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Everyone, at one time or another, has had the sinking feeling of being ignored. Passed over. Looked down on. Disregarded as “not worth” someone’s time.

And virtually everybody hates it.

It seems that nobody wants to be “just” a nobody.

So we’re always trying to “be somebody” - which, incidentally, means that we’re trying to be someone else, someone other than who we actually are.

Someone more “acceptable.”

Having been on both sides of this “nobody/somebody” divide myself at different periods of my life, I’ve pledged never to make anyone else feel like a nobody ever again.

Because I’ve had it both ways:

I’ve been a nobody as a security guard at a hospital (where I read books all night ha).

I’ve been a somebody as a record label exec and international concert promoter.

I’ve been a nobody as a nightclub bouncer.

I’ve been a somebody as a “book influencer,” Porsche driver (nobody seems to notice that it’s 20 years old haha), recipient of a community service medal from the Queen of England, etc.

But, it’s strange…

All that time, I was just…me.

I’m literally the same person I always was, regardless of how other people saw me.

But more importantly, as it relates to today’s book, what do you do if you’re just tired of always trying to be somebody, of trying to impress people, of asserting your identity to anyone who will pay attention to you?

What do you do when that all becomes so boring and tedious and you just want to live your actual life?

Enter: Be Nobody, by Lama Marut.

It’s a great little book of Eastern philosophy about exactly what we’ve just been talking about: abandoning this fruitless quest to “be somebody” and instead just be.

It’s not a perfect book by any means - I actually found his writing style kind of annoying sometimes, if I’m being honest.

But I thought highly enough of this book that I wrote a complete breakdown of Be Nobody for the Stairway to Wisdom, highlights of which I’ll share with you here in this email.

The breakdown itself is about 10,400 words, covering all the Key Ideas, Book Notes, Action Steps, and more.

It’s also free, by the way.

It’ll only take you about 40 minutes to read the whole thing, and in it, you’ll learn how to abandon this need for constant recognition and validation, relate to others more compassionately, discover more about your Self, and much more besides.

You can read the full breakdown here, but I’ll give you a little preview in this email so you can decide whether to check out the full one later.

Again, totally free.

I should actually say “free for right NOW,” because it’s going back behind the paywall very shortly.

Then it’s just for members only at the Stairway to Wisdom. 

Alright now, let’s learn how to…

This Book is For:

*For everyone who's exhausted after a long day of being surrounded by people constantly asserting their own specialness and superiority, and who wants to learn how to resist the relentless pressure to keep up with such egoistic displays.

*Individuals who are interested in Eastern philosophy, the various wisdom traditions, and what they all have to say about the reality (or unreality) of the self, the origins of such ideas, and what it all means in the context of our daily lives.

*Anybody who's comfortable enough with themselves to risk taking a direct hit to the ego, from a wise, compassionate teacher who wasn't afraid to "shake things up" every now and then!

*People who wish to learn more about themselves by discovering what the self is not, what it can be used for, and how they can gain happiness, peace, personal freedom, and self-knowledge, while at the same time respecting the freedom and beliefs of others.

Summary:

The philosopher Alan Watts believed that the most fascinating question one could ever ask was simply, "Who am I?"

He was right in that the answer is so elusive, so bottomless, as to never give us a chance to reach any sort of definitive conclusion. It's a question we could keep asking about ourselves, over and over and over again for the rest of our lives, and still not have a complete, straightforward answer to.

Yet, wherever we look today, we see people constantly, insistently pushing their own identities in our faces (either their group identity or their personal identity), aggressively asserting that they are uniquely special and marvelous and that we should recognize this about them.

It's all so...tedious and boring! And it's also pretty much constant.

In this book, however, Lama Marut demonstrates the immense and enduring freedom that comes with giving up that whole game and just being nobody. Which, paradoxically, allows you to be yourself.

The trouble, as Marut explains, is that this drive to be somebody usually means that we're striving to be somebody else. As you'll come to see, this makes it even more difficult to find out who you really are! If you're always trying to be somebody else, you'll never discover who you already are and what that means.

Marut's solution (which is, really, the timeless, eternal solution reached by sages and mystics throughout history and all over the world) is to deliberately become nobody. After all, nobody's perfect. So why not be nobody?

READ THE FULL BOOK BREAKDOWN HERE

Key Ideas:

#1: The Only Self You’ve Ever Had

This may sound obvious, but in your entire life, you will never be able to experience the world as anyone other than...you.

You're it. You are "trapped within your own subjectivity" as those pretentious philosophers might say. There will literally never come a time in normal, waking reality when you are able to stand outside yourself and experience the world as not-you.

The Eastern spiritual teachers like Lama Marut go even further than that and claim that this Self that you think is so real and so obvious doesn't exist at all. At least not in any sort of "unchanging state." That's the easiest way I've found to understand their position.

