether it's as big as getting married or as small as an argument with a friend, we are driven by our values, whether they are high or low. If these choices work out well for us, then our values are in alignment with our actions. But when things don't work out, it's worth revisiting what drove the decision you made.

TRY THIS

For the next week, whenever you spend money on a nonnecessity or make a plan for how you will spend your free time, pause, and think: What is the value behind this choice? It only takes a second, a flash of consideration. Ideally, this momentary pause becomes instinctive, so that you are making conscious choices about what matters to you and how much energy you devote to it.

When you are not alone, surround yourself with people who fit well with your values. It helps to find a community that reflects who you want to be. A community that looks like the future you want.

Who you talk to, what you watch, what you do with your time: all of these sources push values and beliefs. If you're just going from one day to the next without questioning your values, you'll be swayed by what everyone else—from your family to hordes of marketing professionals-wants you to think. I remind myself of the moment in the storeroom all the time. A thought comes into my mind and I ask myself, Does this fit my chosen values or those that others have selected for me? Is this dust or is it me?

When you give yourself space and stillness, you can clear the dust and see yourself, not through others' eyes, but from within. Identifying your values and letting them guide you will help you filter external influences.

Ch.2

NEGATIVITY

CANCERS OF THE MIND: 

"Comparing, Complaining, Criticizing." In the class, we talked about negative thought habits, including gossip. One of the exercises we did was keeping a tally of every criticism we spoke or thought. For each one, we had to write down ten good things about the person.

Buddha advised, "Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do."

Negativity often comes from within. We have three core emotional needs, which I like to think of as peace, love, and understanding (thanks Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello). Negativity --- in conversation, emotions, and actions --- often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding). From these fears stem all sorts of other emotions-feeling overwhelmed, insecure, hurt, competitive, needy, and so on.

If we're surrounded by gossip, conflict, and negativity, we start to see the world in those terms.

Gauranga Das repeated this advice in brief metaphorical form that we often used to remind ourselves not to harbor negative thoughts toward others: "Don't judge someone with a different disease. Don't expect anyone to be perfect. Don't think you are perfect."

Catholic monk Father Thomas Keating said, "There is no commandment that says we have to be upset by the way other people treat us. The reason we are upset is because we have an emotional program that says, "If someone is nasty to me, I cannot be happy or feel good about myself... Instead of reacting compulsively and retaliating, we could enjoy our freedom as human beings and refuse to be upset." We step away, not literally but emotionally, and look at the situation as if we are not in the middle of it. This is called detachment.

Becoming a monk, detaching from material life, was not seen as an achievement in and of itself. It simply meant that we were ready to be admitted to a place of healing where we could work to overcome the illnesses of the soul that infected us and weakened us.

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".

"Don't count the teeth in someone else's mouth." Similarly, don't attempt to fix a problem unless you have the necessary skills.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk who has been called the Father of Mindfulness, writes, "Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything---anger, anxiety, or possessions --- we cannot be free."

Aim for the feeling that at least 75 percent of your time is spent with people who inspire you rather than bring you down. Don't just spend time with the people you love --- grow with them. Take a class, read a book, do a workshop. Sangha is the Sanskrit word for community, and it suggests a refuge where people serve and inspire each other.

There might be some people you can only tolerate for an hour a month, some for a day, some for a week. Maybe you even know a one-minute person. Consider how much time is best for you to spend with them, and don't exceed it.

When we find ourselves judging others, we should take note. it's a signal that our minds are tricking us into thinking we're moving forward when in truth we're stuck.

We may never completely purge ourselves of envy, jealousy, greed, lust, anger, pride, and illusion, but that doesn't mean we should ever stop trying. In Sanskrit, the word anartha generally means "things not wanted," and to practice anartha niritti is to remove that which is unwanted. We think freedom means being able to say whatever we want. We think freedom means that we can pursue all our desires. Real freedom is letting go of things not wanted, the unchecked desires that lead us to unwanted ends.

Letting go doesn't mean wiping away negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas completely. The truth is that these thoughts will always arise --- it is what we do with them that makes the difference. The neighbor's barking dog is an annoyance. It will always interrupt you. The question is how you guide that response. The key to real freedom is self-awareness. 

Most of us don't register our negative thoughts, To purify our thoughts, monks talk about the process of awareness, addressing, and amending. I like to remember this as spot, stop, swap. First, we become aware of a feeling or issue-we spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes from-we stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behavior-we swap in a new way of processing the moment. SPOT, STOP, SWAP.

What we judge or envy or suspect in someone else can guide us to the darkness we have within ourselves. In the same way our envy or impatience or suspicion with someone else tells us something about ourselves. Negative projections and suspicions reflect our own insecurities and get in our way.

The Bhagavad Gita refers to the austerity of speech, saying that we should only speak words that are truthful, beneficial to all, pleasing, and that don't agitate the minds of others.

Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say things.

When we limit our negative speech, we may find that we have a lot less to say.

Monks are considered quiet because they are trained to choose their words so carefully that it takes some time. We choose words carefully and use them with purpose.

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!-1 get to experience fifty times the happiness and joy. Who doesn't want that?

KṢAMA: AMENDING ANGER

--- When we are deeply wounded, anger is often part of the response. Anger is a great, flaming ball of negative emotion, and when we cannot let it go, no matter how we try, the anger takes on a life of its own. The toll is enormous. I want to talk specifically about how to deal with anger we feel toward other people.

--- Kṣama is Sanskrit for forgiveness. It suggests that you bring patience and forbearance to your dealings with others. Sometimes we have been wounded so deeply that we can't imagine how we might forgive the person who hurt us. But, contrary to what most of us believe, forgiveness is primarily an action we take within ourselves. Sometimes it's better (and safer and healthier) not to have direct contact with the person at all; other times, the person who hurt us is no longer around to be forgiven directly. But those factors don't impede forgiveness from because it is, first and foremost, internal. It frees you from anger.

--- Before we find our way to forgiveness, we are stuck in anger. We may even want revenge, to return the pain that a person has inflicted on us. An eye for an eye. Revenge is the mode of ignorance --- it's often said that you can't fix yourself by breaking someone else. Monks don't hinge their choices and feelings on others behaviors. You believe revenge will make you feel better because of how the other person will react. But when you make your vindictive play and the person doesn't have the response you fantasized about-guess what? You only feel more pain. Revenge backfires.

We're much more comfortable finding fault in other people and then forgiving it. We're not used to admitting fault and taking responsibility for what we create in our lives.

"Become more like a river than a rock"

"The world is filled with negativity. I want people to watch me and think, 'I feel good, and I'm going to make somebody else feel good today."" This is the spirit in which monks have fun --- we are playful and laugh easily.

We begin to let through recognition and forgiveness.

The less time you fixate on everyone else, the more time you have to focus on yourself.

Negativity, often arises from fear.

Ch.3 

FEAR

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.
----Buddha

Fear isn't bad; it's simply a warning flag --- your mind saying "This doesn't look good! Something might go wrong!" It's what we do with that signal that matters. We can use our fear of the effects of climate change to motivate us to develop solutions, or we can allow it to make us feel overwhelmed and hopeless and do nothing as a result. Sometimes fear is a critical warning to help us survive true danger, but most of the time what we feel is anxiety related to everyday concerns about money, jobs, and relationships.

When Gauranga Das concludes his lecture, he asks us to close our eyes, directs us to relive a fear from our past: not just imagine it but feel it in our bodies then --- all the sights, sounds, and smells of that experience. He tells us that it's important that we not choose something minor, such as a first day at school or learning to swim (unless those experiences were truly terrifying), but something significant. He wants us to uncover, accept, and create a new relationship with our deepest fears.

Our brains are really good at keeping us from entering uncomfortable spaces.
So ask yourself about your deepest fear.

We let our fear drive us, but fear itself is not our real problem. Our real problem is that we fear the wrong things: What we should really fear is that we will miss the opportunities that fear offers. Gavin de Becker, one of the world's leading security experts, in The Gift of Fear calls it "a brilliant internal guardian that stands ready to warn you of hazards and guide you through risky situations." Often, we notice fear's warning but ignore its guidance. If we learn how to recognize what fear can teach us about ourselves and what we value, then we can use it as a tool to obtain greater meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in our lives. We can use fear to get to the best of us.

We waste a lot of time and energy trying to stay in the comfortable bubble of our self-made Biospheres. We fear the stresses and challenges of change, but those stresses and challenges are the wind that makes us stronger.

We have four different emotional reactions to fear: We panic, we freeze, we run away, or we bury it. In order to change our relationship with fear, we have to change our perception of it. Once we can see the value that fear offers, we can change how we respond. An essential step in this reprogramming is learning to recognize our reaction pattern to fear.

The process of learning to work with fear isn't just about doing a few exercises that solve everything, it's about changing your attitude toward fear, understanding that it has something to offer, then committing to doing the work of identifying and trying to shift out of your pattern of distraction every time it appears. Each of the four distractions from fear --- panicking, freezing, running away, and burying ---  is a different version of a single action, or rather, a single inaction: refusing to accept our fear. So the first step in transforming our fear from a negative to a positive is doing just that.

THE CAUSE OF FEAR: ATTACHMENT, THE CURE OF FEAR: DETACHMENT
--- Though we are developing intimacy with our fear, we want to see it as its own entity, separate from us. When we talk about our emotions, we usually say we are that emotion. "I am angry. I am sad. I am afraid." Talking to our fear separates it from us and helps us understand that the fear is not us, it is just something we're experiencing. When you meet someone who gives off a negative vibe, you feel it, but you don't think that vibe is you. It's the same with our emotions --- they are something we're feeling, but they are not us. Try shifting from I am angry to I feel angry. I feel sad. I feel afraid. A simple change, but a profound one because it puts our emotions in their rightful place. Having this perspective calms down our initial reactions and give us the space to examine our fear and the situation around it without judgement.
--- When we track our fears back to their source, most of us find that they're closely related to attachment--- our need to own and control things. We hold on to ideas we have about ourselves, to the material possessions and standard of living that we think define us. A MONK MIND PRACTICES DETACHMENT. WE REALISE THAT EVERYTHING  --- FROM OUR HOUSES TO OUR FAMILIES --IS BORROWED.
--- 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.
--- Our teachers made a distinction between useful and hurtful fears. They told us that a useful fear alerts us to a situation we can change. If the doctor tells you that you have poor health because of your diet, and you fear disability or disease, that's a useful fear because you can change your diet. When your health improves as a result, you eliminate your fear. But fearing that our parents will die is a hurtful fear because we can't change the truth of the matter. We transform hurtful fears into useful fears by focusing on what we can control. We can't stop our parents from dying, but we use the fear to remind us to spend more time with them. In the words of Santideva, "It is not possible to control all external events; but if I simply control my mind, what need is there to control other things?" This is detachment, when observe you your own reactions from a distance.
--- There's a common misconception about detachment that I'd like to address. People often equate detachment with indifference. They think that seeing things, people, and experiences as temporary or seeing them from a distance diminishes our ability to enjoy life, but that's not the case. Imagine you're driving a luxury rental car. Do you tell yourself that you own it? Of course not. You know you only have it for the week, and in some ways, that allows you to enjoy it more --- you are grateful for the chance to drive a convertible down the Pacific Coast Highway because it's something you won't always get to do. Imagine you're staying in the most beautiful Airbnb. It's got a hot tub, chef's kitchen, ocean views; it's so beautiful and exciting. You don't spend every moment there dreading your departure in a week. 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. Detachment is the ultimate practice in minimizing fear.

