You don’t have to go to any mountain to be a monk just Think Like A Monk. But can work as a monk and lead a beautiful life. You just have to train your mind to see new ideas, values, thoughts.

Now the question is what is the need to think like a monk? In answer to this question, Jay Shetty said that if you want to innovate then you have to learn from Elon Musk.

If you want to be a basketball player you will learn from Michael Jordan. But if you want to train your mind for calm and tranquility then you have to learn from a monk.

Because they are experts in this work. Calm, happiness, discipline, and clarity are the strong characteristics of our minds. To build these things,  the author told us to think like a monk. Let’s find out how you can develop a monk mind.

Find your true identity-

suppose you are standing in front of a mirror to see the face. But that mirror is far away. Then you will not see your face better. The author says that this mirror is your identity.

On which the dust of influence of others has accumulated. For which you do not see your real identity. Influenced by someone’s wealth, we go through behind wealth. Influenced by someone’s look, we begin to change our body and style. But you will find your real identity only when you know your own values.

The influence of the people you associate with every day affects you. Looking at someone’s good health or body, we want to be like them. Learning from someone is not wrong but you need to see what your internal values ​​are.

As you assume content such as news, movies, these factors accumulate the dust of influence in your mind. These are called outdoor external noise.

Which repeatedly forces you to decide what you should do and should not do. If you clear the external noise, your real identity will come out.

Jay Shetty says that there are two types of values ​​- higher and lower values.

Higher values ​​give us happiness, fulfillment, and meaningful life. And lower values ​​give us anxiety, depression, and suffering. Your values ​​also depend on your behavior. That’s why you need to follow two steps to find your real value.

• First- you have to do a self-audit. You need to find out what you do in your free time, how long you use social media, and how you use your money.
• Second – self-isolation – you have to choose a place where there will be no other people or things of any kind to distract.

Now in that personal space, you have to totally avoid your outdoor noise and ask yourself what you believe in, what you think is right, and what is wrong. You need to be with people who understand your values ​​and help you improve. When you give yourself time and stillness, you can easily remove the dust from others and hear your own inner voice.

Remove Negativity And Think Like A Monk

You come in contact with different negative people daily. Those who always focus more on negative thinking instead of positive thinking. Negative people have some bad habits like- they always complain about one or the other, blame others, criticize others, compare with others. Jay Shetty tells us to follow three methods to deal with negative people.

• Allocate time- Every human being has a limit to enduring. Every human being has a limit to enduring. It is good to decide from the beginning how much time you will spend with the car. By this, we can also avoid negativity.
• 75/25 principle- According to this principle you have to spend 75 percent of your time with people who will motivate and inspire you. And spend 25 percent or less time with negative people. This will maintain positivity in you.
• Don’t get involved – You don’t have to get involved in everything unless you have some knowledge.

Negativity can happen to us too. To deal with that negativity, the author told us about a technique which is –

Spot-stop-swap technique From Think Like A Monk 

• Spot-

The author who was a monk teacher gave an exercise to Jay Shetty and other students. The exercise is how many times he felt negative throughout the day. He said to notice how many times they complain about something, how many times they compare themselves with others, how many times they criticize others. Whenever you do these three things, note them down.

The author did not understand it at first. But when he started writing, he realized how many times a day we really fall victim to negativity. This is why you write for a week about how many times a day you complain, criticize, and compare. This week your job is to spot. The better you can spot, the better you write them. And your only goal is to keep it down the next day.

• Stop-

The author has said a very good thing here. He says- “Remember saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however, we want is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling to need these things” … After spotting negative feelings you have to stop. You have to see if you can handle it if you can keep your mouth shut. Now take a deep breath. It will take away your negative feelings.

• Swap-

Monk says that even after following these two methods of spot and stop, we often can’t get out of the attitude of complaining, criticizing, and comparing easily. So the last step is to swap. Suppose I am also studying to get good results.

Example Story

A friend of mine is also studying for good results. But I feel jealous seeing him. I think “how good he is in studies, he does very well in all exams, how much teachers love him. He is getting good results even though he has not studied for a long time.

Notice the thoughts of this example. I first compare myself here with how well he studies in less time and I can’t get good results in more time. Then I criticized him for studying so little, then I complained that I was stuck somewhere.

To keep these negative feelings away, the author said that first, we have to spot that yes, negative feelings are coming in me. Then those negative feelings have to stop. Here we can think that “yes I am feeling jealous. We can think of what we want in life to make our life better.

How much peace we will have if we achieve that” … then we can treat criticism as inspiration that ” Yes, he is good at studying. He gets very good results.

But how is he studying? Is he doing so that his studies are going so smoothly? What questions is he practicing? How are the writing answers? How is he doing time management? Can I learn these? Will it be useful for me? Which will lead me to a better future? Instead of complaining, we can plan.

This way you can swap all your negative feelings which will take you in a positive direction.

 Know your intention-

Whenever you want to achieve something but after achieving it you can not be satisfied. Then you will understand that the intention to achieve it was wrong. It is very important to understand the intention behind doing something.

Maybe you do something out of fear, or out of a personal desire, or out of duty, or out of love. You can identify the purpose of your life by clearing the intention behind doing something. And can lead a meaningful life.

Know your space and time-

The author says the location has energy and time has memory. Each location has energy. But each location gives us a different feeling. This is why we can read well in the library, not in any park. For this, the author says that we have to create a specific location for each job.

And time shows a kind of memory. This means that when you do the same thing every day at the same time, that work is saved in your mind as a memory. For this, if you want to be productive then do the same work at the same location at the same time.

Serve others And Think Like A Monk

The author says that human religion is to help others. It is your job to discover what that is and to bring it about. This concept is called a mission in Ikigai. If you help someone, you will get it back somehow.

But the problem is if you expect love or help from them. That’s why the more you love someone unconditionally, the more you help them, the more it will come back to you.