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. It's been said that the truth can set us free, but from what? Does it liberate us from all the lies that hold us hostage? I'm curious why we are so easily deceived in the first place, and whether it would just make more sense for us to start taking everything with a grain of salt.
Not just what we hear from others, but the lies we tell ourselves as well. The origin of "taking things with a grain of salt" or with a bit of skepticism has to do with making poison easier to swallow, whether that poison is actual venom or a potential lie.
Now, as you know, in an ongoing effort to put what we learn into practice, I regularly share intimate examples from my personal life with you, but I want to be very clear before I dive into this episode that using this real-life example is not politically motivated in any way whatsoever, nor am I making any claims about the current state of the world. This is simply a glimpse into the past few weeks of my life and the lessons I found therein.
Seven weeks ago, my friend Eileen was diagnosed with cancer, so I moved into her guest house to help out before, during, and after the surgery. Much to everyone's surprise, she tested positive for Covid-19 two days before the operation, so the Department of Health ordered both of us into strict quarantine, and the surgery was immediately canceled.
As friends and members of her community started to panic, my impulse as caregiver was to take the test results with a grain of salt, get Eileen re-tested as soon as possible, and calmly proceed from there. What I found interesting was that even though both the second and the third tests came back negative, it was already too late.
The original surgery slot was given to another patient, a neighbor actually managed to spread distorted rumors about my friend infecting others with the coronavirus, and the Department of Health refused to accept the negative test results as legit. In fact, they ordered a fourth test and sent the specimen from all the previous swabs to be re-tested by a state lab.
And only when all those came back negative, finally proving once and for all that the first test simply showed an all-too-common false positive, Eileen was finally cleared for surgery. Now, don't get me wrong, their caution is understandable, and I don't blame the Department of Health for wanting to be thorough. I've actually had a few close friends inflicted by the virus, and so I know how serious it is.
What I found surprising, however, was how quickly and easily everyone was willing to accept the first test results without question, yet how difficult it was to convince everyone that the opposite was actually true. In psychology, that's called a Negativity Bias. It suggests that things of a more negative nature, such as unpleasant thoughts, social situations, or traumatic events,
have a greater effect on us than positive or neutral events. This is why people didn't take the first test results with a grain of salt. But in case you're wondering, Eileen is doing fantastic. Her surgery was quickly re-scheduled, all the cancer was successfully removed, and we are now cruising through the recovery stage, just grateful that all of those delays simply meant we got to spend more quality time together. But I'm not suggesting that we always assume the best until the worst
is proven true. I just think we need to get comfortable with the unknown and refrain from instinctively labeling situations as either "good" or "bad." In fact, the whole experience reminded me of this ancient story about an old farmer whose horse ran away. When his neighbors heard the news, they said, "Oh, my gosh, "such bad luck!" To which the farmer replied, "Maybe. I don't know."
The next morning, the horse returned to the farm with three wild stallions, and this time the neighbors exclaimed, "Oh, how wonderful!" To which the old man's just said, "Maybe. I don't know." Then, the farmer's son tried to ride one of those untamed horses, and he was thrown off and broke his leg. The neighbors came over and said, "Oh, how unfortunate."
And again, the farmer replied, "Maybe. I don't know." The day after that, military officials came to the village to draft all the young men into a war from which very few soldiers have returned. Seeing that the boy's leg was broken, they didn't take him. The neighbors, of course, congratulated the farmer on how well things have turned out. As you could probably imagine, though, the farmer just said, "Maybe. I don't know."
And let me tell you, I try to live my life with that attitude about everything. As Gerry Spence brilliantly said, "It is better to have a mind opened by wonder, than a mind closed by belief." And that is especially true if our beliefs are based on a negative bias. So I say loosen your grip on what you think you know is true.
Ask yourself why you even believe what you do, and remember that the opposite of what is true for you is equally true for somebody else, somewhere else, because of their time, place, or circumstance. Perhaps enlightenment is not about some truth that sets us free, maybe it's about recognizing which lies hold us hostage.
Maybe. I don't know. If you find value in this commercial-free podcast, please show your support with just one dollar a month through Patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp Listeners just like you make it possible for me to continue producing content on here and elsewhere online, donate books to prisons and schools, and spread the message far and wide through various channels, all thanks to you. I'm grateful you choose to walk beside me on this journey. Namaste.
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. 🙏🏼