TRY THIS: AUDIT YOUR ATTACHMENTS
Ask yourself: "What am I afraid of losing?" Start with the externals: Is it your car, your house, your looks? Write down everything you think of. Now think about the internals: your reputation, your status, your sense of belonging? Write those down too. These combined lists are likely to be the greatest sources of pain in your life --- your fear of having these things taken away. Now start thinking about changing your mental relationship with those things so that you are less attached to them. Remember --- you can still fully love and enjoy your partner, your children, your home, your money, from a space of non-attachment. It's about understanding and accepting that all things are temporary and that we can't truly own or control anything, so that we can fully appreciate these things and they can enhance our life rather than be a source of griping and fear. What better way to accept that children eventually go off to live their own lives and call you once a week, if you're lucky?
This is a lifelong practice, but as you become more and more accepting of the fact that we don't truly own or control anything, you'll find yourself actually enjoying and valuing people, things, and experiences more, and being more thoughtful about which ones you choose to include in your life.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca observed that "Our fears a more numerous than our dangers, and we suffer more in our imagination than reality."

We can manage acute stress if we detach on the spot. There's an old Taoist parable about a farmer whose horse ran away. "How unlucky!" his brother tells him. The farmer shrugs. "Good thing, bad thing, who knows," he says. A week later, the wayward horse finds its way home, and with it is a beautiful wild mare. "That's amazing!" his brother says, admiring the new horse with no small envy. Again, the farmer is unmoved. "Good thing, bad thing, who knows," he says. A few days later, the farmer's son climbs up on the mare, hoping to tame the wild beast, but the horse bucks and rears, and the boy, hurled to the ground, breaks a leg. "How unlucky!” his brother says, with a tinge of satisfaction. "Good thing, bad thing, who knows," the farmer replies again. The next day, the young men of the village are called into military service, but because the son's leg is broken, he is excused from the draft. His brother tells the farmer that this, surely, is the best news of all. "Good thing, bad thing, who knows," the farmer says. The farmer in this story didn't get lost in "what if" but instead focused on "what is." During my monk training, we were taught, "DON'T JUDGE THE MOMENT."

Focus on what you can control.

Still, it's hard to not judge the moment and remain open to opportunities. (There is always some good in every situation, even in failure.)

"What you run from only stays with you longer," writes the author of the novel Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk, in his book Invisible Monsters Remix. "Find what you're afraid of most and go live there."

Ch 4

INTENTION

When there is harmony between the mind, heart, and resolution then nothing is impossible.

---Rig Veda

THE FOUR MOTIVATIONS

No matter how disorganized we might be, we all have plans. We have an idea of what we have to accomplish in the day ahead; we probably have a sense of what the year holds, or what we hope we'll accomplish; and we all have dreams for the future. Something motivates every one of these notions-from needing to pay the rent to wanting to travel the world. Hindu philosopher Bhaktivinoda Thakura describes four fundamental motivations.

1. Fear: Thakura describes this as being driven by "sickness, poverty, fear of hell or fear of death."

2. Desire: Seeking personal gratification through success, wealth, and pleasure. 

3. Duty: Motivated by gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing.

4. Love: Compelled by care for others and the urge to help them.

We think that success equals happiness, but this idea is an illusion. 

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."

Money and fame are only a facade. Because our search is never for a thing, but for the feeling we think the thing will give us. We think that a new phone or a bigger house will make us feel somehow better-cooler or more satisfied-but instead find ourselves wanting more.

Material gratification is external, but happiness is internal. When monks talk about happiness, they tell the story of the musk deer, a tale derived from a poem by Kabir, a fifteenth-century Indian mystic and poet. The musk deer picks up an irresistible scent in the forest and chases it, searching for the source, not realizing that the scent comes from its own pores. It spends its whole life wandering fruitlessly. In the same way we search for happiness, finding it elusive, when it can be found within us.

Happiness and fulfillment come only from mastering the mind and connecting with the soul -- not from objects or attainments. Success doesn't guarantee happiness, and happiness doesn't require success.

If you lose a loved one and someone tells you to look for the positive, to be happy, to focus on the good things in your life-well, you might want to punch that person. But we can survive the worst tragedies by looking for meaning in the loss.

In the Atharva Veda it says, "Money and mansions are not the only wealth. Hoard the wealth of the spirit. Character is wealth: good conduct is wealth; and spiritual wisdom is wealth."

Purpose and meaning, not success, lead to true contentment.

THE WHY LADDER 

Fear, desire, duty, and love are the roots of all intentions. In Sanskrit the word for intention is sankalpa, and I think of it as the reason, formed by one's own heart and mind, that one strives for a goal. To put it another way, from your root motivation you develop intentions to drive you forward. Your intention is who you plan to be in order to act with purpose and feel that what you do is meaningful. So if I'm motivated by fear, my intention might be to protect my family. If I'm motivated by desire, my intention might be to gain worldwide recognition. If I'm motivated by duty, my intention might be to help my friends no matter how busy I am. If I'm motivated by love, my intention might be to serve where I am most needed.

To live intentionally, we must dig to the deepest why behind the want. This requires pausing to think not only about why we want something, but also who we are or need to be to get it, and whether being that person appeals to us.

Most people are accustomed to looking for answers. Monks focus on questions. When I was trying to get close to my fear, I asked myself "What am I afraid of?" over and over again. When I'm trying to get to the root of a desire, I start with the question "Why?"

This monkish approach to intention can be applied to even the worldliest goals. Here's a sample goal I've chosen because it's something we never would have contemplated in the ashram and because the intention behind it isn't obvious: I want to sail solo around the world.

Why do you want to sail around the world?

It will be fun. I'll get to see lots of places and prove to myself that I'm a great sailor. 

It sounds like your intention is to gratify yourself, and that you are motivated by desire.

But, what if your answer to the question is:

It was always my father's dream to sail around the world. I'm doing it for him. 

In this case, your intention is to honor your father, and you are motivated by duty and love. 

I'm sailing around the world so I can be free. I won't be accountable to anyone. I can leave all my responsibilities behind.

This sailor intends to escape-he is driven by fear.

Now let's look at a more common want:

My biggest want is money, and here's Jay, probably about to tell me to become kind and compassionate. That's not going to help.

Wanting to be rich for the sake of being rich is fine. It's firmly in the category of material gratification, so you can't expect it to give an internal sense of fulfillment. Nonetheless, material comforts are undeniably part of what we want from life, so let's get to the root of this goal rather than just dismissing it.

Wealth is your desired outcome. Why? 

I don't ever want to have to worry about money again.

Why do you worry about money?

I can't afford to take the vacations I dream about.

Why do you want those vacations?

I see everyone else on exotic trips on social media. Why should they get to do that when I can't?

Why do you want what they want?

They're having much more fun than I have on my weekends.

Aha! So now we are at the root of the want. Your weekends are unfulfilling.

What's missing?

I want my life to be more exciting, more adventurous, more exhilarating.

Okay, your intention is to make your life more exciting. Notice how different that is from "I want money." Your intention is still driven by the desire for personal gratification, but now you know two things: First, you can add more adventure to your life right now without spending more money. And second, you now have the clarity to decide if that's something you want to work hard for.

If a person went to up my teacher and said, "I just want to be rich," my teacher would ask, "Are you doing it out of service?" His reason for asking would be to get to the root of the desire.

If the man said, "No, I want to live in a nice house, travel, and buy whatever I five or want." His intention would be to have the financial freedom to indulge himself. 

My teacher would say, "Okay, it's good that you're honest with yourself. Go ahead, make your fortune. You'll come to service anyway. It may take you five or ten years, but you'll get to the same answer." Monks believe that the man won't be fulfilled when he finds his fortune, and that if he continues his search for meaning, the answer will always, eventually, be found in service.

Monks know that one can't plant a garden of beautiful flowers and leave it to thrive on its own. We have to be gardeners of our own lives, planting only the seeds of good intentions, watching to see what they become, and removing the weeds that spring up and get in the way.

"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..."

"I wish" is code for "I don't want to do anything differently."

If you was interested in the work-in the life you would live, the person you would be, the meaning you would find in the process of learning the scriptures. The focus is on the process, not the outcome.

If you don't care deeply, you can't go all in on the process. You're not doing it for the right reasons. You can reach your goals, get everything you ever wanted, be successful by anyone's terms, only to discover you still feel lost and disconnected. But if you're in love with the day-to-day process, then you do it with depth, authenticity, and a desire to make an impact. You might be equally successful either way, but if you're driven by intention, you will feel joy.

Failure doesn't mean you're worthless-it means you must look for another route to achieving worthwhile goals.

Being a monk isn't admiring someone who sits in meditation. It's waking up at the same time as the monk, living his lifestyle, emulating the qualities he displays.

We just need to remember that the less pure the intention are, the less likely they are to make us happy, even if they make us successful. When people gain what they want but aren't happy at all, it's because they did it with the wrong intention.

Time and again we see that if we're doing it for the external result, we won't be happy. With the right intention, to serve, we can feel meaning and purpose every day.

Living intentionally means stepping back from external goals, letting go of outward definitions of success, and looking within. Developing a meditation practice with breathwork is a natural way to support this intention.

BREATHWORK FOR THE BODY AND MIND

As you've probably noticed, your breathing changes with your emotions. We hold our breath when we're concentrating, and we take shallow breaths when we're nervous or anxious. But these responses are instinctive rather than helpful, meaning that to hold your breath doesn't really help your concentration, and shallow breathing actually makes the symptoms of anxiety worse. Controlled breathing, on the other hand, is an immediate way to steady yourself, a portable tool you can use to shift your energy on the fly.

For millennia, yogis have practiced breathing techniques (called pranayama) to do things like stimulate healing, raise energy, and focus on the present moment. The Rig Veda describes breath as the path beyond the self to consciousness. It states that breath is "the life, like one's own son," or as Abbot George Burke (also known as Swami Nirmalananda Giri) describes it, "the extension of our inmost life." In the Mahasatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Buddha described anapanasati (which roughly translated means "mindfulness of breathing") as a way to gain enlightenment. Modern science backs up the effectiveness of pranayama for myriad effects including improving cardiovascular health, lowering overall stress, and even improving academic test performance. The meditations I present here and elsewhere in the book are universally used in therapy, coaching, and other meditation practices throughout the world.

