Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. My roommate has a big hiking trip planned for later this year, so she's been training for it every day to make the experience less difficult. Another friend is looking for a new job, so he regularly attends mock interviews in preparation for the real thing.
Athletes train, authors write rough drafts, pilots go through flight simulations, and my old, indoor volleyball league used to practice jumping on the beach, because if you can leap off sand, you feel like you can practically fly at an indoor tournament later on. Most people have a difficult time letting go, even though life continually prepares us for transitions. Be it your grown kids moving out, to grandparents passing away, health deteriorating, youth dwindling, and so on.
So what I constantly practice is intentionally letting go of precisely what I fear losing. It makes life challenges less of a struggle. I've even imagined myself getting diagnosed with cancer, for example, just as I have mentally prepared myself for the inevitable news of my father's death. It's not about expecting the worst, it's preparing for the likely and/or inevitable.
Now, it may sound like I'm torturing myself, but going through the motions in meditation is like training for a marathon; I feel ready. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "When you learn how to suffer, you suffer much less." So a few years ago, I took inventory of everything in my life to which I had grown attached, then I purposely got rid of it all. From outfits I particularly liked to souvenirs from various trips, favorite books, and all of my CD's; everything was donated.
Now I have five, plain, gray T-shirts that hold absolutely no sentimental value to me whatsoever, and if my home was to catch fire, there is nothing in it I would try to save. By getting rid of the tangible items, we also get rid of vanity, greed, and fear. It's amazing how much energy we store in our possessions and opinions, which explains why they have so much power over us. Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone get rid
of everything they own; that's not what I'm saying. But freedom from suffering can be attained by eliminating the very causes of it: desire and attachment. The benefit is that when you regularly practice walking directly toward what makes you uncomfortable, the discomfort subsides. And when you start looking at the person you despise as another human being full of anguish, pain, fear, and insecurities, your hatred turns into compassion.
Now, it may sound counterintuitive to do exactly the opposite of what you feel like doing, but the old saying goes, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." In this case, the treasure is freedom from suffering. The question is: do you want it badly enough to do whatever it takes? To practice staying connected to everything,
but attached to nothing? Just as professionals in every field hone their skills through practice and training, let's become professionals at living fully by mentally readying ourselves to calmly face whatever comes next; prepared to observe and maybe respond, but not react. Here's my question for you: To what are you most attached? It may not be a tangible thing like a piece of art, necessarily, it could be an outcome, a ritual, your routine, or youthful skin. Can you practice letting it go?
Not because there is anything inherently wrong with it, but because attachment to it has a lot of power over you, and you can get that power back through practice. So go ahead, fall down seven times, but be ready to get up eight. Do you think you're ready? You can do a test run and go without it for a while, just to know you can; that's what makes you powerFUL instead of powerLESS. Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode, and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