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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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Today, I want to talk about the importance of diversity in our circle of friends

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so that we don't end up in a comfortable, little bubble of familiarity, where all of our 

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beliefs, perspectives, and values are simply echoed back to us by everyone we know,

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everything we read, watch, or listen to, rather than constantly challenging ourselves 

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to grow, evolve, and be inclusive instead of exclusive. When I first tried to lose weight,

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it was difficult to spend time with friends who ate at Burger King every day,

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so I surrounded myself with people who regularly exercised, made nutritious 

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food choices, and kept stress to a minimum in their daily lives.

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They later told me that helping me find the path to better health, also strengthened

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their own resolve to stay on it.

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Spiritually, it doesn't matter how badly you want to grow and evolve, 

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or how many inspirational books you read, if the people in your life keep you confined

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in a closed loop of destructive behavior.

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When dieting, Destructive Behavior is easy to define as French Fries and ice cream, 

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for example, but what constitutes Destructive Spiritual Behavior? 

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Where do we draw the line? I've met people who struggle to make their mortgage 

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payments, but have a house full of crystals and Buddha statues,

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hardcore activists with high blood pressure just one protest away from collapsing,

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and minimalists shaming other minimalists for not being minimalistic enough. True story.

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At its very core, Buddhism teaches the way to end our suffering is through

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right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, 

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right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The problem I see with this 

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common translation of right speech, right action, et cetera, is the implication 

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that there is wrong action, wrong livelihood, and so on.

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Instead of right versus wrong, I personally prefer distinguishing between behavior

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that is conducive to end our suffering, and behavior that is not.

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This way, French Fries and ice cream aren't inherently wrong, they're just not very

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conducive to weight loss, if that's what someone is trying to achieve.

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Now, it may sound like the same thing, but when curating a close group of friends

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for yourself -a Sangha, if you would- a spiritual community, we can't just surround

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ourselves with like-minded people the way I did when dieting, because then we're not 

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simply distinguishing between those who are conducive to our journey 

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and those who may not be, we are literally pitting people against each other,

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right versus wrong. And we are to learn from our Sangha, and be supported by it.

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A good community helps us continue in the direction of peace, and therein lies the rub:

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pitting people against each other is war, not peace. This is why activism is always on the

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edge between nonviolent protests and a riot.

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At some point, fighting for WHAT we believe is right turns into fighting to prove that

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WE are right. It switches from an altruistic endeavor to an egotistic one.

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And, yes, the Buddha was an activist in that he actively encouraged people

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to think for themselves, but that is very different from telling people what to think.

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So don't cut people from your life the way I eliminated fried foods from my diet.

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Surround yourself with people who offer you a salad in one hand and a milkshake

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in the other, because strength comes from repeatedly and actively choosing

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what is conducive to your journey, not from living in a little bubble from which 

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we've eliminated French Fries.

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As it turns out, an exclusive echo box only seems like a good idea at the start,

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but is ultimately not very conducive to our growth. This is actually exactly why monks

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are discouraged from making the monastery our permanent home.

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We are urged to go back into the world of chaos and hostility, which is where we can 

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help other people find the path, thereby strengthening our own resolve to stay on it.

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So look around your close circle of friends, and if you don't feel inspired,

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maybe you don't have a close circle of friends, maybe what you have

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is an echo chamber that actually stunts your growth rather than promotes it.

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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. 🙏🏼