Three Buddhist Practices For Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny Ferraro

1. Cultivate Daily Meditation Practice

Dedicate time every day to rest in a dimension deeper than thought. This consistent practice helps you internalize that you don’t have to take your thoughts, urges, and emotions personally.

2. Practice Mindful Alignment

Regularly check in with your inner mind states and consciously choose what you want to give life to. Discern which internal offerings are wise, kind, and generous, then align yourself with those qualities to condition your next moments.

3. Be Awareness, Not Thoughts

Step back and identify with the awareness that perceives your thoughts, hopes, fears, and memories, rather than identifying with the transient mental content itself. Recognize that you are the presence that is present, not merely what is passing through it.

4. Don’t Take Thoughts Personally

Observe thoughts as phenomena that ‘occurred’ rather than ‘I had a thought,’ creating distance from them. This helps prevent mistaking your internal narrative for your ultimate reality and reduces personal suffering.

5. Utilize Noting Practice

Apply a ‘soft mental whisper’ to identify what you are experiencing (e.g., ‘anger,’ ‘planning,’ ‘hunger’). This practice creates distance from the experience, helping you know what you’re under the influence of early and preventing you from getting lost in it.

6. Recognize and Release Resistance

Become sensitive to feelings of resistance and acknowledge their presence, noting that resistance often causes pain. Turn towards it, ask if anything is fundamentally wrong in the present moment, and then release it, checking in with a basic sense of okayness.

7. Develop Heart Qualities

Actively cultivate the ‘Brahma Viharas’ or divine abodes: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are skills that can be developed to create a sturdy pathway for responding wisely to experience.

8. Flash Your Basic Goodness

Remember and stay rooted in your inherent goodness, recognizing that you are not defined or determined by others’ thoughts or judgments of you. This helps maintain an unshakable inner core.

9. Practice Redirecting Awareness

When overwhelmed by difficult emotions like anxiety, consciously direct your awareness to a different, more neutral part of your experience, such as the feeling of your feet on the ground. This allows you to titrate your experience and avoid being overwhelmed.

10. Be an Empathetic Witness for Yourself

When experiencing difficult emotions, offer yourself the same warmth and affection you would a loved one. Create a space to acknowledge your feelings without judgment, providing the empathetic witness often absent during trauma.

11. Turn Towards Difficulty (When Able)

Instead of running from difficult emotions like anxiety, grief, or anger, turn towards them with a willingness to explore their characteristics. This approach helps prevent them from growing larger and allows for deeper understanding and care.

12. Know When to Opt for Distraction

Be honest with yourself about your current inner resources; if you feel too overwhelmed to meet a difficult experience, allow yourself to distract, take a walk, or let it pass. This is a valid strategy when direct engagement is not feasible.

13. Imbue Awareness with Positive Qualities

Consciously infuse your awareness with positive qualities like a wish for all beings to be free, including yourself. This can transform your experience, just as awareness can be imbued with fear or frustration.

14. Practice Not Taking What Is Not Yours

Expand the precept of ’not taking what is not ours’ beyond material possessions to include not taking things personally or taking on the suffering of your family that isn’t yours. This practice delivers personal freedom from inherited burdens.

15. Engage in Ancestor Practice

Connect with the idea that your ancestors are supporting you, viewing yourself as the ’tip of the spear’ in breaking unhelpful familial and cultural cycles. This practice provides a sense of strength and purpose beyond individual self-interest.

16. Question Loyalty to Suffering

Regularly inquire into your allegiance to your suffering and ask, ‘Is this I, me, or mine?’ This helps you discern between genuine suffering and the additional, voluntary pain created by personal identification with difficult experiences.

17. Avoid Subtle Violence of Self-Improvement

Recognize and avoid the trap of trying to ‘hate yourself into becoming a better person’ or using spiritual practices as a weapon against yourself for perceived imperfections. True transformation comes from love and care, not self-aggression.

18. Reflect Value to Others

In your interactions, consciously reflect the inherent value of others, especially those in dehumanizing systems or difficult situations. This act of connection can remind them of their goodness, regardless of their circumstances.