When you align with your breath, you learn to align with yourself through every emotion --- calming, centering, and de-stressing yourself.

PART TWO

GROW

Ch.5

PURPOSE

When you protect your dharma, your dharma protects you.

--- Manusmriti 8:15

I see dharma as the combination of varna and seva. Think of varna (also a word with complex meanings) as passion and skills. Seva is understanding the world's needs and selflessly serving others. When your natural talents and passions (your varna) connect with what the universe needs (seva) and become your purpose, you are living in your dharma.

When you spend your time and energy living in your dharma, you have the satisfaction of using your best abilities and doing something that matters to the world. Living in your dharma is a certain route to fulfillment.

Studies by Albert Mehrabian shows that 55 percent of our communication is conveyed by body language, 38 percent is tone of voice, and a mere 7 percent is the actual words we speak. (That's a general guideline, but even in situations where those percentages shift, the fact remains that most of our communication is nonverbal.)

Dharma is using this natural inclination, the things you're good at, your thrive mode, to serve others.

If we keep our minds open and curious, our dharmas announce themselves.

Pay attention, cultivate self-awareness, feed your strengths, and you will find your way. And once you discover your dharma, pursue it.

The Bhagavad Gita says that it's better to do one's own dharma imperfectly then to do another's perfectly. Or, as Steve Jobs put it in his 2005 Stanford commencement address, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Our society is set up around strengthening our weaknesses rather than building our strengths. In school, if you get three As and a D, all the adults around you are focused on that D.

Instead of focusing on our weaknesses, we lean into our strengths and look for ways to make them central in our lives.

In order to unveil our dharma, we have to identify our passions--the activities we both love and are naturally inclined to do well.

Instead of making a huge career change, you can try my approach: look for opportunities to do what you love in the life you already have. You never know where it might lead.

Consider why you don't love your strengths. Can you find a reason to love them? I often encounter people working corporate jobs who have all the skills required to do good work, but they find the work meaningless. The best way to add meaning to an experience is to look for how it might serve you in the future. If you tell yourself: "I'm learning how to work in a global team," or "I'm getting all the budgeting skills I'll need if I open a skate shop one day," then you can nurture a passion for something that may not be your first choice. Link the feeling of passion to the experience of learning and growth.

The surest route to improving skills is always time. Everyone has time. We commute or we cook or we watch TV. We may not have three hours, but we have ten minutes to listen to a podcast or learn a new technique from a YouTube video. You can do a lot in ten minutes.

The first and most critical question to ask when you're exploring your varna is:

Did I enjoy the process?

TRY THIS: KEEP AN ACTIVITY JOURNAL

Take note of every activity you take part in through the course of a few days. Meetings, walking the dog, lunch with a friend, writing emails, preparing food, exercising, spending time on social media. For every activity, answer the two questions fundamental to dharma: Did I enjoy the process? Did other people enjoy the result? There are no right or wrong answers. This is an observation exercise to amplify your awareness.

As monks, every time we completed an activity or thought exercise, we asked ourselves questions: What did I like about that? Am I good at it? Do I want to read about it, learn about it, and spend a lot of my time doing it? Am I driven to improve? What made me feel comfortable or uncomfortable? If I was uncomfortable, was it in a positive way---a challenge that made me grow---or a negative way? This awareness gives us a much more nuanced view of where we thrive. Instead of sending us on one and only one path, that awareness opens us to new ways we can put our passions to use.

Our heads often get in the way of our passions. Here are some of the excuses that we use to close our minds:

"I'm too old to start my own business.'

"It would be irresponsible of me to make this change." "I can't afford to do this."

"I already know that." "

"I've always done it this way."

"That way won't work for me."

"I don't have time."

Joseph Campbell is the original source of the advice "Follow your bliss". He wrote, "Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word 'Sat' means being. 'Chit' means consciousness. 'Ananda' means bliss or rapture. I thought, 'I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.' I think it worked." If you follow your bliss, he said, "doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else." 

Protective instincts hold us back or steer us toward practical decisions (Campbell did teach literature for thirty-eight years), but we can see past them and follow our dharma if we know what to look for.

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. 

Manusmriti says that dharma protects those who protect it.

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".

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. You 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.

Ch.6

ROUTINE.

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

Eventually, I learned the one infallible trick to successfully getting up earlier. I had to go to sleep earlier. That was it.

Here is my first recommendation: Wake up 10-15 min earlier every week.The energy and mood of the morning carries through the day, so making life more meaningful begins when you rise early.

TRY THIS: A NEW MORNING ROUTINE

Every morning make some time for:

Thankfulness: Express gratitude to someone, some place, or something every day. This includes thinking it, writing it, and sharing it. (See Chapter Nine.) 

Insight: Gain insight through reading the paper or a book, or listening to a podcast.

Meditation: Spend fifteen minutes alone, breathing, visualizing or with sound. (More about sound meditation at the end of Part 3.)

Exercise: We monks did yoga, but you can do some basic stretches or a workout.

Thankfulness. Insight. Meditation. Exercise. T.I.M.E. A new way to put time into your morning.

At the ashram, I learned that the morning is defined by the evening. It's natural for us to treat each morning like a new beginning, but the truth is that our days circle on themselves. You don't set your alarm in the morning-you set it the night before.

In the ashram, we spent the evenings studying and reading and went to sleep between eight and ten.

Morning sets the tone of the day, but a well-planned evening prepares you for morning.

The emotion you fall asleep with at night is most likely the emotion you'll wake up with in the morning.

People living in the cities and suburbs... can make choices about the way they live, though most of them don't see that, because they are conditioned to be on the go all the time. Routines root us.

TRY THIS: VISUALIZATION FOR TOMORROW

Just as an inventor has to visualize an idea before building it, we can visualize the life we want, beginning by visualizing how we want our mornings to be.

After you do breathwork to calm your mind, I want you to visualize yourself as your best self. Visualize yourself waking up in the morning healthy, well rested, and energized Imagine the sunlight coming through the windows. You get up, and as your feet touch the ground, you feel a sense of gratitude for another day. Really feel that gratitude, and then say in your mind, "I am grateful for today. I am excited for today. I am joyful for today."

See yourself brushing your teeth, taking your time, being mindful to brush every tooth. Then, as you go into the shower, visualize yourself feeling calm, balance, ease, stillness. When you come out of the shower, because you chose what you were going to wear the night before, it's not a bother to dress. Now see yourself setting your intentions, writing down, "My intention today is to be focused. My intention today is to be disciplined. My intention today is to be of service."

Visualize the whole morning again as realistically as you can. You may add some exercise, some meditation. Believe it. Feel it. Welcome it into your life. Feeling fresh, feeling fueled. 

Now visualize yourself continuing the day as your best self. See yourself inspiring others, leading others, guiding others, sharing with others, listening to others, learning from others, being open to others, their feedback and their thoughts. See yourself in this dynamic environment, giving your best and receiving your best.

Visualize yourself coming home at the end of the day. You're tired, but you're happy You want to sit down and rest, but you're grateful for whatever you have: a job, a life, family, friends, a home. You have more than so many people. See yourself in the evening, instead of being on your phone or watching a show, you come up with new ideas to spend that time meaningfully.

When you visualize yourself getting into bed at a good time, see yourself looking up and saying, "I'm grateful for today. I will wake up tomorrow feeling healthy, energized, and rested. Thank you." Then visualize yourself scanning throughout your body and thanking each part of your body for helping you throughout the day.

When you're ready, in your own time, at your own pace, slowly and gently open your eyes.

Note: Life messes up your plans. Tomorrow is not going to go as you visualize it. Visualization doesn't change your life, but it changes how you see it. You can build your life by returning to the ideal that you imagined. Whenever you feel that your life is out of alignment, you realign it with the visualization.

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.

Truly noticing what's around us keeps our brains from shifting to autopilot. At the ashram we were trained to do this on our daily walk. To walk down the same old path and find a new stone is to open your mind.

Bryant told me on my podcast, On Purpose, having a routine is critical to his work. "A lot of the time, creativity comes from structure. When you have those parameters and structure, then within that you can be creative. If you don't have structure, you're just aimlessly doing stuff." This approach leads to delight in small things. We tend to anticipate the big events of life: holidays, promotions, birthday parties. We put pressure on these events to live up to our expectations. But if we look for small joys, we don't have to wait for them to come up on the calendar. Instead they await us every day if we take the time to look for them.

Monk training wasn't just about spotting the new. It was about doing familiar things with awareness. One afternoon a senior monk told us, "Today we will have a silent lunch. Remember to chew your drinks and drink your food."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"We don't take the time to consume our food properly," the monk said. "When you drink your food, grind the solids into liquid. When you chew your drink, instead of gulping it down take each sip as if it is a morsel to be savored." 

If a monk can be mindful of a single sip of water, imagine how this carries through to the rest of daily life.

In his book At Home in the World, the monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "To my mind, the idea that doing dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you aren't doing them.... If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, if I want to finish them quickly so I can go and have dessert or a cup of tea, I will be equally incapable of enjoying my dessert or my tea when I finally have them.... Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred. In this light, no boundary exists between the sacred and the profane."

TRY THIS: TRANSFORM THE MUNDANE

Even a task as quotidian as doing the dishes can transform if you let it. Allow yourself to be in front of the sink, committed to a single task. Instead of putting on music, focus all your senses on the dishes-watch their surfaces go from grimy to clean, smell the dish soap, feel the steam of the hot water. Observe how satisfying it is to see the sink go from full to empty. There is a Zen koan that says, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." No matter how much we grow, we are never free of daily chores and routines, but to be enlightened is to embrace them. The outside may look the same, but inside you are transformed.

We're all familiar with the idea of being in the moment. It's not hard to see that if you're running a race, you won't be able to go back and change how fast you ran at Mile 2. Your only opportunity to succeed is in that moment. Whether you are at a work meeting or having dinner with friends, the conversations you have, the words you choose--you won't ever have another opportunity just like that one. In that moment you can't change the past, and you're deciding the future, so you might as well be where you are. Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit writer of the fifth century, wrote, "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."

We may all agree that living in the present makes sense, but the truth is that we're only willing to have selective presence. We're willing to be present at certain times--during a favorite show or a yoga class, or even during the mundane task we've chosen to elevate.

IF YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO DAYDREAM, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE DISTRACTED.

Being present is the only way to live a truly rich and full life.

It is easier to see the value of being present throughout an ordinary day, and easier to be truly present if you understand and appreciate the benefits that routine has to offer. Routines aren't just about actions; they're also about the locations in which those actions take place. There's a reason people study better in libraries and work better in offices.

Just as the room where we monks slept was designed for nothing but sleep, so every place in the ashram was devoted to a single activity. We didn't read or meditate where we slept. We didn't work in the refectory.

