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 spoke at a Unity Church last Sunday about how important it is for us to balance introspection with outrospection. As a kid, I spent hours alone in my room reading, drawing, and building model airplanes. If I misbehaved at school,
my parents couldn't punish me by yelling: Go to your room! Because my room is exactly where I always wanted to be. Instead, they literally locked me out of the house and said: Go play outside like a normal kid! Make some friends! And while I'm not condoning this parenting method, in hindsight, it probably did me some good. Mind you, this was years before we had terms for introverts or extroverts,
kids on the spectrum, and so on. Children were either considered to be well-adjusted, meaning they followed the one-size-fits-all set of behavior rules and guidelines to fit-in, or they were considered misbehaving troublemakers; outcasts. The only place I actually fit in was in after-school programs to learn Pascal software and robotics, which is where I made a couple of friends, who otherwise also pretty much
kept to themselves. Although alone-time is healthy, so were the hours I was forced to socialize with others, whether locked outside the house so I can play with the neighborhood kids, or on mandatory school field trips and camping adventures, much to my resistance at the time. Just as I was entering teenage years, my family moved from a small town in the northernmost part of Israel, where I grew up, to California.
The high school I attended in San Francisco not only had more students in it than my old town had residents, but I was suddenly surrounded by Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and maybe a handful of other Caucasians. It was a culture shock! In fact, I probably would have gone into actual shock or drawn inward even more had I not
been encouraged to socialize in my earlier years. I'm not saying I was well-adjusted, I'm still not, but I managed to quickly learn English, make some friends, and stay curious about everyone's culture, religion, and ethnic background. I asked so many questions because nothing and no one resembled anything to which
I had previously been exposed. I joined what was called SF-Net, a network of computers in coffee shops around San Francisco, with coin-operated dial-up modems, long before computers had Windows or mice, just a black screen and a keyboard, essentially offering a chat room of sorts for up to 30 people at a time, either dialing-in from their homes or from other coffee shops in the area. Netters, we called ourselves, had Net Gets like bonfires on the beach or meet-ups at bars on Haight and Ashbury,
back when nobody checked your ID to get in. Through SF-Net I met people from all walks of life, college kids, adults, and even befriended kids my own age who were homeless by choice, living on the streets and sleeping in Golden Gate Park. As a result of all this exposure to such a variety of individuals, I didn't have the same knee-jerk judgment that my parents had about other races, religions, homeless people,
and so on. I truly believe visibility leads to acceptance. The first time I saw someone with blue hair and facial piercings, I was blown away. But Berkeley in the 90s had more than its fair share of rebels and mohawks, so nothing shocked me after a couple of weeks. Think about what it must have been like the first time someone saw an interracial or same-sex couple holding hands walking down the street a few decades ago. The first time may have been a shock, but it wore off the more people
were exposed to it until it's just another happy couple. Granted, in some areas, and for some people, it's still a shock, but to others it's no big deal. And that's because visibility is what leads to acceptance. Exposure opens our eyes first, minds second, and heart third. The key to empathy and compassion, therefore, is connection; not just seeing punk rockers on MTV, but having coffee with them on a Thursday night. I guess I was forced to grow up in much the same way I was forced
out of the house when I was younger. Residents of major metropolitan cities are exposed to different cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds on daily basis, so they tend to be more open-minded than people who never leave their rural areas, where anyone who doesn't fit in is considered a freak. That absence of exposure and connection
leads to judgment and segregation. But we can't expect the so-called freaks to intentionally move to rural areas in order to open people's eyes, minds, and hearts, it's up to each one of us, regardless of where we live, to stop thinking of anyone as "other" and get curious instead of judgmental. In a way, only outrospection makes introspection possible, if that makes sense. How would we know we're being judgmental if our rigid
boundaries aren't being challenged? We can't heal what we refuse to confront. The logic of not criticizing what we haven't even made the effort to understand because once we understand, there's nothing left to criticize, implies by definition that if there's anything about which I'm still being judgmental, the problem is me. It means
I have more work to do. It's not somebody else's job to explain themselves to me, it's up to me to do the work, to look outside myself, to understand the bigger picture where there's room for everybody. When my friend got a job manning the front desk at a popular hotel chain, prior to answering phones and booking rooms, the hotel had him do every job from housekeeping to room service, laundry, bellhop and so on, for an
entire month. It was important to them that everyone understood everybody else's job. I remember working at a restaurant that never hired a manager right off the bat as a rule. Every manager had to have previously held every position at the company from cleaning bathrooms to washing dishes, catering, understanding wholesale orders, inventory, the whole nine yards. I think we lose something if the manager of a company asks her employees to do something she has never done herself, for example.
There's a lack of empathy, compassion, and connection. How can a boss know if what they ask of their employees is unreasonable if he never had to do the very thing he expects of others? It's unfortunate that in Corporate America, for example, it's frowned upon for lawyers to have lunch with the paralegals, or for the secretaries to fraternize with the receptionists. I'm just using these examples of segregation to show how lack of connection leads to a greater social gap between us. And exposure
can help us bridge that gap. The Golden Rule with which many of us were raised, calling us to treat others the way we wish to be treated ourselves, is an outdated model that's completely self-centered and born of introspection alone. The platinum rule, on the other hand, invites us to treat others the way THEY want to be treated. And we can never know how others want to be treated unless we ask. We need to look
at the world around us, not just at our own belly buttons. If we don't get curious about other cultures, beliefs, political views, and values, religions, and perspectives that directly contradict our own, we run the risk of thinking we're actually right about something, or worse yet, thinking we're superior to someone else. I love the joke that one day scientists are going to discover what's at the center of the universe, and many people will be very disappointed to find out it isn't them.
Like one of my teachers used to say, instead of meditating on peace, tranquility, and relieving suffering in the world for 30 minutes every morning, meditate for 15 minutes, and then get off your cushion, roll up your sleeves, and spend the other 15 minutes actually relieving suffering in the world.
If your car breaks down on the side of the road, all you want is for someone, anyone, to pull over and help by calling a tow truck for you because your cell phone battery had died, or maybe giving you a bottle of water while you wait because you've been stranded on the side of the road for hours without food or drink. Just SOME connection with the
passing motorists from anyone kind enough, right? You're not going to ask whoever pulls over to help you who they voted for, whether they identify as male, female, or neither, you just say Thank you. But more importantly, if you are the one driving and you see someone broken-down on the side of the road, pull over to help them. It doesn't matter who they voted for or whether they identify as male, female, or neither, offer them a bottle of water, a ride to the nearest gas station,
whatever they need. Ask. I'm about to say something I might later regret not being able to articulate more skillfully: the problem is not that the things that separate us are stupid, what's stupid is the fact that they separate us. We need to do both the inner work and the outer work. Each practice feeds the other. Too much of one, and we get out of balance, which explains the big gap between us
politically, religiously, intellectually, and emotionally. We do see everyone come together in times of crisis, such as earthquake and hurricane rescue efforts, right? But we don't need a disaster to force us to think outside of ourselves, do we? I say stay curious about what makes others tick and you will find more connection with everyone around you. Don't overlook the fact that the person you think is a freak
probably thinks you're a freak! Connection is the key to empathy. Let's use it to come together because of our common humanity. Because at the end of the day, it's all we have. 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.
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