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 often say that your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does, and a lot of people get confused because they assume that our behavior is closely tied to our beliefs, that naturally we don't do anything that we don't believe in, but that's
not really true. A lot of us believe that lying is not a good thing, and yet we all lie throughout the day in various ways. And so the invitation is for us to actually write down what our core values are, as a list. And furthermore, write down a paragraph describing the kind of person you want to be. And get creative with the adjectives, just get really clear about the kind of person you want to be, the kind of life
you want to lead, and just really get in there narrating it. And not in one sit, you can write it and come back to it later, but write down your core values, what your intentions are in the world and how you want that to come across in everything that you do; in your behavior. And then cross-reference it with the person you are today, and you'll immediately see where you have some work to do. And the beautiful thing
about having core values is that it makes a lot of your decisions for you. If you're proposed a job somewhere and it sounds really really good, before accepting it you cross-reference it with your core values and go: does this job actually meet those requirements so I can live in line with my values? It was Gandhi who said that, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are all in alignment." When they're all in harmony. And that's a really good practice to get into,
and how do we make sure that they are? Well, first is: what are our values? We have to write them down and then cross-reference what we think, what we say, and what we do, and see if it is in line with our values and then we would lead the life that we actually want to lead and we will be the person we want to be. We wouldn't just be talking about it or preaching about it or thinking about it, that it's a good idea.
Our beliefs will actually show themselves through our actions, if that makes any sense. It's not about being a Christian, it's about being Christ-like. It's not about being Buddhist, it's about being Buddha-like. Your values aren't what you wear around your neck, it's how you treat your neighbor, it's how you treat the people around you, it's how you respond to traffic. And that's the idea of writing out that paragraph and then cross-referencing it.
I think it's a beautiful practice because you're not being told by somebody else what rules to live by. We tend to actually try to find ways to break rules when we're given them. You're giving yourself an invitation to live the life you want, and there's no one else judging you. You don't even have to judge yourself. You can just slip every once in a while, and you WILL, and you can just go, "Okay, I'll try better tomorrow." But it's a beautiful way to re-align ourselves. We can't be
too blurry about our path. We can just kind of bring it a little more into focus and go, Okay, I see where I am, I see where my pendulum has swung to some extremes on both sides, and I have a clear picture of the middle path and I can more closely be the person I want to be. 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. 🙏