THINK LIKE A MONK by Jay Shetty IN 100 LINES. (Summary pointers)

This summarizes the 300 pages of the book into 100 lines. I tried to jot down the majority of things that I learned from this book. I must admit this came at the beginning of my self-help journey and so imprinted a great impact on me. (Get the book here)

1. If you can’t explain, something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. – ALBERT EINSTEIN
2. The only thing that stays with you from the moment you’re born until the moment you die is your breath.
3. It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.   -BHAGWAT GITA
4. I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.  -CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
5. When you try to live your most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing and finding a way to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on.
6. 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 the dust is gone can you see your true reflection. -GAURANG DAS
7. No matter what you think your values are, your actions tell the real story.
8. Leaves sprout, transform and drop. Reptiles, birds, and mammals shed their skins, feathers, and fur. letting go is a big part of the rhythm of nature as is rebirth.
9. Once you filter out the noise of opinions, expectations, and obligations, you’ll see the world through different eyes.
10. Does this fit my chosen values or those that others have selected for me? Is this dust or is it me?
11. Cancers of mind: Complaining, comparing, criticizing. (Notify every criticism you let slip. Next to each, jot down 10 positive qualities…… Every person has more good than bad.)
12. When we criticize others, we can’t help but notice the bad in ourselves. But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too.
13. Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do, give it to what you do or fail to do.  – BUDDHA
14. You become exactly what you criticize. Complaining is contagious.
15. Don’t judge someone with a different disease. Don’t expect someone to be perfect. Don’t think you are perfect.
16. There is no commandment that says we have to be upset by the way other people treat us.
17. If you can, help others. If you can’t, at least don’t harm them. – DALAI LAMA
18. Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If in our hearts, we still cling to anything-anger, anxiety, or possessions – We cannot be free.  -THICH NHAT HANH
19. If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. – DALAI LAMA
20. Saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however, we want is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things.
21. If I find joy in my own success, I’m limiting my joy. But if I can take pleasure in the success of my friends and family- ten, twenty, fifty people! – I get to experience fifty times happiness and joy. Who doesn’t want that?
22. When it comes to happiness and joy, there is always a seat with your name on it. You don’t need to worry about someone taking your place.
23. There are 3 levels of forgiveness: – Zero forgiveness (I’m not going to forgive that person, no matter what.) Conditional forgiveness (If they apologize, then I’ll apologize. If they promise, never to do it again, I’ll forgive them. ) Transformational forgiveness (We find the strength and calmness to forgive without expecting an apology or anything else in return.)
24. I don’t think it’s funny to make fun of people.
25. I feel good and I’m going to make someone else feel good today.
26. You have to push beyond the part of your mind that is making fun of your fear. That’s a defense mechanism keeping you from really dealing with the issue, and that’s what we do with fear. We distract ourselves from it.     ­ -Gauranga Das
27. In a natural environment, trees are buffeted by the wind. They respond to that pressure and agitation by growing stronger back and deeper roots to increase their stability.
28. I try to expand my comfort zone by doing the moves over and over again. I work through the fear until it’s just not scary anymore.
29. When your brain shouts ” Fear!” your body can’t differentiate between whether the threat is real or imagined – whether your survival is in jeopardy or you’re thinking about your taxes.
30. When we talk about emotions, we usually say we are those emotions- I am angry, I am sad, I am afraid. Understand that emotions are not us, it’s just something we are experiencing. Try to shift from I am angry to I feel angry, I feel sad, I feel afraid. It will put your emotions in their rightful place.
31. Clinging to temporary things gives them power over us, and they become the source 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.
32. It is not possible to control all external events but if I simply control my mind, what need is there to control other things?
33. Fear makes us fiction writers. We start with the premise– what will happen if… “Our fears are more numerous than our dangers and we suffer more in our imagination than in reality.”
34. Good thing, bad thing, who knows. Don’t judge the moment.
35. “I wish” is the code for I don’t want to do anything differently.
36. It should be said that no intentions are completely pure and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with cloudy or multifaceted intentions.
37. Live at your own pace, in your own time. Your own way is unique- and that’s as it should be.
38. 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 YT. You can do a lot in ten minutes.
39. Invest in your strengths. Surround yourself with people who can fill in the gaps.
40. Life messes up your plans. Tomorrow is not going to go as you visualize it. Visualization alone doesn’t change your life, but it changes how you see it. You can build your life by returning to the idea that you imagined. Whenever you feel that your life is out of alignment, you align it with visualization.