It's not that they deny reality completely and claim that you don't actually have arms and legs and a beating heart, feelings, emotions, memories, etc., but that none of those things are the real You.

If you go through them one by one and ask whether to have those things means that you have a Self, you'll find that none of those things constitute the essential "You." And what exactly does constitute that absolute identity is kind of tough to figure out!

If it's not your name, or your height, or your beliefs, or your knowledge, what is it? What is it about yourself that's unchanging and that you can always point to as the essential component of your Self?

Everything about you, from your memories, your physical body, your thoughts, your consciousness, and your past, are constantly shifting, changing, evolving, and replacing themselves as you move through time and hurtle forward in space. But Lama Marut points out that we have this persistent idea of the Self as some real, unchanging, unbelievably important entity, and that's the problem.

This idea of the Self is the only Self we've ever had, and our anxious, aggressive defense of this Self has been the source of a large part of humanity's most shameful behavior. This is true on both the interpersonal and international levels.

But is this just "how it's going to be" for all time? Or can we change? Who can we change? Is it possible to change ourselves? And perhaps more ambitiously, can we change the world?

#2: Change You, Change the World

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. In a very real way, because of a feature of the human brain called the reticular activating system, or RAS, we literally see what we're looking for.

The most common example people use to describe how this works is when immediately after checking out a new type of car to buy, you generally start seeing that same type of car everywhere. Suddenly, everyone drives a Mustang or a Prius because you've been primed to look for that type of car due to recent events in your life - i.e., looking at buying that particular brand of car.

The limits of our vision are the limits of the universe, and so when we expand our vision we also expand the limits of the universe. At least, the limits of our universe as it appears to us, which is really the only way you'll ever experience the universe. You'll literally never experience anything outside of your own subjectivity.

So, again, in a very real way, the universe has expanded, because it has expanded for you.

We're usually blind to this because we're so used to seeing the world through our original perspective. We're used to ourselves, so we never see ourselves clearly. As they say, there are three great mysteries in the universe: air to the bird, water to the fish, and man to himself.

However, we can disrupt and challenge our own perceptions at will, thereby changing the way we look at things, which results in us having more material available with which to create art.

Importantly, though, this changed perception is always the result of a conscious, concerted effort to see things differently. Awareness is always intentional, and so, as an artist, you have to go out of your way sometimes to change your perspective and change the things you're looking at.

The "real world" will always exist externally to you, but you don't have to simply accept it for what it is. You stand at the controls, always able to zoom in or out, to get underneath the words, between the notes, and beside the work. The real, unchanging world will always exist, but you don't have to live there.

#3: Nobody is Extraordinary

In trying to be special, all you're really doing is exactly the same thing that everyone else is already trying to do: be special!

Trying to be special is so...common. Mundane. It's so...ordinary!

Almost literally everybody else is trying extremely hard to be special and unique, but in doing so they all end up saying the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. It's all so boring!

That being said, on the opposite side, you have all these people demonstrating what's called spiritual narcissism, which means that they claim to be so much more "evolved" than other people just because they "know" that they're nobody, and look at all those people running around thinking they're somebody! "Aren't they so misguided?"

This is spiritual narcissism, and that's not what Lama Marut is advocating either! What he's talking about is so much deeper, more thoughtful, and more wonderful than all of that nonsense.

When you're being nobody, you're not really thinking about how superior it is to be nobody. You're just being. Just as humility doesn't consist of thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking of yourself less, it's the same with being nobody.

Another extremely important point that Marut is trying to make is that it's the very drive to be special in the first place that's causing so many of the problems and difficulties we're experiencing as we try to live on the same planet as each other.

It's this relentless internal and external pressure to be somebody, and not just somebody, but a better, smarter, more improved, and "well-rounded" somebody that's driving us apart.

If you let all this nonsense just fall away, however, you start to realize how much simpler (and how much more fun) it is to be nobody! To live your life, to go about your business, and to exist and function and thrive in the world without being all caught up in it. It's wonderful!

Nobody wins a race they don't want to be in, and you can actually just stop running if you want to. That's an option. You can just exist, and do so as an infinitely valuable, worthwhile human being, worthy of consideration and respect, and you don't have to "achieve" a damn thing in order to do it.

READ ALL THE KEY IDEAS HERE

Book Notes:

READ ALL THE BOOK NOTES HERE

Action Steps:

So you've finished reading. What do you do now?

Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!

Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.

Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...

#1: Manage Your Pride

Pride isn't necessarily a "bad" thing. For example, it's good to take pride in your appearance, your work ethic, commitment to excellence, etc. None of these things are harmful in the proper measure.

But excessive pride is one of the main causes of collapse, both in the lives of individuals and nations at large. So you're probably going to want to manage it to some extent.

You can start by listing a few of the personal traits you're most proud of right now, and asking yourself the following questions:

"Will they always be with you?"