Your location and your senses speak to each other.

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're brushing, just brush. When you're showering, just shower.

if you try to change everything at the same time, they will all become small, equal priorities. Change happens with small steps and big priorities. Pick one thing to change, make it your number one priority, and see it through before you move on to the next.

When we allow ourselves to have immersive experiences--through meditation, focused periods of work, painting, doing a crossword puzzle, weeding a garden, and many other forms of contemplative single-tasking--we're not only more productive, we actually feel better.

Ch.7

THE MIND

When the five senses and the mind are stilled, when the reasoning intellect rests in silence, then begins the highest path.

--- the Katha Upanishad

In the Hitopadesa, an ancient Indian text by Narayana, the mind is compare to a drunken monkey that's been bitten by a scorpion and haunted by a ghost.

We humans have roughly seventy thousand separate thoughts each day. Ernst Pöppel, a German psychologist and neuroscientist, has shown through his research that our minds are only in present time for about three seconds at a time. Other than that, our brains are thinking forward and backward, filling in ideas about present time based on what we've experienced in the past and anticipating what is to come. As Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made, describes it on a podcast, most of the time "your brain is not reacting to events in the world, it's predicting... constantly guessing what's going to happen next." The Samyutta Nikaya describes each thought as a branch, and our minds as monkeys, swinging from one branch to the next, often aimlessly."

The Dhammapada is a collection of verses probably collected by Buddha's disciples. In it, the Buddha says, "As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds."

A senior monk once told me an old Cherokee story about these dilemmas which all of us agonize over: "An elder tells his grandson, 'Every choice in life is a battle between two wolves inside us. One represents anger, envy, greed, fear, lies, insecurity, and ego. The other represents peace, love, compassion, kindness, humility, and positivity. They are competing for supremacy.'

"Which wolf wins?' the grandson asks. "The one you feed,' the elder replies."

"But how do we feed them?" I asked my teacher.

The monk said, "By what we read and hear. By who we spend time with. By what we do with our time. By where we focus our energy and attention."

The Bhagavad Gita states, "For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy."

Dhammapada, Eknath Easwaran writes that in our everyday swirl of thoughts "we have no more idea of what life is really like than a chicken has before it hatches. Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain, are storms in a tiny, private, shell-bound realm which we take to be the whole of existence." It makes sense, then, that when the Buddha finally reached "the realm utterly beyond the reach of thought," he described feeling like a chick breaking out of its shell. self from

At the ashram, I learned something that has been crucial in curbing these dangerous, self-destructive thoughts. Our thoughts are like clouds passing by. The self, like the sun, is always there. We are not our minds.

The monkey mind is a child and the monk mind is an adult. A child cries when it doesn't get what it wants, ignoring what it already has. A child struggles to appreciate real value-it would happily trade a stock certificate for some candy. When something challenges us in some way, the childlike mind reacts immediately. Maybe you feel insulted and make a sour face, or you start defending yourself. A conditioned, automatic reaction like this is ideal if someone pulls out a knife. You feel scared, and you bolt. But it's not ideal if we're being emotionally defensive because someone has said something we don't want to hear. We don't want to be controlled by automatic reactions in every case.

The adult mind reminds us to pause and assess the bigger picture, taking time to weigh the default reaction, decide if it's appropriate, and propose other options. The intelligent parent knows what the child needs versus what it wants and can decide what is better for it in the long term.

The parent is the smarter voice. If well trained, it has self-control, reasoning power, and is a debating champ. But it can only use the strength that we give it. It's weaker when tired, hungry, or ignored.

When the parent isn't supervising, the child climbs on the counter near the hot stove to get to the cookie jar, and trouble follows. On the other hand, if the parent is too controlling, the child gets bitter, resentful, and risk-averse. As with all parent-child relationships, striking the right balance is an ongoing challenge. 

This, then, is the first step to understanding our minds-simply becoming aware of the different voices inside us. Starting to differentiate what you're hearing will immediately help you make better decisions.

DRIVE THE CHARIOT OF THE MIND

Beyond the parent-child model, the monk teachings have another analogy for the competing voices in our heads. 

In the Upanishads the working of the mind is compared to a chariot being driven by five horses. In this analogy, the chariot is the body, the horses are the five senses, the reins are the mind, and the charioteer is the intellect. Sure, this description of the mind is more complicated, but bear with me.

In the untrained state, the charioteer (the intellect) is asleep on the job, so the horses (the senses) have control of the reins (mind) and lead the body wherever they please. Horses, left to their own devices, react to what's around them. They see a tasty-looking shrub, they bend to eat it. Something startles them, they spook. In the same way, our senses are activated in the moment by food, money, sex, power, influence, etc. If the horses are in control, the chariot veers off the road in the direction of temporary pleasure and instant gratification. 

In the trained state, the charioteer (the intellect) is awake, aware, and attentive, not allowing the horses to lead the way. The charioteer uses the reins of the mind to carefully steer the chariot along the correct route.

MASTER THE SENSES

Think about those five unruly horses, harnessed to the chariot of a lazy driver, snorting and tossing their heads impatiently. Remember that they represent the five senses, always our first point of contact with the external. The senses are responsible for our desires and attachments, and they pull us in the direction of impulsivity, passion, and pleasure, destabilizing the mind. Monks calm the senses in order to calm the mind. As Pema Chödrön says, "You are the sky. Everything else--it's just the weather."

(Qi Gong a ancient healing technique.)

Most of our lives are governed by what we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. If you smell your favorite dessert, you want to eat it. If you see photo of a beach, you start daydreaming about vacation. You hear a certain phrase and flash to the person who used to say it all the time.

The monkey mind is reactive, but the monk mind is proactive. Let's say that whenever you go on YouTube to watch one video, you end rabbit hole. You drift from a cute animal video to a shark attack compilation, up going down a and before you know it you're watching Sean Evans eating hot sauce with a celebrity guest. Senses recklessly transport our minds away from where we want them to be. Don't tease your own senses. Don't set yourself up to fail. A monk doesn't spend time in a strip club. We want to minimize the mind's reactive tendencies, and the easiest way to do that is for the intellect to proactively steer the senses away from stimuli that could make the mind react in ways that are hard to control. It's up to the intellect to know when you're vulnerable and to tighten the reins, just as a charioteer does when going through a field of tasty grass.

From a monk's perceptive, the greatest power is self-control, to train the mind and energy, to focus on your dharma. Ideally, you can navigate anything that seems tough, challenging, or fun with the same balance and equanimity, without being too excited in pleasure or too depressed by pain.

Ordinarily our brains turn down the volume on repeated input, but when we train our minds, we build the ability to focus on what we want regardless of distractions.

Our intellect must pay closer attention to the automatic, reactive patterns of the mind.

Change begins with the words inside your head. We are going to work on hearing, curating, choosing, and switching our thoughts.

Reframe your self-criticism in terms of knowledge. When you hear yourself say, "I'm bored, I'm slow, I can't do this," respond to yourself: "You are working on it. You are improving." This is a reminder to yourself that you are making progress. Build a relationship with that pessimistic child's voice. Your adult voice will get stronger as you read, research, apply, and test. Turn up the volume on recognizing what your mind gets right. Rather than amplifying your failures, amplify your progress. If you managed to wake up early two days out of seven, encourage yourself as you would a child who was just beginning to make a change. If you accomplished half of what you planned, call it a glass half-full

In addition to amplifying our growth, we can use "positive direction" to reframe unwanted thoughts. Our monkey mind often creates chatter like

 "I can't do this." This can be reworded to "I can do this by..."

"I can't do this" becomes "I can do this by..."

"I'm bad at this" becomes "I'm investing the time I need to get better" 

I'm unlovable" becomes "I'm reaching out to new people to make new connections"

"I'm ugly" becomes "I'm taking steps to be my healthiest" 

"I can't handle everything" becomes "I'm prioritizing and checking items off my list."

We can take action instead of using words alone to reframe our state of mind. A simple way of overcoming this is to learn one new thing every day. It doesn't have to be big. You don't need to teach yourself how to code or learn quantum mechanics. You could read an article about a person, a city, or a culture,

Problems of all sorts can feel like they deserve a ten rating, especially in the middle of the night. Not getting promoted feels like a ten. Losing a treasured watch-another ten. But if you've ever experienced the pain of losing someone you love (and we all have or will), the scale shifts; your whole perspective shift. Suddenly, losing your job is not great, but tolerable. The watch is gone, but it was just an object. Your body may be imperfect, but it's given you some great experiences.

Write your deepest thoughts and feelings. Another option is to Simply repeat an ancient samurai saying "Make my mind my friend," over and over in your head. When you repeat a phrase, it quiets the default mode network-the area of the brain associated with mind wandering and thinking about yourself. The monkey will be forced to stop and listen.

When the anxious monkey mind stops to listen, you can tweak the internal monologue with self--compassion. 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." Remember, IT'S ABOUT OBSERVING YOUR FEELINGS WITHOUT JUDGING THEM.

(Talk to yourself with love)

STAY PRESENT

It can be hard to know what to tell your monkey mind when it's dwelling on the past or spinning into the future. Father Richard Rohr writes, "All spiritual teaching—this is not an oversimplification-is about how to be present to the moment.... But the problem is, we're almost always somewhere else: reliving the past or worrying about the future." 

We all have happy memories that we enjoy revisiting and painful memories that we can't let go. But both nostalgia and remorse can be traps, closing us off from new experiences and keeping us locked in the unresolved past and/or the good old days. Just as the past is unchangeable, the future is unknowable. A certain amount of planning is useful and good preparation for the various scenarios ahead, but when these thoughts tip into repetitive anxiety and worry or unrealistic aspirations, they are no longer productive.

Whether it feels like the world's falling down around you or you're just having a bad day at work, the challenges to presence abound. Realistically, you'll never reach a point in your life when you're present 100 percent of the time --- that's not the goal. After all, thinking about good times we've had or valuable lessons we've learned in the past and planning for our future are excellent uses of our mental bandwidth. What we don't want to do is waste time on regret or worry. Practicing presence helps us do as spiritual teacher Ram Dass advised and "be here now."

When your mind continually returns to thoughts of the past or the future, look for clues in the present. Is your mind seeking to shield or distract you? Instead of thinking about what mattered in the past or what the future might hold, gently guide your mind back to the moment.

NOTHING OWNS YOU

When we talk to ourselves as we would to a loved one, just as when we observe the argument between the child mind and the adult mind, we're creating a distance between ourselves and our own minds in order to see more clearly. We've discussed this approach before; instead of reacting emotionally, monks gain perspective by stepping out of a situation to become objective observers. In Chapter Three, we talked about stepping away from fear, and we gave this action a name--detachment.

