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 long time ago, when the world was still new, a certain lobster decided the Creator had made a mistake. So he set up an appointment to discuss the matter and said: With all due respect, I wish to complain about the way you designed my shell.
You see, I just get used to one outer-casing when I've got to shed it for another. It's very inconvenient, and a rather waste of time. To which the Creator replied: I see, but you do realize that it is in the giving of one shell that allows you to grow into another. "But I like myself just the way I am," said the lobster. "I don't want to change." "So your mind is made up?" Asked the Creator. "It certainly is!" The lobster firmly replied.
"Very well then," smiled the Creator. "From now on, your shell will not change, "and you may go about your business just as you are right now." "That's very kind of you," said the lobster, and went on his way. At first, the lobster was very content with wearing the same old shell. But as time passed, he found that his once light and comfortable shell was becoming heavy and tight. After a while, in fact, it got to the point where he could hardly breathe.
So with great effort, he went back to see the Creator. "With all due respect," the lobster sighed, "Contrary to what you promised, my shell has not remained "the same; it keeps shrinking." "Not at all," smiled the Creator. "Your shell may have gotten a little thicker with age, but it has remained the same size. "What's happened is that you have changed inside, beneath the shell. You see, everything "changes continuously. No one remains the same. That's the way I've designed things.
"And the wisest choice is to shed your old shell as you grow." "I see," said the lobster, "but you must admit, it's inconvenient and a bit uncomfortable." "Yes," said the Creator, "but all growth carries with it both the possibility of discomfort "and the potential for great joy. After all, you can't have one without the other." A lobster shell is not elastic, so the lobster must shed its shell in order to grow. The overall process is called molting. And a lobster will molt dozens of times
over the course of its life. Much of a lobster's life is spent preparing for, going through, and recovering from molting. We are very much like lobsters: we spend a lot of our time preparing for, going through, and recovering from change. The molting process is gruesome, vulnerable, stressful, painful, and downright scary. But if the shell doesn't fit anymore, and we resist change or refuse it, our lives become
uncomfortable and unmanageable. We've all been guilty of trying to stay where we are, when we really need to move on, to change, grow, mature, and molt. So I ask you, are you open to change or are you being a little shellfish? The origin of this parable is unclear and perhaps irrelevant since many different people are credited for it. I first heard it when I was invited to speak at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Virginia.
And I later shared it at Ventura's Center for Spiritual Living, in California. As you may know, I travel for about two weeks out of every month to give talks at various Unitarian Universalist Fellowships, Centers for Spiritual Living, Unity Churches, yoga studios, high schools, recovery centers, prisons, universities, and corporate retreats. I never charge for my talks so that anyone can come, but I obviously can only go where
I'm invited. To schedule a public speaking engagement, a book talk, discussion, and Q&A with me at your local congregation or organization, a book signing, interview, retreat, podcast, or radio show, contact information is available on BuddhistBootCamp.com. And I will probably be in your town before you know it,
asking if I can crash on your couch. In the meantime, I will continue recording these podcast episodes, loading food-recipe videos to Buddhist Boot Camp's Mindful Kitchen on YouTube, sending one email a month with some food-for-thought, and spreading seeds of mindfulness and awareness through social media.
All of this, the public speaking events, and our books-to-prisons program, is made possible thanks to listeners just like you, who donate just one dollar a month through Patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp Thank you for making it all so possible and accessible. I appreciate you. 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. 🙏🏼