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. I asked a 96-year-old lady the other day if after everything she has witnessed in her lifetime, from social integration to women's rights, gender fluidity, orientation flexibility, border protection, diseases, cures, depressions, recessions, and so on, does she feel hopeful or woeful?
She told me that because social change tends to come in waves, often swinging from one extreme to the next, she doesn't worry about things like walls going up, because she has seen them come down later on. Nor is she concerned about the inevitability of never-ending wars between nations or the rich and the poor, or the endless turmoil between religious extremists and the reformed, because those things, she said, "Go around and round in circles."
The one thing she IS pessimistic about is the environment, which hasn't gone from bad to good, back to bad, and good again, it just keeps getting worse in a downward spiral. I asked her what she thinks of the young generation today wanting to blame
her generation for destroying the planet. She laughed and said, "We didn't recycle "newspapers back then to make paper towels, that's true, but we used cloth napkins, "and returned milk, soda, and beer bottles to be sterilized and refilled over and over again. "That's recycling, isn't it? We didn't have reusable grocery bags, but we reused the "brown paper bags from the market as trash bags at home or to cover our school books." This made me laugh because I totally remember doing that in class.
She said her mom used the fabric from old clothes to make dresses for her dolls, saving the buttons and zippers to be used later on. "We washed and reused "baby diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind," she said. "We dried our clothes on the line, "harnessing wind and solar power long before Tesla was around. "Overall, the environmental impact from overconsumption concerns me more
"than racism ever has," she said. Because we are programmed to defend ourselves, which means things like hatred cannot thrive for too long in the grand scheme of things. "But we don't protect our only planet; that worries me," she said.
"And I don't know what I can do about it, except keep telling everyone to stop "having children, and I continue volunteering at the local thrift store," where she said she regularly sees perfectly good household items tossed aside like trash, because someone replaced them with something new. Surprisingly enough, I didn't feel doomed when we ended our conversation,
even though everything she said was true. It's possible that even the big environmental stuff comes in waves and circles, but we can't look back at it all within our own lifetime like we can with social change, for example. I don't have any answers, and neither did she.
But I'm not scared, even if our destiny is for most of us to be wiped out in a one way or another just to start again covering whatever books remain in bags to protect them, fixing things when they break instead of throwing them away, and loving each other unconditionally as fellow survivors of a planet rebooting itself every billion years
or so. I don't know, but I know we don't need to wait for the world to end to start treating each other with more kindness and generosity; we can start doing that right now. So, if you ever ask yourself what's the point? Why bother? I think that's the point, that's why we bother. What stuck with me from our conversation was how lightly she held it all. There didn't seem to be a tight, rigid grip on anything
because she sees it all as fluid. It was refreshing to reflect that just as I have gone through so many changes in my own life, which anyone hearing about would probably be inclined to judge, but there's no need to try to cling to any of it. Here's what I mean, among many other ventures in my life, I have worked graveyard shifts at gas stations behind bulletproof glass, as a barista in multiple coffeeshops, was a photographer, a graphic designer, a stripper, and a so-called "Sandwich Artist" at
Subway. I wore three-piece suits at various law firms, folded newspapers, answered phones, washed dishes, painted walls, and delivered pizzas, yet, none of those things define who I am. They were jobs to pay the bills, to learn, grow, and keep going. I have gone by many names, been married, divorced, single, a hoe, then celibate
for many years. Went from drinking to sobriety, from being a carnivore to vegan, smoking, gambling, meditating, introverted, extroverted, skinny, overweight, muscular, popular, living in apartments, houses, mobile homes, lofts, penthouses, and on the streets. And still, none of the above defines who I am as a person. They were just habits, jobs, and home addresses, or the lack thereof. I am not my name, nor my age. Everything either changes or can be modified in a moment.
And although I'm technically Jewish, I was ordained Buddhist, my mantra is Hindu, and my morning meditation is the Catholic prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. I am a lot of things, and not one of them defines me. Not the beliefs I hold, nor the truths I have, not the words I write, nor the sentences I speak.
So who or what am I? Regardless of what I wear or where I work, through everything I just mentioned and much more, the only thing that matters is how I treat others, the intention behind my actions, and the direction in which I'm headed. So don't worry about your job title or where you live because they have nothing to do with who you are. Don't concern yourself with being labeled a Christian or a Buddhist, just be more Christ-like or Buddha-like in your actions.
Your behavior is what matters. What you do matters. And, therefore, you matter! So let's all be as cool, calm, peaceful, and collected as this 96-year old lady can be regardless of what's going on in the world right now because it's all fluid. As Bruce Lee said, "Be like water, my friend." 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. 🙏🏼