Detachment is a form of self-control that has infinite benefits across every form of self-awareness that I talk about in this book, but its origin is always in the mind. The Gita defines detachment as doing the right thing for its own sake, because it needs to be done, without worrying about success or failure. That sounds simple enough, but think about what it takes to do the right thing for its own sake. It means detaching from your selfish interest, from being right, from being seen in a certain way, from what you want right now. Detaching means escaping the hold of the senses, of earthly desires, of the material world. You have the perspective of an objective observer.

Only by detaching can we truly gain control of the mind.

I've remixed some Zen stories, introducing new characters so that they're more relatable. One of them is about a monk who arrives at the entrance to a palace. She's a known holy woman, so she is brought to the king, who asks the monk what she wants. "I would like to sleep in this hotel for the night," says the monk.

The king is rather taken aback at this unexpected lack of respect. "This is not a hotel, it is my palace!" he says haughtily.

The monk asks, “Who owned this place before you?"

The king folds his arms across his chest. "My father. I am heir to the throne," he declares.

"Is he here now?"

"He is not. He is dead. What is the meaning of this?" 

"And before your father, who was the owner?"

"His father," the king shouts.

The monk nods. "Ah," she says, "so people who come to this place, stay here for a while, and then continue their journey. Sounds like a hotel to me."

This story gives a window into the illusion of permanence with which we all live. A more recent window is Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, the show where Kondo helps people "declutter" their lives, and at the end, over and over again, you'll see people weeping with relief and joy at having purged so much. That's because they've just dramatically decreased the number of things they're attached to Attachment brings pain. If you think something is yours or you think you are something, then it hurts to have it taken away from you.

A quote from Ali, 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 it's not usually explained. Usually people see detachment as being removed from everything, not caring. Marie Kondo isn't telling people to stop caring--she is telling them to look for joy. Actually, the greatest detachment is being close to everything and not letting it consume and own you. That's real strength.

Like most monk endeavors, detachment is not a destination one arrives at, but a process one must constantly, consciously undertake.

Monks go to extremes to achieve detachment. Experiments in discomfort--like fasting, silence, meditating in heat or cold, and others we've discussed--detach you from the body because they make you realize how much of the discomfort is in the mind. Another way we monks tested our detachment was to travel with nothing. No food, no shelter, no money. We had to fend for ourselves and recognize that we needed very little to get by. It also made us more grateful for all that we had. All of these exercises helped us push ourselves to the limit-mentally and physically—to build resolve, resilience, grit, to strengthen our ability to control our minds.

HOW TO DETACH

All of the ways we've already talked about training the mind involve detaching: becoming an objective observer of the competing voices in your head, having new conversations with the conscious mind to reframe thoughts, finding compassion for yourself, staying in the moment. Instead of reactively doing what we want, we proactively evaluate the situation and do what is right. Think of austerities as a detachment boot camp. 

Disconnect from the ideas that limit you. There are infinite austerities or challenges you can try: giving up TV phone, sweets or alcohol; taking on a physical challenge; abstaining from gossip, complaining, and comparing.

We start with awareness. Spot the attachment. When do you experience it? When are you most vulnerable to it? Let's say you want to detach from technology. Do you use it out of boredom, laziness, fear of missing out, loneliness? If you want to stop drinking, look at the frequency and time of day. Are you using it to unwind, to connect, to reward yourself, or to check out?

Once you have diagnosed the attachment, the next step is to stop and rethink it. What do you want to add and what do you want to subtract? How much time do you want to dedicate to technology, and in what form? Are there certain apps you want to eliminate entirely, or do you want to limit the time that you spend using your phone? For drinking, you might look at whether you think you need to quit entirely, whether you want to experiment with a dry month to see what you learn about yourself, or whether you want to limit yourself.

The third step is to swap in new behavior. There are two general approaches that I recommend--choose the one that best suits your personality. The monk way is to go all in. If immersion and extremes work best for you, you might commit to eliminating social media entirely for a week or a month. Or you might, as I mention above, go on the wagon for a month. If you work better in slow, gradual iterations, make a small change and build on it. In the case of technology, you could limit the amount of time you allow yourself to be online, or perhaps limit, but don't fully eliminate, certain apps.

Matthieu Ricard, "the World's Happiest Man," told me that we should cultivate inner peace as a skill. "If you ruminate on sadness and negativity," he explained, "it will reinforce a sense of sadness and negativity. But if you cultivate compassion, joy, and inner freedom, then you build up a kind of resilience, and you can face life with confidence." When I asked him how we cultivate those skills, he said, "We train our brains. In the end, it is your mind that translates the outside world into happiness or misery."

As the Bhagavad Gita advises, "Cultivate buddhi or your discriminating intelligence to discern true knowledge, and practice wisdom so that you will know the difference between truth and untruth, reality and illusion, your false self and true self, the divine qualities and demonic qualities, knowledge and ignorance and how true knowledge illuminates and liberates while ignorance veils your wisdom and holds you in bondage.'

Ch.8

EGO

 They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego cage of "I," "me," and "mine"

---Bhagavad Gita, 2:71

The Sanskrit word vinayam means "humility" or "modesty." When we are humble, we are open to learning because we understand how much we don't know. It follows that the biggest obstacle to learning is being a know-it-all. This false self-confidence is rooted in the ego.

The Bhagavad Gita draws a distinction between the ego and the false ego. The real ego is our very essence--the consciousness that makes us aware and awake to reality. The false ego is an identity crafted to preserve our sense of being the most significant, the most important, the one who knows everything. When you trust the false ego to protect you, it's like wearing armor that you thought was made of steel but is actually made of paper. You march onto the battlefield, confident that it will protect you but are easily wounded with a butter knife. The Sama Veda says: "Pride of wealth destroys wealth, pride of strength destroys , strength and in the same manner pride of knowledge destroys knowledge."

"Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul."

Vanity and ego go hand in hand. We put enormous effort into polishing the appearance of the self we present to the world. When we dress and groom for ourselves, it is because we want to feel comfortable and appropriate (easily achieved through a daily "uniform") and even because we appreciate the color or style of certain clothes. But the ego wants more-it wants us to get attention for how we look, a big reaction, praise. It finds confidence and joy in impressing others.

To contemplate the difference between yourself and your persona, think about the choices you make when you're alone, when there's nobody to judge you and nobody you're trying to impress. Only you know whether you choose to meditate or watch Netflix, to take a nap or go for a run, to wear sweatpants or designer threads. Only you know whether you eat a salad or a column of Girl Scout cookies. Reflect on the you who emerges when nobody else is around, no one to impress, no one with something to offer you. That is a glimpse into who you truly are. As the aphorism goes, "You are who you are when no one is watching."

The ego craves recognition, acknowledgment, praise; to be right, to be more, to put others down, to raise us up. The ego doesn't want to be better. It wants to be seen as better. When we bluff our way through life, pretending to be who we are not, we end up looking worse than we truly are.

Imagine if we segregated people based on what toothpaste they used. That divide is clearly ridiculous. Discriminating based on elements of our bodies or where we were born is an equally false divide. Why should skin color matter more than blood type? We all come from the same cells. The Dalai Lama says, "Under the bright sun, many of us are gathered together with different languages, different styles of dress, even different faiths. However, all of us are the same in being humans, and we all uniquely have the thought of 'T' and we're all the same in wanting happiness and in wanting to avoid suffering."

The humble sage values every creature equally. This is why monks don't eat animals. According to the Gita, "Perfect yogis are they who, by comparison to their own self, see the true equality of all beings, in both their happiness and their distress."

The arrogant ego desires respect, whereas the humble worker inspires respect.

JUDGEMENT

Even without segregating, outwardly ranking ourselves, or excluding others, we attempt to elevate ourselves by judging others, including our colleagues, friends, and family. There's a Zen story about four monks who together decide to meditate in complete silence for seven days and nights. The first day goes well, but as evening approaches, the first monk grows impatient because the monk whose job it was to light the lamps is still sitting, motionless. Finally, the first monk erupts, "Friend! Light the lamps, already!"

The second monk turns to him. "You broke the silence!" he exclaims.

The third monk jumps in, "Fools! Now you have both broken the silence!"

The fourth looks at his companions, a proud smile creeping across his face. "Well, well, well," he boasts, "Looks like I'm the only one who has remained silent."

Every monk in this story reprimanded another monk for speaking and, in so doing, became guilty of that same sin himself. That is the nature of judgment: It almost always backfires on us in one way or another. In the act of criticizing others for failing to live up to higher standards, we ourselves are failing to live up to the highest standards.

In many cases, we're passing judgment to deflect others' attention or our own from shortcomings we see in ourselves. "Projection" is the psychological term for our tendency to project onto others emotions or feelings that we don't wish to or deal with ourselves. And projection happens a lot! So, before judging others, pause for a moment and ask: Am I finding fault in order to distract myself or others from my own insecurities? Am I projecting my own weakness onto them? And even if I'm doing neither of those things, am I any better than the person I'm criticizing? I can't say what the answers to the first two questions will be in every case. But the answer to the third question is always "No!"

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 champing at the bit, ready to show how clever and interesting you are. 

In our desire to show ourselves and others that we know it all, we jump to conclusions, fail to listen to our friends, and miss potentially valuable new perspectives. And once we've got a point of view, we're unlikely to change it.

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.

There is danger in the words "We've always done it this way," or "I already know that."

The Blockbuster/Netflix story is well known in the tech world, so when I told it to around seventy marketing directors at a conference, I asked them, "How many of you, when I shared this, felt you already knew what I was going to say?" About half of them raised their hands, and I told them that the conviction that they already knew what they needed to know was exactly the problem that these companies had. When you presume knowledge, you put up a barrier that nothing can cross, and miss out on a potential learning opportunity. What if there was an extra piece of that story? (This point itself was the extra piece.) You can write off the familiar, or you can use it as a deeper reflection point. Even if you experience every time. Even if you already know a story, try to live it as a new experience every time.

Nan-in, a Zen master, received a university professor who had come to inquire about Zen. When Nan-in served tea, he poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" You can only be filled up with knowledge and rewarding experiences if you allow yourself to be empty.

If you don't break your ego, life will break it to you.

The ego is two-faced. One moment it tells us we're great at everything, and the next moment it tells us we're the worst. Either way, we are blind to the reality of who we are. True humility is seeing what lies between the extremes. I'm great at some things and not so good at others. I'm well intentioned but imperfect. Instead of the ego's all or nothing, humility allows us to understand our weaknesses and want to improve.

We were taught that there are two things we should try to remember and two things we should try to forget. 

The two things to remember are the bad we've done to others and the good others have done for us. By focusing on the bad we've done to others, our egos are forced to remember our imperfections and regrets. This keeps us grounded. When we remember the good others have done for us, we feel humbled by our need for others and our gratitude for the gifts we have received.

