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. In the next few minutes, by the time I finish recording this, I may end up taking back something that I've been saying for many years and firmly stood by: that I don't miss people, places, or things.
Allow me to explain why that has been my truth for so long, and how I'm working on reconciling something I've recently noticed that might negate my previous point of view. The word "Missing" implies that something is, well... missing. That something is not Whole or Complete because it lacks a missing component. It's a mindset of deficiency, insufficiency, deficit, or scarcity.
Perhaps you can already understand why after years of centering my attention on the abundance in life, on being grateful for what's available rather than focusing on what isn't, I've essentially trained myself to not only see every moment and circumstance as whole and complete, but to honor it as such; every second of each day is a gift. Friendships and relationships are to be treasured while they last. Health, youth, everything is so temporary, but that briefest of moments is everything.
To think of what's lacking or even entertain comparing a moment to some ideal version of it we have in our heads, or a memory of something from the past, is to take the present moment for granted. In fact, to not be in it at all.
So when people ask me if I miss a good friend or relative who has passed away, for example, or even if I miss Hawaii after living there for ten years, my answer is always the same: I think of it fondly and I have great memories, but I refuse to say my current life is incomplete without it or somehow subpar without someone in it. Doing so would be dismissive of the gifts in my life today, and I believe taking things
for granted is our greatest downfall. So, I focus on what and who is in my life, and I celebrate each breath rather than spend a moment entertaining the idea that my life is somehow incomplete. We believe whatever we tell ourselves, and life would be a real downer if we start believing that it's missing something. I'm not cold or insensitive about it, I've just gotten really good at shifting my perspective toward what's in front of me rather than what's behind.
It took some practice of catching myself every time I compared any moment to how much better I thought it "could" be, and just enjoy it for what it is. I love my dad, sure. But do I miss him? No. I see the blessing of having had one in the first place. I would feel like I'm being extremely ungrateful if I wished for things to be any different, like being given an inch and then wanting a mile, if that makes sense. "Be grateful for what you have and you'll have plenty of it."
That's been my mantra for a few years. Now that I've rationalized it, I'm going to try to take a counter-stance and explain what I've recently noticed and, admittedly, I've even tried to deny. Moving away from the last town I was in to where I am now has been an interesting mixture of being in a place that is blissfully rural, close to the mountains and the ocean, in a mostly quiet and devoid of stimulation environment, which for me is ideal.
It's much colder than I can handle with a smile on my face, since wearing multiple layers or staying indoors with the heat turned on feels extremely confining to me, and I'm a bird that does not thrive in a cage. But if I'm really honest with myself, I don't think the cold weather here has been my biggest challenge. You know how some bathrooms have a light bar above the mirror with multiple lightbulbs? When people fill each socket with 100-Watt bulb, the bathroom is way too bright
almost blinding. But when there's only one lightbulb burning at 40 Watts, and the rest of them are burnt out, then good luck finding a contact lens should one fall out of your hand.
I don't have fancy lighting in my bathroom, but in life, I have managed to create the ideal balance of time spent indoors and outdoors, eating healthy without obsessing over it, not having too many acquaintances or not enough friends, making God a big part of my life, but not so big it alienates people, in other words, just the right amount of light. In bathroom-lightbulb-terminology, let's just say I've gotten good at having every other
lightbulb on the strip turned on, which is perfect. Sometimes when you have such lighting in your bathroom or somewhere in your home and one of the bulbs goes out, you don't notice it right away, you just figure it's late at night, that you're half asleep, maybe things just seem dimmer because you're in a dream state. Until one day you finally realize that one of the light bulbs that used to shine
just enough light to balance things out is no longer shining. And you don't realize it right away, but it makes a huge difference in how well you can see the world. This perhaps isn't the greatest metaphor, but I now realize that my biggest obstacle living here hasn't been the weather, it's that I moved away from a friend who was a very important source of light in my life. So the question I ask myself is: Do I miss her? Is that what people mean when they say they miss someone?
Would I still miss her if I found another source of light? Maybe all I need to do is get better at shifting my focus? Keep in mind there is no conclusion to this line of inquiry, I truly don't know. I just realized that there's perhaps the possibility of simultaneously being extremely grateful for the gifts in my life, joyous, and even, dare I say, complete, while still missing someone or something.
It doesn't make sense technically or linguistically, but I'm going to stop saying "I don't miss..." because maybe I do and just haven't found the words with which to express it yet? I have been so adamant that life is not about the glass being half-full or half-empty, it's about being grateful to have a glass in the first place. But maybe it's not and either-or situation, but the coexistence of all those perspectives at once.
Like life, the glass is half-full of water, half-full of air, half-empty of water, half-empty of air, and a complete glass just the same, full of possibilities. The First principle of Buddhist Boot Camp is the opposite of what you know is also true, so it should come at no surprise that what I thought I knew is true, the opposite is as well.
When I say it's safe to trust those who search for the truth but be wary of those who claim to have found it, be wary of yourself as well if you cling to your truth too tightly. Something might happen one day to show you it wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it was just one side of it, and there are many. May we all live in peace with not knowing. The only thing I know for certain is that I don't know anything for certain.
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. 🙏🏼