41. If you’re running a race, you won’t be able to go back and change how fast you ran in Mile 2. Your only opportunity to succeed is doing good at that moment.
42. Yesterday is just a dream. Tomorrow is a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
43. If you allow yourself to daydream, you’ll always be distracted.
44. Most of the time, your brain is not reacting to the events in the world, it’s predicting…. Constantly guessing what’s going to happen next.
45. Insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.
46. We say things to ourselves, that we would never say to people we love. Treat yourself with the same love and respect you want to show to others.
47. Both nostalgia and remorse can be a trap, closing us off from new experiences and keeping us locked in unresolved past. The past is unchangeable and the present is unknowable.
48. Detachment is doing the right thing for its own sake because its needs to be done without worrying about success or failure.       – GITA
49. Detachment is not that you own nothing, but NOTHING SHOULD OWN YOU.
50. When we are humble, were open to learning because we understand how much we don’t know.
51. You are who you are when no one is watching.
52. Always ask- Am I any better than the person I’m criticizing?
53. Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos chose to ignore that.
54. Don’t take everything personally- it is usually not about you.
55. What belongs to you today, belonged to someone else yesterday, and will belong to someone else tomorrow.
56. When we aren’t defined by our accomplishments, it takes the pressure off.
57. Often, we don’t take chances because we fear failure, and that often boils down to a fear of our egos getting hurt.
58. You are not your success or your failures.
59. I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced 1 kick 10,000 times.        – Bruce Lee
60. Until the whole world is healed and happy, I haven’t finished.
61. Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.   _ Pema Chodron
62. Don’t judge the moment.
63. Be grateful for setbacks. Allow the journey of life to progress at its own pace and in its own roundabout way.
64. The universe may have other plans in store for you.
65. Your imperfection can bring beauty to those around you.
66. Kindness teaches gratitude.
67. Be kinder to yourself and then let your kindness flood the world.
68. Kindness begets kindness.
69. Receive gratitude with humility, start by thanking the person for noticing.
70. The salt is the pain of life. It is constant, but if you put it in a small glass, it will taste bitter. If you put the same amount of salt in the lake, you can’t taste it. Expand your senses, expand your world, and the pain will diminish.
71. Gratitude generates kindness, and this spirit will reverberate through our communities, bringing our highest intentions to those around us.
72. Too often we love people who don’t love us, but we fail to return the love of others who do.
73. There are four types of trust which come with- Competence, Care, Character, and Consistency.
74. Set realistic expectations based on what a person actually gives you, not what you want them to give you.
75. It’s okay- necessary in fact- to protect yourself from those in your family who aren’t good for you.
76. Trust is about intentions, not abilities.
77. If we think everyone is a reflection of ourselves, we fail to see things as they are. We see things as we are.
78. When people show their level of trust, believe them.
79. Nobody completes you. You are not half. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to come to a place of giving. Instead of draining anyone else, you’re nourishing them.
80. We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth, chemically and to the universe, atomically. Knowing this, we must look to the universe to find true meaning in our lives.
81. I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.   – Helen Keller
82. Selflessness heals the self.
83. We seek to leave a place cleaner than we found it, people, happier than we found them, and the world better than we found it.
84. No one is born hating another person. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart.  – Nelson Mandela
85. Remember that we never know what someone is going through.
86. You don’t have to have, to give.
87. When service is done, a debt is created. True service doesn’t expect or even want anything in return.
88. You are not saving anyone by helping them- you need help as much as they do.
89. You don’t need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; Effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough.
90. The externals will never be perfect, and the goal isn’t perfection.
91. Life is not going to go your way. You have to go your way and take life with you.
92. Life isn’t a computer system, it’s a dance. When we dance, there are no rules. We have strengths and weaknesses. We might fall or hesitate to take the next move, but we keep flowing, allowing ourselves to be messy and beautiful.
93. How will we be remembered? What will we leave behind?
94. It’s impossible to build your own happiness on the unhappiness of others.  -Daisaku Ikeda
95. When someone hurts you, it’s because they are hurt.
96. The less time you fixate on others. The more time you have to focus on yourself.
97. Fear doesn’t prevent death. It prevents life.    – Buddha
98. In getting you where you want to be, meditation may show you what you don’t want to see.
99. You can’t be anything you want, but you can be everything you are.
100. To walk down the same old path and find a new stone is to open your mind.

There is a lot more in the book and I’ll surely recommend it to all readers to read the book.

Written by DOCTOR MENTIS (WORTHYWORDS). Based on the book THINK LIKE A MONK by Jay Shetty.