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. If we fixate on and are impressed by our own good deeds, our egos grow, so we put those deeds aside. And if others treat us badly, we have to let that go too. This doesn't mean we have to be best friends with someone hurtful, but harboring anger and grudges keeps us focused on ourselves instead of taking a broader perspective.

I heard another way of thinking about this from Radhanath Swami when he was giving a talk at the London temple about the qualities we need for self realization. He told us to be like salt and pointed out that we only notice salt when there is too much of it in our food, or not enough. Nobody ever says, "Wow, this meal has the perfect amount of salt." 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.

Remembering your mistakes and forgetting your achievements restrains the ego and increases gratitude --- a simple, effective recipe for humility.

In Denmark I went up to a gentleman and asked, "Have you heard of meditation? We'd love to teach you."

He said, "Couldn't you do anything better with your life?" 

My ego flared. I wanted to say, "I'm not stupid. I'm smart! I graduated from a really good school! I could be making six figures. I didn't have to do this -- I chose it!" I really wanted to set this guy straight.

Instead I said, "I hope you have a wonderful day. If you want to learn how to meditate, please come back."

I felt my ego respond. I noticed it but refused to indulge it. This is the reality of keeping our ego in check. It doesn't disappear, but we can observe it and limit its power over us.

If someone is treating you badly, I'm not advising you to tolerate it like the monk. Some mistreatment is unacceptable. But it's useful to look beyond the moment, at the bigger picture of the person's experience --- Are they exhausted? Frustrated? Making improvements from where they once were? --- and to factor in what has led to this behavior, before letting your ego jump in. Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don't take everything personally--- it is usually not about you.

To quit the ego we DETACHED FROM THE REACTION AND BECAME OBJECTIVE OBSERVERS. We think we're everything we've achieved. We think we're our job. We think we are our home. We think we are our youth and beauty. Recognize that whatever you have --- a skill, a lesson, a possession, or a principle --- was given to you, and whoever gave it to you received it from someone else. This isn't directly from the Bhagavad Gita, but to summarize how it sees detachment, people often say, "What belongs to you today, belonged to someone yesterday and will be someone else's tomorrow."

Detaching inspires gratitude. When we let go of ownership, we realize that all we have done has been with the help of others: parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, books -- even the knowledge and skills of someone who is "self-made" have their origins in the work of others. When we feel grateful for what we've accomplished, we remember not to let it go to our heads. Ideally, gratitude inspires us to become teachers and mentors in our own way, to pass on what we've been given in some form.

TRY THIS: TRANSFORMING EGO

Look out for these opportunities to detach from your ego and put forth a thoughtful, productive response.

1. Receiving an insult: Observe your ego, take a broader view of the person's negativity, and respond to the situation, not the insult.

2. Receiving a compliment or accolades: Take this opportunity to be grateful for the teacher who helped you further this quality.

3. Arguing with a partner: The desire to be right, to win, comes from your ego's unwillingness to admit weakness. Remember you can be right, or you can move forward. See the other person's side. Lose the battle. Wait a day and see how it feels.

4. Topping people: When we listen to others, we often one-up them with a story that shows how we have it better or worse. Instead, listen to understand and acknowledge. Be curious. Don't say anything about yourself.

A question to ask yourself: WHAT DID YOU FAIL AT TODAY.

Spend time with healed, wise, service-driven people and feel humbled-and motivated toward healing, wisdom, and service.

Always be alert to feedback that doesn't come from the usual suspects. Some of the most useful feedback is unsolicited, even unintentional. Temper the ego by paying close attention to how people react to you nonverbally. Do their expressions show intrigue or boredom? Are they irritated, agitated, tired? Here, again, it's worth looking for alignment. Do many different people drift off when you're talking about a subject? It might be time to pull back on that one.

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.

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 will die. 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.

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 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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Visualization is the perfect way to heal the past and prepare for the future.

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.

PART THREE:

GIVE

CH.9

GRATITUDE

Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.

-Pema Chödrön

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."

TRY THIS: KEEP A GRATITUDE JOURNAL

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

When you're present in gratitude, you can't be anywhere else.

"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."

If anything has hit you hard emotionally --- gratitude is the answer.

Monks try to be grateful for everything, all the time. As the Sutta Pitaka, part of the Buddhist canon, advises, "Monks. You should train yourselves thus: 'We will be grateful and thankful and we will not overlook even the least favor done to us."

A senior monk asks us new arrivals to write about an experience that we believe we didn't deserve. There is silence as we scribble in our notebooks. I pick an episode from my teenage years when one of my best friends betrayed me.

After about fifteen minutes, we share what we've written. One novice describes the painful premature death of his sister, others have written about accidents or injuries, some discuss lost loves. When we're done, our teacher tells us that the experiences we have picked are all valid, but he points out the fact that all of us have selected negative scenarios. Not one of us has written about a wonderful thing that came to us by good fortune or kindness rather than through our own efforts. A wonderful thing that we didn't deserve.

We're in the habit of thinking that we don't deserve misfortune, but that we do deserve whatever blessings have come our way. Now the class takes the time to consider our good fortune: the luck of being born into a family with the resources to care for us; people who have invested more in us than we have invested in ourselves; opportunities that have made a difference in our lives. We so easily miss the chance to recognize what has been given to us, to feel and express gratitude.

The biggest difference between me and that girl was where and to whom we had been born.

Monks begin every day by giving thanks. Literally. When we wake up on our mats, we flip over to our fronts and pay respect to the earth, taking a moment to give thanks for what it gives us, for the light to see, the ground to walk on, the air to breathe.

TRY THIS: EVERYDAY GRATITUDE PRACTICEs

Morning gratitude. Let me guess. The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is check your phone. Maybe it seems like an easy, low-impact way to get your brain moving, but as we've discussed, it doesn't start the day on the right note. Try this-it will only take a minute. (If you're so tired that you're in danger of falling back asleep, then make sure you've set a snooze alarm.) Take a moment right there in bed, flip over onto your belly, put your hands in prayer, and bow your head. Take this moment to think of whatever is good in your life: the air and light that uplift you, the people who love you, the coffee that awaits you. 

Meal gratitude. One in every nine people on earth do not have enough food to eat every day. That's nearly 800 million people. Choose one meal of the day and commit to taking a moment before you dig in to give thanks for the food. Take inspiration from Native American prayers or make up your own. If you have a family, take turns offering thanks.

Mohawk people say a prayer, which offers gratitude for People, Earth Mother, the Waters, the Fish, the Plants, the Food Plants, the Medicine Herbs, the Animals, the Trees, the Birds, the Four Winds, Grandfather Thunder, Eldest Brother the Sun, Grandmother Moon, the Stars, the Enlightened Teachers, and the Creator. Imagine what the world might be like if we all started our day giving thanks for the most basic and essential gifts of life all around us.

Be grateful in all times and circumstances. Even if your life isn't perfect, build your gratitude like a muscle. If you train it now, it will only strengthen over time.

Gratitude is how we transform what Zen master Roshi Joan Halifax calls "the mind of material poverty. "She explains that this mindset "has nothing to do with poverty. When we are caught in the mind of poverty, we focus on what we are lacking; we feel we don't deserve love; and we ignore all that we have been given. The conscious practice of gratitude is the way out of the poverty mentality that erodes our gratitude and with it, our integrity."

There's a story about a monk who carried water from a well in two buckets, one of which had holes in it. He did this every day, without repairing the bucket One day, a passer-by asked him why he continued to carry the leaky bucket. The monk pointed out that the side of the path where he carried the full bucket was barren, but on the other side of the path, where the bucket had leaked, beautiful wildflowers had flourished. "My imperfection has brought beauty to those around me," he said. 

Helen Keller, who became deaf and blind as a toddler after an unidentified illness, wrote, "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

When something doesn't go your way, say to yourself, "There's more for me out there."

A question to ask ourselves all the time: "What can I learn from this moment?"

Kindness is as easy--and as hard-as this: genuinely wanting something good for someone else, thinking about what would benefit them, and putting effort into giving them that benefit.

If you have ever made a sacrifice for someone else's benefit, you can easily recognize the effort and energy someone else gives to you. That is to say, your own acts of kindness teach you what it takes to be kind, so your own kindness enables you to feel truly grateful. Kindness teaches gratitude. This is what is happening in the microcosm of the thoughtful thank-you note: The kindness of your dinner party inspired your friend's gratitude. That gratitude inspired her kindness to you.

Attitudes, behavior, and even health are contagious within our social networks.

When we receive thanks, we must be mindful of our egos. It's easy to get lost in the fantasy of our own greatness. When monks are praised, we detach, remembering that whatever we were able to give was never ours to begin with. To receive gratitude with humility, start by thanking the person for noticing. Appreciate their attention and their intention. Look for a good quality in the other person and return the compliment.

A study encouraging some people on the Chicago commuter trains to start conversations with strangers on any subject, for any amount of time, found that those who got up the courage to chat reported a more positive commuting experience. Most of these commuters had anticipated the opposite outcome, and on further investigation, researchers found it wasn't that people thought strangers would be unpleasant, but they feared the awkwardness of starting a conversation and worried they might be rebuffed. That wasn't the case, and most of the strangers were happy to engage. When we make the effort to connect with those around us, we create opportunities for gratitude instead of languishing in anonymity.

TRY THIS: A GRATITUDE VISUALIZATION

Take a moment right now to think of three things others have given you:

1. A small kindness someone did you 

2. A gift that mattered to you 

3. Something that makes every day a little bit better

"What brings you to me?" asked an old, wise woman of the young man who stood before her.

"I see joy and beauty around me, but from a distance," the young man said. "My own life is full of pain." 

The wise woman was silent. She slowly poured a cup of water for the sad young man and handed it to him. Then she held out a bowl of salt.

"Put some in the water," she said.

The young man hesitated, then took a small pinch of salt.

"More. A handful," the old woman said.

Looking skeptical, the young man put a scoop of salt in his The old cup. woman gestured with her head, instructing the young man to drink. He took a sip of water, made a face, and spat it onto the dirt floor.

"How was it?" the old woman asked.

"Thanks, but no thanks," said the young man rather glumly.

The old woman smiled knowingly, then handed the young man the bowl of salt and led him to a nearby lake. The water was clear and cold. "Now put a handful of salt in the lake," she said. 

The young man did as he was instructed, and the salt dissolved into the water. "Have a drink," the old woman said.

The young man knelt at the water's edge and slurped from his hands. 

When he looked up, the old woman again asked, "How was it?" 

"Refreshing," said the young man.

"Could you taste the salt?" asked the wise woman.

The young man smiled sheepishly. "Not at all," he said. 

The old woman knelt next to the man, helped herself to some water, and said, "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."

When we see the struggles of others in the clear light of day, when we use our talents to improve their world even a little bit, we immediately feel a surge of gratitude.

TRY THIS: EXPERIENCE GRATITUDE THROUGH VOLUNTEER WORK

Service broadens your perspective and alleviates negative emotions. Try volunteering-it can be once a month or once a week -- but nothing will better help you develop gratitude more immediately and inspire you to show it.

