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Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast.

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Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, 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 used to think there was a war inside of me.

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I mean, I try to eat healthy, but I also want cake. One minute I'm grateful to be

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home and don't want to go anywhere else, and then I think Costa Rica must be nice this

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time of year. I love being alone, but sometimes I crave the company of others. 

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And I haven't eaten animals in almost 20 years, but I miss the ease of finding

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places to eat wherever I go.

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Over the years, I have written about the internal struggle of guilt and redemption,

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balancing hope and despair, and oscillating between confidence and insecurity.

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So long as I thought of it as a war or a battle to be won, I figured one side needed to

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destroy the other. It didn't help that one of the Buddhist temples in which I lived

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didn't have a typical Buddha statue on the altar like the one we have all seen of a

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serene, meditative figure sitting cross legged.

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They had a warrior with a sword raised high above his head, sitting on top of a lion,

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depicting a Buddha cutting down ignorance, training the ferocious beast, 

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which was representing the mind.

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This visual further confirmed for me that the spiritual journey was a fight to the end.

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And all these years later, I'm either wiser or simply tired of fighting, so thinking about

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my mind as a battlefield no longer serves me.

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The name of that Buddha on the lion, or sometimes the dragon, by the way, 

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was Manjushri, which translates to Gentle Glory. The statue, although appearing violent, 

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is not about killing the wild beast, it's about taming it. And Tame means domesticated,

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docile, mild, and no longer dangerous.

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And since this isn't a war, I am calling for a ceasefire. All sides need to stop arguing

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and understand that perfection is the enemy, not the goal. Moderation does not mean

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mediocrity. And it's actually possible to be healthy and eat cake. Thank God!

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It's almost comical how despite studying the Middle Path for so many years, it remained as

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slippery as algae-covered-rocks in a river.

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The spiritual journey is about learning to walk that stream, knowing full well you will

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get wet from time to time, you will slip, you will fall, and you will get up again.

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It's about balance. It's about knowing when to take a small step and when to leap.

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It isn't a war at all. It's not a battle against the elements, it's about cultivating a symbiotic

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relationship with all of them: the rocks, the water, the algae, the lion, and the dragon.

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After you spend enough time together without fighting, you eventually get along.

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The key is to remember not to fight.

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My old Temple Keeper had no artwork on her walls, no photos, no paintings or drawings,

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but she did have a large, handwritten sign in her room that read:

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STRUGGLE IS NOT A REQUIREMENT. 

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What an incredibly wise and peaceful reminder.

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I do realize that even the name Buddhist Boot Camp in itself has militaristic connotations,

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but the cover of the book is of half of me in the dark, another in the light, 

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peacefully coexisting as neighbors, not enemies.

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It's an invitation for the God and the ego within you to agree to a truce.

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None of my books prepare you for war, but for peaceful resolution thereof.

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In fact, by no longer calling it a war, we are that much closer to peace.

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By thinking of the spiritual journey as a leisurely walk in the park instead of an

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arduous trek up a steep mountain, we remove the struggle component out of it completely.

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As the old saying goes, enlightenment happens by accident,

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spiritual practice simply makes us more accident-prone.

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If we want inner peace, we must be peaceful. 

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So call a truce. Struggle is not a requirement.

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Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Buddhist Boot Camp, Faithfully Religionless,

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and The Opposite of Namaste.

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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. 🙏