Quotes from the book "Think like a Monk" - Part III
Continued from: For previous blog, Quotes from the book "Think like a Monk" - Part II:
Success doesn't guarantee happiness and happiness doesn't require success.
we can better handle discomfort when we can associate it with a goal, purpose, or person we care about.
As monks, we learned to clarify our intentions through the analogy of seeds and weeds. When we plant seed it grows taller, when you have weed it never grows into something wonderful.
External goals cannot fill internal voids.
When Picasso charged $30,000 for a 30 seconds picture, he said, It took me thirty years of practice to be that perfect. So the charge is just NOT for the time it took to paint.
Living intentionally means stepping back from external goals, letting go of outward definitions of success, and looking within.
When your natural talents and passions (Varna) connect with what the universe needs (Seva) and become your purpose, you are living in your dharma.
Passion + Expertise + Usefulness = Dharma
You can't be anything you want. But you can be everything you are.
Pay attention, cultivate self-awareness, feed your strengths, and you will find your way. And once you discover your dharma, pursue it.
Our society is setup around strengthening our weaknesses rather than building our strengths.
When you do things part of your passion, it wont be part of your job description, it will be part of you.
55% of our communication is conveyed by body language, 38% is tone of voice, and a mere 7% is the actual words we speak.
The emotion you fall asleep with at night is most likely the emotion you'll wake up with in the morning.
People complain about their poor memories, but I've heard it said that we don't have retention problem, we have an attention problem.
To walk down the same old path and find a new stone is to open your mind.
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.
Being present is the only way to life a truly rich and full life.
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.
Most subtle and powerful distractions of all, the voices inside our heads.
Mind is compared to drunken monkey thats been bitten by a scorpion and haunted by a ghost. We humans have roughly 70,000 thoughts in a day. Our minds are in present time only for three seconds at a time.
As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.
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.
As my teachers explained, visualizing the mind as a separate entity helps us work on our relationship with it - we can think of the interaction as making a friend or negotiating peace with an enemy.
You are the sky. Everything else - its just the weather.
Anticipatory anxiety - you are expecting a pain and reacting to it already, even though it didn't happen.
Pain is a twofold sensation - we feel some of it physically and some of it emotionally.
Change begins with the words inside your head.
Continued:
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