TRY THIS: WRITE A GRATITUDE LETTER

Select one person to whom you feel deeply grateful --- someone who makes it easy to feel grateful.

Write out a list of the broader qualities and values you appreciate in this person. Were they supportive? Were they loving? Did they have integrity? Then think of specific words and moments that you shared. Look ahead and write what you're going to do and say when you see them again. (If they have passed, you can lead with: "If were to see you again, this is what I would say.")

The focus is always on healing the internal before dealing with the external. In your own pace, at your own time.

Ch. 10

Relationships

Every person is a world to explore. 

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Whenever you give out any energy --- love, hate, anger, kindness -- you will always get it back.

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

Monks believe different people serve different purposes, with each role contributing to our growth in its own way.

We learn more from behaviuors than promises.

When you enter a new community -- as I entered the ashram -- you have a clean slate. You have none of the expectations that have already built up among family and friends. Most likely nobody shares your past. In situations like this, most of us rush to find "our people," but the ashram showed me another way. I didn't need to replicate a family, creating a small circle of comfort and trust. Everyone in the ashram was my family. And, as we traveled and connected with people across India and Europe, I began to recognize that everyone in the world was my family. As Gandhi said, "The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one."

A well-known poem by Jean Dominique Martin says, "People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime." These three categories are based on how long that relationship should endure. One person might enter your life as a welcome change. Like a new season, they are an exciting and enthralling shift of energy. But the season ends at some point, as all seasons do. Another person might come in with a reason. They help you learn and grow, or they support you through a difficult time. It almost feels like they've been deliberately sent to you to assist or guide you through a particular experience, after which their central role in your life decreases. And then there are lifetime people.

Remember that you are also a season, a reason, and a lifetime friend to different people at different times, and the role you play in someone else's life won't always match the role they play in yours.

Trust is central to every relationship. It's about intentions, not abilities.

We know from our discussion of ego that we lie to impress, to present ourselves as "better" than we really are, but when these lies are discovered, the betrayal does far more damage to both people than honesty would have. If the seed of trust is not planted effectively in the beginning, we grow a weed of mistrust and betrayal.

The biggest mistake we make is to assume that everyone else operates just like us. We believe that others value what we value. We believe that what we want in a relationship is what others want in a relationship. When someone says, "I love you," we think they mean exactly what we mean when we say "I love you." But if we think everyone is a reflection of ourselves, we fail to see things as they are. We see things as we are.(see things as it is.)

Trust can be threatened in small and large ways and needs to be reinforced and rebuilt on a daily basis.

The Sanskrit for monk is brahmacharya, which can be translated to "the right use of energy."

I'm not suggesting you give up sex (though you certainly could), but what if you give yourself permission to be single, by yourself, able to focus on your career, your friends, and your peace of mind? 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."

Instead of looking for others to make us happy, be that person for yourself.

ATTRACTION VERSUS CONNECTION

Our increased intentionality gives us a clearer perspective with which to evaluate why we are initially attracted to people and whether those reasons support our values. There are five primary motivations for connection -- and note that these don't exclusively apply to romantic prospects:

1. Physical attraction. You like what they look like -- you are drawn to their appearance, style, or presence, or you like the idea of being seen with them. 

2. Material. You like their accomplishments and the power and/or the possessions this affords them.

3. Intellectual. You like how they think -- you're stimulated by their conversation and ideas. 

4. Emotional. You connect well. They understand your feelings and increase your sense of well-being.

5. Spiritual. They share your deepest goals and values.

When whole you identify what's attracting you, it's clear if you're attracted to the person or just a part. In my experience, ask most people what attracts them to another person and they'll mention some combination of the top three qualities: looks, success, and intellect, but those qualities alone don't correlate with long-term, fortifying relationships.

Monks believe that someone's looks aren't who they are -- the body is only a vessel for the soul. Similarly, someone's possessions aren't theirs -- they certainly don't tell you about the person's character! And even if you're attracted to someone's intellect, there's no guarantee it will lead to a meaningful bond. These three qualities don't correlate with long-term, fortifying relationships, but they do show your chemistry with another person. The last two -emotional and spiritual -- point to a more profound, lasting connection -- they show your compatibility.

TRY THIS: HANDCUFF ATTENTION THIEVES

These days, most of us are losing a battle for our attention. The victors are our screens. The only way to give another person your complete attention for a period of time is to turn off your screens. To give someone in your life the focus they deserve, sit down with them to agree on rules surrounding the phone, the laptop, and the TV. Choose specific activities that will be your quality time, without distraction. Agree to turn off your phones, put them in another room, or leave them at home. This may be a challenge at first. Perhaps conversation will lag, or friends and colleagues will be frustrated because they can't reach you. Setting these boundaries will establish new expectations on both fronts: Lapses in conversation will lose their awkwardness; friends and colleagues will accept that you are not available 24/7.

Listening is one of the most thoughtful gifts we can give. There is no better way to show that we care about another person's experience. 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.

TRY THIS: MAKE YOUR CONVERSATION INTO A GIFT

Ideally, you try to do this in conversations regularly, but this time, do it with focus and intention. Pick a moment you have coming up with someone important to you-a friend, a relative, your partner. Maybe it's a meal or walk you'll be taking together. During this time, shut off your phone. Give all your focus to the other person. Instead of having an agenda, be curious. If a topic doesn't emerge, ask them open-ended questions to land on a subject that's important to them: What's on your mind lately? How's your relationship with X? Listen carefully, ask follow-up questions. Share your own experiences without turning the conversation to yourself. A few days later, email or text the friend to follow up

Understand yourself

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 hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.

Happiness comes when we are learning, progressing, and achieving.

I have many recommendations for activities couples can do together, but here are a couple of my favorites, drawn from monk principles.

1. Find new in the old. Remember when, as monks, we looked for a special stone on the same walk we took together every day? You too can open your eyes to the world you already live in. Have a candlelit dinner in the middle of the week. Read a book to each other before bed instead of staring at your phones. Take a walk together in the neighborhood and challenge each other to find a certain kind of mailbox or to be the first to spot a bird.

2. Find new ways to spend time together. A study by psychologist Arthur Aron found that couples strengthen their bonds when they do new and exciting activities together. My wife and I started to do escape rooms together. An escape room is a game where you're both locked in a room and have to find a way out. The staff gives you a few clues, and you have to work together to solve many steps of the puzzle. It may sound a little creepy, but it's actually a lot of fun. You get to learn together. You get to make mistakes together. It's an even playing field when neither of you has more experience or expertise than the other. When experiment together couple, you feel yourselves growing together in all areas as a of your life. You could even try something really scary together -- like skydiving or something else that's outside your comfort zone. Remember all the benefits that we found in getting close to our fears? Playing with fear together is a way to practice going into your deeper fears, sharing them with your partner, feeling their support, and together transforming fear. 

3. Serve together. Just as serving gives meaning to your life, serving with your partner adds meaning to your connection, whether it's organizing charity events, feeding the homeless, or teaching something together. My most bonding experiences in monk life came about when I took part in collective projects. The horrid two-day train journey that I've mentioned. Planting trees together. Building a school. Instead of focusing on the challenges of the relationship, we develop a shared perspective on real-life issues. Connecting for a higher purpose, we feel gratitude and bring that back into our relationship. I know many couples who have met through volunteering, so if you're looking for a well-suited partner, find a cause that is close to your heart. If you meet through an activity such as volunteering, from the start you already have something very deep in common, and you're more likely to form a deeper bond.

When you've spent quality time with someone, when you've invested in someone, when you've given yourself to someone, it's so hard to let go. Tibetan Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo points out that we often mistake attachment for love. She says, "We imagine that the grasping and clinging that we have in our relationships shows that we love. Whereas actually, it is just attachment, which causes pain. Because the more we grasp, the more we are afraid to lose, then if we do lose, then of course we are going to suffer."

The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "We are all connected; to each other, biologically. To the Earth, chemically. And to the rest of the universe, atomically." Knowing this, we must look to the universe to find true meaning in our lives.

Ch. 11

Service

The ignorant work for their own profit... the wise work for the welfare of the world...

-Bhagavad Gita, 3:25

We thought we had nothing, and indeed we had barely any material possessions. But we were still able to give people a our effort.

'"I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."

--- Helen Keller

We recognize our value and learn that we don't need to own anything in order to serve;

The highest purpose is to live in service.

Selflessness is the surest route to inner peace and a meaningful life. Selflessness heals the self.

Monks live in service, and to think like a monk ultimately means to serve. The Monastic Way quotes Benedictine monk Dom Aelred Graham as saying, "The monk may think he has come [to the monastery] to gain something for himself: peace, security, quiet, a life of prayer, or study, or teaching; but if his vocation is genuine, he finds that he has come not to take but to give." We seek to leave a place cleaner than we found it, people happier than we found them, the world better than we found it.

The sixteenth-century guru Rupa Goswami talks about yukta-vairagya, which means to do everything for a higher purpose. That's real detachment, utter renunciation, perfection.

The Bhagavad Gita sees the whole world as a kind of school, an education system structured to make us realize one truth: We are compelled to serve, and only in service can we be happy. Like fire is hot, as the sun is light and warm, service is the essence of human consciousness. Know the reality of the world in which you live. Know it to be impermanent, unreal, and the source of your suffering and delusion. Seeing the purpose of life to be sense gratification -- making ourselves feel good -- leads to pain and dissatisfaction. Seeing it as service leads to fulfillment.

In Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela writes, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, then they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." Just as Mandela believed people were born to love but taught to hate, monks believe that we are born to serve, but the distractions of the external world make us forget our purpose. We need to reconnect with that instinct in order to feel like life has meaning.

The word seva is Sanskrit for selfless service. The Bhagavad Gita says that "giving simply because it is right to give, without thought of return, at a proper time, in proper circumstances, and to a worthy person, is sattvic giving"-- giving in the mode of goodness. Monks are solely motivated by selfless service: to give others opportunities that we had and didn't have; to better others' lives and the human condition.

We remember that we never know what someone is going through, so we treat them with the gentleness you would give someone who is in pain, with the generosity you would give someone who is hungry, with the compassion you would give someone who is misunderstood.

This attitude radiated beyond the ashram. When we traveled, we always carried extra food with us so that we had some to give away.

At the ashram, instead of saying "How was work?" we might ask, "Have you served today?"

WHEN WILL YOU BE READY TO SERVE?

Out in the modern world, no matter how much we want to help others, we are distracted from the service mindset by the desire to be financially and emotionally stable and secure. If you're lost and disconnected, your service will be cumbersome and less fulfilling. But when is the time right? Will it ever be right? Internal exploration has no endpoint. It's an ongoing practice. Your problems will never be completely solved.

