TRAIN YOUR MIND for PEACE and PURPOSE EVERY DAY
INTRODUCTION
If you want a new idea, read an old book.
-attributed to Ivan Pavlov(among others)
When I was 18 years old, in my first year of college, at Cass Business School in London, one of my friend ask me to go with him to hear a monk give a talk.
I resisted. "Why would I want to go here some monk"?
I often went to see CEOs, celebrities and other successful people lecture on Campus, but I had zero interest in a Monk. I preferred to hear speakers who'd actually accomplished things in life.
My friend persisted, and finally I said, As long as we go to a bar afterward, I'm in." "Falling in Love" is an expression used almost exclusively to describe romantic relationships. But that night, as I listened to the monk talk about his experience, I fell in love. The figure on stage was a thirty something Indian Man. His head was shaved and he wore a saffron robe. He was intelligent, eloquent and charismatic. He spoke about the principle of "Selfless Sacrifice." When he said that we should plant trees under whose shade we did not plan to sit, I felt an unfamiliar thrill run through my body.
I was specially impressed when I found that he had been a student at IIT Bombay, which is the MIT of India and like MIT, nearly impossible to get into. He had traded that opportunity to become a monk, walking away from everything that my friends and I were chasing. Either he was crazy or he was onto something.
My whole life I had been fascinated by people who had gone from nothing to something- rags to riches stories. Now, for the first time, I was in the presence of someone who had deliberately done the opposite. He had given up the life the world had told me we should all want. But instead of being an embittered failure, he appeared joyous, confident and in peace. In fact, he seemed happier than anyone I had ever met. At the age of 18 I had encountered many people who were rich, I had listened to various people who were famous, strong, good looking or all three. But I don't think I had met anyone who was truly happy.
Afterwards, I push my way through the crowd to tell him how amazing he was, and how much he had inspired me. "How can I spend more time with you?" I heard myself asking. I feel the urge to be around people who had the values I wanted, not the things I wanted.
The monk told me that he was travelling and speaking in the UK all that week, and I was welcome to come to rest of his events, and so I did.
IF I LEARN TO THINK LIKE A MONK, ANYONE CAN
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The Hindu Monks I studied use the Vedas as their fundamental texts. You could argue that philosophy began with the ancient collection of scriptures, which originated in the area which now covers parts of Pakistan and Northwest India at least 3000 years ago, they form the basis of Hinduism.
Monkey Mind Monk Mind
Overcrowded by multiple branches. Focused on the root of the issue.
Coast in the passenger seat. Lives intentionally and consciously.
Complains, compares and criticizes Compassionate, caring and collaborative.
Overthinks and Procrastinates. Analyzes and Articulates.
Distracted by small things. Disciplined.
Short term Gratification. Long term gain.
Demanding and Entitled. Enthusiastic, determined and patient.
Changes on a whim. Commits to a mission vision or goals.
Amplifies negatives and fears. Works on breaking negatives and fear.
Self centered and obsessed. Self care for service.
Multitasking. Single tasking.
Controlled by anger worry and fear. Controls and engages energy wisely.
Does whatever feels good. Seeks self control and mastery.
Looks for pleasure. Looks for meaning.
Looks for temporary fixes. Looks for genuine solution.
PART ONE
LET GO
ONE IDENTITY: I AM WHAT I THINK I AM
It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly then to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection-- Bhagavad Gita 3.35
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."
Let that blow your mind for a moment.
Our identity is wrapped up in what others think of us- or more accurately what we think others think of us.
Not only our self image is tied up in how we think others see us, but most of our efforts at self-improvement are really just as trying to meet that imagined ideal. If we see someone we admire sees wealth as success, than we chase wealth to impress that person. If we imagine that a friend is judging our looks, we tailor our appearance in response. In west side story, Maria meets a boy who's into her. What's her very next song? "I feel pretty."
As of this writing, the world's only triple best actor Oscar winner, Daniel De Lewis, has acted in just six films since 1998. He prepares for each role extensively, immersing himself completely in his character. For the roll of Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, he trained as a butcher, spoke with a thick Irish accent on and off the set, and hired circus performers to teach him how to throw knives. And that's only the beginning. He wrote only Authentic nineteenth century clothing and walked around Rome in character, starting arguments and fights with strangers. Perhaps thanks to that clothing he caught pneumonia.
