Don't Believe Everything You Think
One-paragraph review
Coming soon — my quick take once I finish.
Three-paragraph summary
Coming soon.
Full summary & key takeaways
- “We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.” — Sheryl Sandberg
- An open mind and a willing heart are all you need to receive every answer you’ve been looking for.
- All we want in life is love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. The things we chase are because we seem to believe that people who have those things also have those feelings. The secret lies within the feeling.
- To find everything you’re looking for in life, you must look inside yourself and discover the wisdom that already exists within your soul. Information is only a guide to unlock the wisdom already within us.
- The truth lies within everyone and in everything. You must look beyond the physical form to see and experience the truth in the spiritual form.
- Truth cannot be intellectualized, it can only be experienced. Truth lies within a feeling, which is why it cannot be formulated into a word.
- Many who discover the truth describe the feeling as one of complete peace, unconditional love, and an overwhelming amount of joy — the most familiar, unfamiliar feeling. It feels like you’re finally home.
- The truth is always simple. What is complex can be broken down into smaller parts; the truth cannot, which is what makes it truth. If you want to find the truth, look for simplicity. The ego (brain) always tries to fight the truth or make it more complex — it thinks it can’t be that simple.
Chapter 1 — The journey to finding the root cause of suffering
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
- Although we experience a lot of pain, suffering is always optional. How we react to events is up to us, and that dictates whether we suffer.
- Buddhists say that any negative event sends two arrows our way. The first arrow — the event itself — is painful. The second arrow is our reaction to the first, and that is suffering. We can’t always control the first arrow; the second is optional.
Chapter 2 — The root cause of all suffering
“One who looks around him is intelligent, one who looks within him is wise.” — Matshona Dhliwayo
“Thought is not reality; yet it is through thought that our realities are created.” — Sydney Banks
- The meaning we give an event determines how we feel about it. We live through a perception of reality, not reality itself. Our feelings don’t come from external events but from our own thinking about them — we can only ever feel what we are thinking.
- The root cause of our suffering is our own thinking.
- The moment we stop thinking is when our happiness begins.
Chapter 3 — Why do we even think?
“I think and think and think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.” — Jonathan Safran Foer
Our minds do an incredible job of keeping us alive, but they don’t help us thrive — they are concerned with safety and survival, not fulfillment or joy. Our mind’s duty is to keep us alive; our consciousness’s duty is to help us feel fulfilled.
Chapter 4 — Thoughts vs. thinking
“Stop thinking and end your problems.” — Lao Tzu
- Thoughts are something we have — they arrive effortlessly from beyond our minds. Thinking is actively engaging with those thoughts, which takes energy, effort, and willpower. We don’t have to engage with every thought.
- Thinking is the root cause of all our psychological suffering. As soon as we think about a thought, we cast our limiting beliefs, judgments, and conditioning onto it.
- Use your feelings as an internal radar: light and alive means thoughts from the divine; heavy and restricted means you’re in your head thinking. You can only ever feel what you’re thinking.
| Attribute | Thought | Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Source | Universe | Ego |
| Weight | Light | Heavy |
| Energy | Expansive | Restrictive |
| Nature | Infinite | Limited |
| Quality | Creative | Destructive |
| Charge | Positive | Negative |
| Essence | Divine | Mortal |
| Feeling | Alive | Stressful |
| Emotion | Love | Fear |
| Belief | Infinite possibilities | Confining |
| Sense | Wholeness | Separateness |
| Effort | Effortless | Laborious |
Chapter 5 — Don’t we need to think positively to feel good?
“We are ever only one thought away from peace, love, and joy — which come from a state of no thought.” — Dicken Bettinger
We can only ever feel negative emotions when we’re thinking. Our natural state of being is joy, love, freedom, and gratitude. The intensity of a negative emotion is in direct proportion to how much thinking we’re doing. It’s not what we’re thinking about that causes stress, but that we are thinking.
Chapter 6 — How the human experience is created: the three principles
“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” — Sydney Banks
- Universal Mind — the intelligence and life force behind all living things; how our bodies know how to heal. Everything is connected through it.
- Universal Consciousness — what allows us to be aware of our existence and our thoughts; it brings things to life and makes them perceivable.
- Universal Thought — the raw material from which we create form. Without thought, we’d have nothing to be aware of.
Chapter 7 — If thinking causes suffering, how do we stop?
“A crowded mind leaves no space for a peaceful heart.” — Christine Evangelou
We can’t entirely stop thinking, but we can reduce the time we spend thinking. The objective is to let thoughts flow through us while minimizing the thinking about them. Our minds are like a bowl of cloudy water — if we don’t disturb it, the sediment settles and the water becomes clear on its own. The natural state of the mind is clear.
Chapter 8 — How can we thrive without thinking?
“Anxiety is thought without control. Flow is control without thought.” — James Clear
Peak performance — “the zone,” or mushin (the Japanese term for the state of no-mind) — is a state of non-thinking. Thinking and over-analyzing is what introduces hesitation, doubt, and fear.
Chapter 9 — What about our goals, dreams & ambitions?
“There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.” — Napoleon Hill
There are two sources of goals: desperation (heavy, scarce, urgent — and never enough even when achieved) and inspiration (a calling, expansive, created from abundance). When we stop thinking, we don’t stop having goals — we start creating them from inspiration instead of desperation.
Chapter 10 — Unconditional love and creation
“The greatest power that mankind could ever achieve is the power of unconditional love.” — Tony Green
If you create reasons for why you love someone, your love becomes conditional on those traits. Unconditional creation — making something purely because you want to, with no other purpose — is the purest form of creation, and it immediately gives us the feelings we were chasing all along.
Chapter 11 — The ego reclaims the throne
“Don’t think. It complicates things. Just feel, and if it feels like home then follow its path.” — R.M. Drake
The ego can’t be removed forever; moments of doubt and fear will return as it tries to reclaim the throne. The goal is simply to shorten the time it sits there. Channel the energy freed up from not-thinking into goals born of inspiration, and use an “activation ritual” — a morning routine that gets you into a state of flow early so it’s easier to stay there.
Self-reflection
Meditation is about being at peace with yourself and your surroundings — not being bothered by anything, not thinking about anything. Things happen; if you give them no attention and no power to disturb your peace, they can’t.