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. When talking about training the mind, it's helpful to at first pretend that the mind is outside of you.
Just think of it as something you've been watching, don't identify with it, you are not your mind and your mind isn't you, it's something that you've been watching pretty much do whatever it wants, especially if you've never trained it to listen to you. In fact, there are times when you wanna focus on something, but your mind keeps drifting away to whatever it wants to think about, right? And there are other times when you really wanna stop thinking about something,
but your mind can't help it. Right? So, think of your mind as a spoiled, rich kid, that you've raised to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to, for however long, with no regard for consequence or gratitude. And now that your mind is all grown, it never listens to you. So, training the mind means being in charge of your decisions instead of succumbing to cravings or so-called "uncontrollable urges."
And can you think of a better method for training the spoiled, rich kid than some serious boot camp?
stop granting yourself everything you crave. That's like giving a little kid a cookie every time it throws a tantrum, it essentially trains it to throw a tantrum every time it wants a cookie, if that makes sense... And please don't mistake this for deprivation, that is not what I'm suggesting. You can still have a cookie, for example, but only when you decide to, not when a craving "takes over." There is a difference. So when a thought arises just watch it, don't react to it.
"Oh, I really want a cookie," for example. Well, that's nice... see what it's like to really want something but not always get it. The first few times that you try to train your mind, you will see the little kid in you throw a tantrum, which is actually kind of funny and it's understandable, you've never said 'No' to it before, so it's time you start. And you will eventually notice that you actually have more freedom to choose
once you're in control of your choices. I don't know if that makes sense... If you've created a parameter within which you want to operate, and you install somewhat of a rudder, so to speak, then you can guide your thoughts away from the negative, towards the positive, for example. You can see the positive in every situation, the silver lining rather than be the worst-case scenario guy. You can start living in love instead of fear.
You start having a lot more control rather than letting your mind do whatever it wants. So when it comes to training the mind, again, like anything else, and you will notice this recurring theme, start with the small things, start with training it to not get everything it wants, and it will be very much loyal to you after a while. You just have to be very patient with it, because the reward of patience is patience.
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. 🙏