Day Lewis was employing a technique called method acting, which requires the actor to live as much like his character as possible in order to become the role he's playing. This is an incredible skill an art, but often method actors become so absorbed in their character that the role takes on a life beyond the stage or screen. "I will admit that I went mad, totally mad," day Lewis said to the independent years later, admitting the role "was not so good for my physical or mental health."
Unconsciously, we are all method acting to some degree. We have personas we play online, at work, with friends, and at home. This different personas have their benefits. They enable us to make money that pays our bills, they help us function in a workplace where we don't always feel comfortable, they let us maintain relationships with people we don't really like but need to interact with. But often our identity has so many layers that we lose sight of the real us, if we ever knew who or what that was in the first place. We bring our work roe home with us, and we take the role we play with our friends into our romantic life, without any conscious control or intention. However successfully we play our roles, we end up feeling dissatisfied, depressed, unworthy, and unhappy. The "I" and "Me", small and vulnerable to begin with, get distorted.
We try to live up to what we think others think of us, even at the expense of our values.
Rarely, if ever, do we consciously, intentionally, create our own values. We make life choices using this twice reflected image of who we might be, without really thinking it through. Cooley called this phenomenon the" Looking glass self."
We live in a perception of a perception of ourselves, and we have lost our real self as a result. How can we recognize who we are and what makes us happy when we are chasing the distorted reflection of someone else's dreams/?
You might think that the hard part about becoming a monk is letting go of the fun stuff: partying, sex, watching TV, owning things, sleeping in an actual bed(okay, the bed part was pretty rough). But before I took that step there was a bigger hurdle I had to overcome: breaking my "career" choice to my parents.
By the time I was wrapping up my final year of my college, I had decided what path I wanted to take. I told my parents I would be turning down the job offers that had come my way. I always joke that as far as my parents were concerned, I had three career options: doctor, lawyer, or failure. There is no better way to tell your parents that every thing they did for you was a waste then to become a monk.
Like all parents, mine had dreams for me, but at least I had eased them into the idea that I might become a monk: Every year since I was eighteen I had spent part of the summer interning at a finance job in London and part of the year training at the ashram in Mumbai. By the time I made my decision, my mother's first concern was the same as any mothers: my well being. Would I have health care? Was "seeking enlightenment" just fancy way of saying "sitting around all day"?
Even more challenging for my mother was that we were surrounded by friends and family who shared the doctor-lawyer-failure definition of success. Word spread that I was making this radical move, and her friends started saying "but you have invested show much in his education" and "he is been brain washed" and "he is going to waste his life." My friends too thought I was failing at life. I heard "you are never going to get a job again" and "you are throwing away any hope of earning a living."
When you try to live most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing; finding away to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on.
Luckily, to my developing monk mind, the voices of my parents and their friends were not the most important guidelines I used when making this decision. Instead I relied on my own experience. Every since I was eighteen I had tested both lives. I didn't come home from my summer finance jobs feeling anything but hungry for dinner. But every time I left the ashram, that was amazing. I just had the best time of my life. Experimenting with this widely diverse experiences, values, and belief system helped me understand my own.
The reactions to my choice to become a monk are examples of the external pressure we all face through out our lives. Our families, friends, society, media-we are surrounded by images and voices telling us who should we and what we should do.
They clamor with opinions and expectations and obligations. Go straight from high school to the best college. find lucrative job, get married buy a home, have children, get promoted. Cultural norms exist for a reason-there is nothing wrong with a society that offers models of what a fulfilling life might look like. But if we take on these goals without reflection, we will never understand why we don't own a home or we are not happy where we live, why our job feels hollow, whether we even want a spouse or any of the goals we are striving for.
My decision to join the ashram turned a the volume of opinions and concerns around me, but, conveniently, my experiences in the ashram had also given me the tools I needed to filter out that noise. The cause and the solutions were the same. I was less vulnerable to the noises around me, telling me what was normal, safe, practical, best. I didn't shut out the people who loud me-I cared about them and didn't want them to worry-but neither did I let their definitions of success and happiness dictate my choices. It was-at the time-the hardest decision I have ever made, and it was the right one.
The voices of my parents, friends, education, and media all crowd a young person's mind, seeding beliefs and values. Societies 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.
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