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Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich,

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and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. 

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Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

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I often say that your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does,

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and a lot of people get confused because they assume that our behavior is closely tied 

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to our beliefs, that naturally we don't do anything that we don't believe in, but that's 

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not really true. A lot of us believe that lying is not a good thing, and yet we all

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lie throughout the day in various ways. And so the invitation is for us to actually write down

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 what our core values are, as a list. And furthermore, write down a paragraph 

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describing  the kind of person you want to be. And get creative with the adjectives,

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just get really clear about the kind of person you want to be, the kind of life 

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you want to lead, and just really get in there narrating it. And not in one sit, 

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you can write it and come back to it later, but write down your core values,

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what your intentions are in the world and how you want that to come across in everything 

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that you do; in your behavior. And then cross-reference it with the person you are today,

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and you'll immediately see where you have some work to do. And the beautiful thing

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about having core values is that it makes a lot of your decisions for you. If you're proposed

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a job somewhere and it sounds really really good, before accepting it

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you cross-reference it with your core values and go: does this job actually meet those

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requirements so I can live in line with my values? It was Gandhi who said that,

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"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are all in alignment."

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When they're all in harmony. And that's a really good practice to get into, 

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and how do we make sure that they are? Well, first is: what are our values? 

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We have to write them down and then cross-reference what we think, what we say, 

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and what we do, and see if it is in line with our values and then we would lead the life

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that we actually want to lead and we will be the person we want to be. We wouldn't just be 

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talking about it or preaching about it or thinking about it, that it's a good idea. 

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Our beliefs will actually show themselves through our actions, if that makes any sense.

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It's not about being a Christian, it's about being Christ-like.

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It's not about being Buddhist, it's about being Buddha-like.

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Your values aren't what you wear around your neck, it's how you treat your neighbor,

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it's how you treat the people around you, it's how you respond to traffic.

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And that's the idea of writing out that paragraph and then cross-referencing it.

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I think it's a beautiful practice  because you're not being told by somebody else 

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what rules to live by. We tend to actually try to find ways to break rules when we're

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given them. You're giving yourself an invitation to live the life you want, and there's

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no one else judging you. You don't even have to judge yourself. You can just slip

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every once in a while, and you WILL, and you can just go, "Okay, I'll try better tomorrow." 

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But it's a beautiful way to re-align ourselves. We can't be

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too blurry about our path. We can just kind of bring it a little more into focus and go,

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Okay, I see where I am, I see where my pendulum has swung to some extremes 

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on both sides, and I have a clear picture 

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of the middle path and I can more closely be the person I want to be.

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 Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless 

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and Buddhist Boot Camp. 

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For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com,

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where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project,

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watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode 

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and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions.

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Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