Take care of yourself-yes. But don't wait until you have enough time and money to serve. You will never have enough. There are three simple modes to describe our relationship with money and material wealth. The first is selfish-I want more-as much as I can get-and I want it all for myself. The second is sufficiency--I have just enough to get by. I'm not suffering, but I have nothing to give. The third is service -- I want to give what I have, and I want more in order to give more.

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.

Some of our trips as monks were pilgrimages to bathe in the sacred rivers. I went to the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the Kaveri. We didn't swim or play in the holy waters. Instead, we performed rituals; one involved scooping as much water as we could into our hands, then putting it back in the river. WE TOOK FROM WATER TO GIVE BACK TO WATER AS A REMINDER THAT WE DIDN'T OWN ANYTHING. Charity isn't giving of yourself. You're taking something that was already on earth and giving it back to earth. You don't have to have to give.

if you're out there helping your friends move, cooking for them, celebrating them, and then you wonder, Why doesn't anyone come help me? or Why did everyone forget my birthday? -- you've missed the point. You're seeing yourself as the giver and them as the receiver and imagining that when service is done, a debt is created. True service doesn't expect or even want anything in return. Nonetheless, the service itself often yields happiness, as both the Bhagavad Gita and the science show. When I do something to serve you, and you're happy, I'm happy.

Remember that whatever you are giving was given to you. When you pass it on, you can't take credit for it.

If you look around, you will see opportunities for service everywhere: in schools, at religious institutions, with individuals on the street, charities. There are neighborhood food drives and used costume drives at school. You can run a race to raise money for charity or have a lemonade stand. You can help a friend gather toiletries to send to disaster victims. You can visit a sick or aging relative. If you live in a city, you can often carry your leftovers out of a restaurant and offer them to a homeless person. Those closest to us, and those who have nobody -- there are infinite ways to serve. You don't have to do charity work every day or give away all your money. Simply realize you're in service and look for how you can connect what you already do to a higher purpose. Just as you bring your dharma to work, bring service to your dharma. It's about the spirit in which you do the same work. You can either see the world through the lens of love and duty, or through the lens of necessity and force. Love and duty are more likely to lead to happiness.

I think of compassion as active empathy--not only the willingness to see, feel, and ease the pain of others, but also the willingness to take on some of that pain. There is a Zen story about a young man who is world-weary and dejected. With no plan or prospects, he goes to a monastery, tells the master that he is hoping to find a better path, but he admits that he lacks patience. "Can I find enlightenment without all that meditation and fasting?" he asks. "I don't think I can handle it. Is there another way?"

"Perhaps," says the master, "But you will need the ability to focus. Are there any skills you've developed?" 

The young man looks down. He hasn't been inspired by his studies or any particular interests. Finally, he shrugs. "Well, I'm not bad at chess."

The master calls over one of the monk elders and says, "I'd like you and this young man to play a game of chess. Play carefully, because I will cut off the head of the one who loses."

The young man breaks into a sweat. He's playing for his life! He plays weakly at first, but it soon becomes clear that his opponent's chess skills are fair at best. If he puts his mind to it, he will surely win. He soon loses himself in concentration and begins to beat the old monk. The master begins to sharpen his sword.

Now the young man looks across the table, sees the wise, calm face of the old monk, who in his obedience and detachment has no fear of the death that man's play certainly awaits him. The disillusioned man thinks, I can't be responsible for this man's death. His life is worth more than mine. Then the young man's play changes-he deliberately begins to lose.

Without warning, the master flips the table over, scattering the pieces. "Today there will be no winner, and no loser," he states. The losing monk's calm demeanor doesn't change, but the astonished young man feels a great sense of relief. The elder says to him, "You have the ability to concentrate, and you are willing to give your life for another. That is compassion. Join us and proceed in that spirit. You are ready to be a monk."

we are motivated to serve when we think of the whole world as one family.

we should never avoid helping others when we see their need, we can and should develop a sense of what sorts of service we're best at and focus our attention on them. Choose where to serve based on your own compassion. Buddhist scholar and environmental activist Joanna Macy writes, "You don't need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough."

Serving through your dharma, healing the pain that you connect with-this approach is very much in line with the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, which likes to meet you wherever you are and encourage you to reach higher. When I was a monk, I prepared food for children with Annamrita, cleaned temples, always carried food to hand out to strangers, and otherwise served in the ways that m sense for me at the time.

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.

Service is the direct path to a meaningful life.

CHANTING

Sound transports us. A song can take us back to a high school memory, make us want to dance, get us fired up. Words themselves have power  --- they can change how we see the world and how we grow. When we chant, we ourselves are generating this energy. Sound meditations allow us to connect with our souls and the universe through words and song.

Ancient spiritual texts including the Agni Purana and the Vayu Purana discuss the why and how of chanting, suggesting that the repetition of sound purifies us. The sound is immersive, like giving our souls a regular bath. You can't put one drop of water on your body and be clean-you have to go underneath the water.

Recognizing the value of sound has carried through to modern times. Legendary inventor Nikola Tesla said, "If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration."

CONCLUSION

The goal isn't perfection. Life is not going to go your way. You have to go your way and take life with you. Understanding this will help you be prepared for whatever may come.

The world isn't with you or against you. You create your own reality in every moment.

A novice monk went to his teacher and said, "I'm terrible at meditating. My feet fall asleep, and I'm distracted by the outside noises. When I'm not uncomfortable, it's because I can barely stay awake." 

"It will pass," the teacher said simply, and by her expression the novice knew that the conversation was over. 

A month passed, and the novice took his teacher aside, smiling proudly. "I think I've figured it out! I feel so serene-more focused and centered than I've ever been. My meditation is beautiful." 

"It will pass," the teacher replied.

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.

The first sign that you're doing it right is that you'll miss it if you take a break. You only miss a person when you don't see them. When you eat every day, you don't think much about nourishment and fuel, but if you don't eat for a day, you quickly notice the power of food. The same is true for meditation-you have to develop a practice before you know what you're missing

The second effect you'll notice is an increased awareness of what's going on in your mind. If you meditate and feel tired, you'll understand that meditation is telling you to get more sleep. Meditation is a signal or a mirror. If you meditate and can't focus, you'll see that you're living a distracted life and need to feel order, balance, and simplicity. If you can't sit with your thoughts for fifteen minutes, it's a clear indicator of the work to be done.

The third and most important benefit of meditation is that, though you won't emerge feeling calm and perfect every time, you'll gradually acquire a long term mastery of self. When you drink a green juice, it doesn't always taste great. A nice glass of fresh orange juice looks better and tastes better. But, long-term, the less delightful green juice will better serve you. When you are adept at meditation, you'll feel a shift in your general attitude. Your intuition will be sharper. You'll be able to observe your life more objectively, without being self centered. Your expanded perception will give you a sense of peace and purpose.

NOW AND FOREVER

Life begins with breath, breath carries you through all your days, and life and breath end together. 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. We use our time to establish how we will live on, through giving love and care, through supporting, communicating creating through the impact we have on humanity. 

How will we be remembered? What will we leave behind?

Ultimately death can be seen as the greatest reflection point-by imagining the last moment you can reflect on everything that leads up to it. Among the most common regrets dying people express are:

I wish I'd expressed my love to the people I care about.

I wish I hadn't worked so much. 

I wish I'd taken more pleasure in life.

I wish I'd done more for other people.

Notice that most of these regrets address something the person didn't do. Monks believe we should prepare for death. We don't want to arrive at the end of our days knowing we haven't lived a purposeful, service--based, meaningful life.

Think of the topics we've considered in this book. In death, you should be fully cleansed, free of what you think you're supposed to do, free of comparison and criticism, having faced the root of your fear, free from material desires, living in your dharma, having used your time well, having not given in to the mind's demands, free from ego, having given more than you have taken, but then having given away all that you've taken, free from entitlement, free from false connections and expectations. Imagine how rewarding it will be to look back on a life where you have been a teacher while remaining a student.

Reflecting on the knowledge that we will die someday compels us to value the time we have and to spend our energy thoughtfully. Life's too short to live without purpose, to lose our chance to serve, to let our dreams and aspirations die with us. Above all, I ASK YOU TO LEAVE PEOPLE AND PLACES BETTER AND HAPPIER THAN YOU FOUND THEM.

Working on ourselves is an unending practice. Have patience. A student went to her teacher and said, "I am committed to my dharma. How long will it take me to attain enlightenment?"

Without missing a beat, the teacher replied, "Ten years." 

Impatient, the student persisted, "But what if I work very hard? I will practice, ten or more hours every day if I have to. Then how long will it take?" 

This time the teacher took a moment to consider. "Twenty years." 

The very idea that the student was looking to rush his work was evidence that he had ten extra years to study. 

As I've mentioned, the Sanskrit word for monk, brahmacharya, means "student," but it also means "right use of energy." It's not like once you have the monk mindset, you've figured everything out. Instead, the monk mindset acknowledges that the right use of energy is to remain a student. You can never cease learning. You don't cut your hair or mow your lawn once. You have to keep at it. In the same way, sustaining the monk mindset requires self-awareness, discipline, diligence, focus, and constant practice. It is hard work, but the tools are already in your head, heart, and hands. 

You have all you need to think like a monk.

TRY THIS: TWO DEATH MEDITATIONS

To imagine your own death gives you a bird's-eye view of your life. Try a death meditation whenever you are questioning whether or not to do something-to make a significant change, learn a new skill, take a trip. recommend that you always do a death meditation at the beginning of a new year, to inspire new paths in the upcoming year.

1. Visualizing the inevitable will give you every lesson you need to live a fulfilling life Fast-forward to yourself at age eighty or ninety, however long you want to live, and imagine yourself on your deathbed. Ask your future self questions such as:

What do I wish I'd done? 

What experiences do I wish I'd had? 

What do I regret not giving more attention?

What skills do I wish I'd worked on? 

What do I wish I'd detached from?

Use these answers to motivate yourself-instead of having regrets on your deathbed, put those wishes into action today.

2. Imagine how you'd like to be remembered at your own funeral. Don't focus on what people thought of you, who loved you, and how sad they will be to lose you. Instead think about the impact you've had. Then imagine how you would be remembered if you died today. What's the gap between these two images? This too should galvanize you to build your legacy.

To find our way through the universe, we must start by genuinely asking questions. You might travel to a new place or go someplace where no one knows you. Disable your autopilot to see yourself and the world around you with new eyes. Spot, Stop, Swap. Train your mind to observe the forces that influence you, detach from illusion and false beliefs, and continually look for what motivates you and what feels meaningful.

What would a monk do in this moment?

When you're making a decision, when you're having an argument, when you're planning your weekend, when you're scared or upset or angry or lost, ask this question. You'll find the answer 99 percent of the time.

And eventually, when you've uncovered your real self, you won't even need to ask yourself what a monk would do. You can simply ask, "What will I do?"

--- Jay shetty