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. A really great way to avoid decision fatigue, eliminate any and all internal conflict, and keep harmonious balance within, is to set one intention behind everything you do.
Because if everything you do is fueled by a single intention, life not only becomes simpler, but also more congruent with how you want it to be. The alternative is to have multiple intentions going on at once for different areas in your life that might not only contradict one another, but clash with your values.
Like having one intention behind your job to make money, for example, a different intention motivating your dinner plans just to suppress those hunger pangs, another intention behind buying clothes, perhaps to keep up with the latest fashion trend, and a whole other intention while watching TV, strictly as a form of escape or numbing. It would be like wearing one mask at work, another at church, a third behind the wheel, and so on; it can get exhausting!
But what if you have one intention, and it's, for example, to always pick the healthier option in front of you regardless of what you do. Be it your job, at the dinner table, when you shop, or in front of the TV. Would your choices be different than the ones you're currently making? I'm a big fan of making a single decision that makes many of my future decisions for me.
Like shaving my head and only having five gray T-shirts, are both examples of one-time decisions I made so I never worry about my hair or what to wear. Now, imagine making a similar decision to always be kind, for example, or to be content with 80% if you're an overachiever, or to actually strive for improvement if your tendency is to give up too easily.
You see, it's not about everyone having the same intention, it's about each of us choosing a unique motivation to propel us forward in a positive way. If we always buy the most expensive stuff in order to impress other people, we might go bankrupt because the intention itself was detrimental to our own wellbeing. Conversely, if we always buy the cheapest option available, we might forego our wellbeing for the sake of a few pennies. So either way, be mindful of what drives you.
When I took the monastic vows, for example, published the books, or even started this podcast, and so on, I set one intention as the motivation for all of my actions. You hear it at the beginning of each episode, it is written on the website, on bookmarks,
My intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life, by offering food-for-thought so we can live at peace with the world, both within and around us. So regardless of where I'm invited to speak, be it at a bookstore or a church, at a corporate retreat or in a maximum-security prison, I never do it for money or fame, I do it with that intention in mind.
In addition to keeping me grounded, focused, and purposeful, it also stops me from doing what isn't congruent with my values. Now, you've probably heard me talk a lot about the importance of living in line with our core values, and some people have told me that it sounds like a daunting task. So perhaps setting a single intention is a way to simplify that process. Keep in mind, however, that intention and impact don't always correspond.
We can only control the intention with which we do something, and have no control over how our actions are perceived or received by others. And that's a great opportunity to practice letting go of outcome, focusing on the journey, doing the best we can, and taking nothing personally. And if this sounds like a hybrid of teachings from the Buddha, Toltec, Christianity, and psychology, that's because it is. So let's take those teachings a step further and actually implement them
into our daily lives. I mean, why wait until we die to rest in peace? Let's set the intention to be peaceful while we're still alive! I recently posted online that an angry person chooses to respond to the world with anger, a peaceful person chooses to respond peacefully, a loving person chooses love, and a fear-filled person chooses fear. What kind of person do you choose to be?
A few people used that question as an opportunity to reflect and even admit that apparently they've been an angry person their whole lives, but can now set the intention to respond to life differently from this point forward. So, if you and I were to meet and instead of asking you what you do for a living, I asked, "What's your intention?" What would your answer be? Each podcast episode is an invitation for us to contemplate our way of interacting with the world around us and the world within.
So if you find value in my online posts, these podcast episodes, my monthly emails, our Books-to-Prisons Project, monthly events, and so on, and your intention is to use your social media or online platform and email to spread positivity, then please share it with all your friends, and consider showing your support for what we do with just one dollar a month through Patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp, where our intention is to keep offering more tools for a mindful
and considerate society made up of mindful and considerate individuals. 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. 🙏🏼