Table of Contents

The Book in Three Sentences

In this summary of Don’t Believe Everything You Think, you’ll learn the cause of your suffering and how to end it. In the book, Joseph Nguyen compiles timeless wisdom to understand our potential and create the life we want regardless of what happens externally. As you read, you’ll rediscover the truth you know but might have forgotten.

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Don’t Believe Everything You Think Summary

Introduction

This book can help you find everything you’ve been looking for and the answers to the questions you’ve always had. The author wants this book to change you. He argues that change is the only constant, so it would be impossible to read this book and not change as a result. Whether you pursue peace, love, fulfillment, or joy, you can find it. You can use this book to get practical results like a better income, business growth, improved relationships, addiction recovery, getting rid of unhealthy habits, and better health. The point of this book isn’t to achieve external rewards but internal ones. To get the answers you’re looking for, don’t try to find information, try to find insight. The difference is that information is external, but insight lies within you. This book is a guide to get there. The absolute truth lies in feelings, not in facts.

Chapter 1: The Journey to Finding the Root Cause of Suffering

Although things that cause us pain happen every day, suffering is a choice. Pain isn’t under our control, but our reaction to it is. When thinking about it rationally, no one would choose suffering, but that’s exactly what we do. Some habits can help you ease the suffering (waking up early, meditating, exercising, and so on), but you can’t stop it. The only way to alleviate the suffering is to understand how our mind works.

Chapter 2: The Root Cause of All Suffering

We live inside our thoughts instead of reality. Your perception of the world is different than everyone else’s. We all go through the same events, but our experiences are different. This explains why something like money means something different to everyone. To some people, money means freedom and security, but to others, it means greed and evil. Reality is an event that happens and there’s no meaning behind it. Events are neutral, but our interpretation of them makes us feel good or bad. In other words, our thoughts determine our feelings. To be happy and stop the suffering, we must stop thinking.

Chapter 3: Why Do We Even Think?

Humans have evolved to rationalize, analyze, and think because that allowed us to survive this long. Our mind’s constantly scanning our environment for threats. Likewise, we constantly think about past experiences to be better prepared for potential dangers we might have encountered before. In a way, our mind is only doing its job, but in the modern world, where it’s unlikely that a predator eats us, this tendency to overthink can lead to anger and frustration. To turn those negative emotions into positive ones, we must ignore what our minds are telling us and turn our attention to something else.

Chapter 4: Thoughts vs. Thinking

To be able to experience what’s happening around us, we need thoughts. Thoughts are inevitable and we can’t control them. Thinking, on the other hand, is the act of reflecting on our thoughts. Thinking is optional and is the root of all suffering. Ideally, we want to avoid judging our thoughts. The moment we do this, we welcome unwanted emotions that are hard to stop. While thoughts create, thinking destroys.

Chapter 5: If We Can Only Feel What We’re Thinking, Don’t We Need to Think Positively to Feel That Way?

Experiencing negative emotions serves a purpose, but only when it comes to survival. In the modern world, negative emotions don’t help us much. When we experience positive emotions though, we don’t have thoughts going through our minds. Having thoughts or thinking is not necessary to experience positive emotions. The author argues that our natural state is one of joy, love, and fulfillment. When we’re thinking, we’re depriving ourselves of that natural state. The more we think, the less happy we are. It doesn’t matter if we’re thinking positive or negative thoughts because thinking always leads to suffering.

Chapter 6: How the Human Experience Is Created – The Three Principles

The human experience comes from three principles: Universal Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. To experience anything in life, we need all three of those principles:

Universal Mind is the intelligence behind living things. This explains why trees know how to grow or how our bodies know how to heal themselves. Likewise, this is where Thoughts come from. We want to always be connected to the Universal Mind to feel fulfilled and to experience joy. When we start thinking, this separates us from our Universal Mind and we feel angry, frustrated, sad, or depressed as a result.
Universal Consciousness is the level of awareness all things experience. This is being aware that we exist and have thoughts. Without this, we wouldn’t be able to experience life.
Universal Thought is our ability to think and all the “information” we have access to. Without universal thought, we wouldn’t be able to create anything.

Chapter 7: If Thinking Is the Root Cause of Our Suffering, How Do We Stop Thinking?

Regardless of what we do, we can’t stop thinking. At least, not entirely. That said, we can reduce the time we spend thinking to the point that it gets smaller and smaller. The idea is to let the thoughts that come into our heads flow while we minimize the amount of time we spend on them. We think too much and we must be aware of it. The best way to stop this is by giving our minds some space to settle. Eventually, we’ll have a clear mind. Whatever you do, don’t fight it because things will get worse. The best thing you can do is to let go. Our natural state is one of joy, fulfillment, clarity, peace, and love. We tend to forget this, but we’re always a moment away from coming back to it.

Chapter 8: How We Can Possibly Thrive in the World without Thinking?

Flow is the mental state you achieve when you lose the sense of time and space because you’re lost in an activity you love. When this happens, no thoughts are going on in your mind. Our state of peak performance contains no thoughts whatsoever and if thoughts emerge, we don’t engage with them. Not only are we free of thought, but also emotion. When we’re doing our best, we’re acting instinctively and subconsciously. This gives us the potential to become limitless.