Are you always going to be young and beautiful? Always going to be amazingly strong? Always going to possess this thing - whatever it is - that elevates your status above others? Or will you eventually be forced to relinquish it one day? How will you feel then? What will sustain you, psychologically, after that happens?

"Do you feel good about these things simply because other people don't have them?"

If your pride is based on the fact that you possess some wonderful trait, quality, or item, and other people don't, that pride is fragile, and will only lead to problems down the line. Do what you can now to uproot this fragile pride.

"Is there someone out there who has more of that thing than you do?"

If there's someone out there with more money, a better education, stronger muscles, a more beautiful face - and there always is - that is threatening to your pride as well. But, fortunately, just by realizing this you'll be able to put your desirable qualities back in perspective. You can still be proud of them! But you'll also be proud of other people for having them too.

#2: Look Outside of Yourself

No matter who they are, virtually everyone is most concerned with themselves and their own well-being - and again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. You do need to take care of yourself; you do need to look after your own interests, especially if you want to be strong enough to care for others. But again, it's an excessive concern for yourself that leads to all sorts of breakdowns.

For that reason, it's a good idea periodically to look outside yourself and focus on what other people need and want; focus on what they're moving towards in their own lives (or away from) and see if you can help them.

A simple habit that you can perform is to step outside yourself for at least ten minutes each day and think about the problems of others and what they're going through. Bonus points if you actually reach out to help them, or at least let them know that you're there for them.

As an aside, reading fiction develops incredible empathy as well. Being able to mentally inhabit the inner lives of others through fiction and literature will enable you to more powerfully connect with others in real life, and so if you're not reading fiction, you should definitely think about it!

#3: Use the Tools to Fight Mental Afflictions

There are several "tools available" that Lama Marut suggests we make use of when fighting mental afflictions such as pride, envy, and other negative emotions. We'll start with Recognition:

Recognition: This is where you recognize, consciously, that this particular emotion isn't serving you, is potentially dragging you downward. You look at the hate, disgust, envy, etc. and you recognize that it's harmful. That in itself is a powerful tool.

Understanding: This is where you understand that giving in to such destructive emotions drags you down, and you also understand why. You actually see that a life lived harboring these emotions can never be a positive one, and you realize that it's in your best interest to give them up.

De-Identification: This is where you de-identify with the negative emotion and realize that it is not who you really are. You are not your pride, your envy, your shame, your self-loathing. You are none of these things, and they don't have to touch your life.

Determination: This is where you determine to fight back against this negative emotion and work to loosen its grip on your mind and heart. When combined with the first three tools, you'll eventually find that none of these destructive emotions will have a place in your heart anymore.

As Ajahn Chah put it, there will be only one "seat" available in your inner house - where only love can manifest - and all the other harmful emotions, after trying to enter, will find that they have no place to sit down and will then just leave.

READ ALL THE ACTION STEPS HERE

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."

-Tony Robbins

About the Author:

Lama Marut (a.k.a. Brian K. Smith) was extensively trained in the spiritual traditions of India and Tibetan Buddhism.

He held a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion and taught for over two decades in the academic world, first at Columbia University and later at the University of California, where he retired as Professor Emeritus in 2004.

Marut lived as a Buddhist monk for eight years before "reemerging" into mainstream society to help people all over the world become more fully themselves. Before his death, he was Spiritual Director of eight “Middle Way Centers” located in North America, Australia, and Singapore.

With his unique mixture of erudition and earthiness, intensity and humor, conviction and openness, Lama Marut’s message is easily accessible and often life-changing.

Additional Resources:

Lama-Marut.org | Main Website

"Incite Happiness" | Full-Length Documentary

Mindfulness in Context with Lama Marut | Seminar

This Book on Amazon:

Be Nobody, by Lama Marut

If You Liked This Book:

A Spiritual Renegade's Guide to the Good Life, by Lama Marut

Food for the Heart, by Ajahn Chah

Don't Bite the Hook, by Pema Chodron

Awareness, by Anthony de Mello

Be Here Now, by Ram Dass

The Book, by Alan Watts

On Truth, by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Discover the Immeasurable, by Jiddu Krishnamurti

Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse

The Pathless Path, by Paul Millerd

OK, that’s it for now…

More excellent book recommendations coming your way soon!

Again, the rest of the above breakdown is absolutely free (for now!), and you can find it right here.

What you see in this email is less than half of what you get at the Stairway to Wisdom. I left out most of the Book Notes, all the Questions to Stimulate Your Thinking, several of the Key Ideas, etc.

So there’s a lot more for you left to read if you enjoyed what you read in this email!

With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you apply the wisdom found in the greatest books ever written to your life:

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2. I've released 50 complete, in-depth book breakdowns on the Stairway to Wisdom that respect both your time AND your intelligence and will help you become the person you've always known you were capable of being. Read them for free here.

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