Chapter 9: If We Stop Thinking, What Do We Do about Our Goals, Dreams & Ambitions?

The source of thoughts and thinking determines if we will experience suffering or not. Similarly, the source of our goals and ambitions will determine if we’ll think positively about them or not. Our goals can come from two sources: inspiration or desperation.

When our goals come from desperation, we experience scarcity and urgency. As a result, our goals become a burden and we look externally rather than internally. If we happen to accomplish our goals, we set another goal out of desperation and the cycle repeats. These goals make us feel empty. When we create goals out of inspiration, we feel moved and inspired. These goals come from a place of abundance. The author thinks these goals come from something bigger than ourselves and he calls it divine inspiration.

To determine if our goals come out of inspiration or desperation, we must remember the difference between thought and thinking. Goals that come in the form of thoughts are created out of inspiration. Goals that come in the form of thinking are created out of desperation. In the latter, we analyze, judge, criticize, and rationalize to come up with goals. Therefore, they restrict us and we don’t feel good. When goals come out of desperation, we feel a sense of obligation, as if we have to do them. Ultimately, the goal isn’t as important as its source. In the former, you feel energized, light, uplifted, and excited. When goals come out of inspiration, we want to do them.

Chapter 10: Unconditional Love & Creation

Unconditional love is not knowing why you love someone, but knowing that you do. Coming up with reasons to explain why you love someone is conditional because if that person loses those traits, you will stop loving them. Unconditional love is loving someone without a reason. This is the kind of love that goes beyond reason. Similarly, there’s something called unconditional creation and this is the purest form of creation. Anything that comes out of this form of creation feels new, innovative, creative, and revolutionary. This is what happens when you do something for its own sake and not to get something in return. When you do something for something else, the process isn’t enjoyable because it’s a means to an end. Ideally, we want to pursue feelings, not external rewards.

Chapter 11: What Do You Do After Experiencing Peace, Joy, Love & Fulfillment in the Present?

To find peace, you must stop thinking. All negative feelings stem from our thinking. As part of the process of awakening, you might experience worry, anxiety, and fear, but this is normal. The hardest part is to practice non-thinking. Negative feelings are the result of a threatened ego. As long as you’re aware of this, you have the tools to stop thinking. Apart from some level of awareness, another tool that can help you get into a state of nonthinking is an “activation ritual”. This is a morning routine where you start building momentum as soon as you wake up so that it’s easier to maintain throughout the day.

Chapter 12: Nothing Is Either Good or Bad

When it comes to life decisions, there isn’t such a thing as good or bad. Thinking leads to pleasant or unpleasant feelings, but that doesn’t make them so. Our interpretation of experiences determines how we feel. Instead of looking at what’s right or wrong, we should point out facts because facts aren’t subjective.

Chapter 13: How Do You Know What to Do without Thinking?

There may not be right or wrong decisions, but some of them are more preferable than others. Some major decisions in life will lead to worry and anxiety because we rely on our thinking to make them. That said, we often know what’s the best decision. We often call this intuition, inner wisdom, or gut feeling. The truth is we shouldn’t look for answers externally, but internally. Your intuition is some form of inner GPS that guides you in life. In reality, the problem isn’t knowing what to do, but that we’re scared to do it.

Chapter 14: How to Follow Your Intuition

To thrive, we must stop thinking. The state of flow is what connects us to everything around us. Thinking gets in the way between us and the divine and makes us frustrated, angry, resentful, and depressed. To see reality, we must be immersed in the present moment. The past and the future are an illusion and as such, they don’t exist.

Following your intuition means believing that you have the inner wisdom, an internal compass that guides you throughout life. This is the state of nonthinking or flow. When we’re in this state, we feel connected to a higher power, we lose the sense of time, and we experience positive feelings.

Life is a miracle because millions of small events had to occur for you to exist. Most things in life are outside of our control, but a lot of people behave as if the opposite were true. One of the few things we can control is whether we’re happy or not and we do that by letting go of our thinking. That gut feeling inside you is your intuition. Let it guide you instead of trying to force things. Interestingly, your intuition often goes against your rational mind. Most people don’t follow their intuition because they’re scared.

Chapter 15: Creating Space for Miracles

When you can’t stop thinking, your mind overflows with ideas. When you stop thinking, you make room for new ideas that can change your life. Another way to create space for new ideas is by questioning our thinking. Don’t try to solve it for hours when someone challenges you intellectually. Just rest.

Chapter 16: What Happens When You Begin Living in Non-thinking (Potential Obstacles)

As soon as you start your process of non-thinking, you’ll run into some obstacles. Non-thinking implies having fewer worries or problems. Soon, you’ll notice that things that caused you stress, no longer affect you. As a result, you’ll experience peace and serenity. This is unfamiliar to us and you might be uncomfortable. Overthinking creates the illusion of safety but ignore it. You can be as productive as you used to be, if not more, in a state of non-thinking.

Chapter 17: Now What?

The moment you learn about the state of non-thinking, a new life begins. When life inevitably gets tough, remember that the answer isn’t to add, but to subtract. This idea is life-changing in the sense that once you learn it, you can’t unlearn it. The idea of non-thinking is simple because the truth usually is simple.

Book Summary: Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen