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 I was a teenager, my parents told everyone stories about what a violent toddler and child I used to be. And whenever I got into trouble in school for what the teachers called "emotional outbursts," we just shrugged it off as part of my "violent nature."
My friend Michelle is notoriously uncoordinated; she's always falling off her bike or tripping on her shoes, bleeding or limping for one reason or another, for which she blames her naturally clumsy personality. Her sister, Ashely, on the other hand, is an amazing gymnast, often attributing her success to her "natural agility."
I've heard people say it's "in their nature" to worry, for example, just as my cousin refers to himself as a "natural over-achiever," and I have spent my life making general statements like "Math doesn't naturally come to me the way it does to others."
But what if it's all a lie? And since we tend to believe whatever we tell ourselves, Michelle keeps getting hurt, Ashley just won another medal in gymnastics, I completely dismissed pursuing a career as an architect because it would have required too much math, and people who strongly believe in God continue to worry, even though worrying directly contradicts having faith. It turns out I'm not as "naturally violent" as my parents thought I was; my outbursts were just learned behavior.
And when I decided to go back to college after eighteen years, I surprisingly got all A's in my math classes. This empowered me to tackle other challenges in which I had previously believed I was predestined to fail. So imagine what rebooting can do for someone who was raised with the doctrine that we are all born sinners, for example, and believed it. So here's my question for you today: what do you believe is your True Nature?
And is it possible you've been wrong all along? Have you been saying something is in your nature or not in your nature as an excuse to do it or not to? What if we were to put an end to believing certain untruths about ourselves, because I am convinced that we can overcome a lot more than we ever thought possible by simply believing that we can. Not just individually, but collectively.
All we need is a little trust that everything naturally balances out as it always has, but it rarely happens the way we think it "should," and hardly ever as quickly as we would like. Dare I say that our resistance, therefore, is the only thing that's UNnatural. Luckily, resistance is just learned behavior that we can unlearn by practicing more acceptance and surrender. What if our True Nature is the same as that of nature itself? To adapt.
And what if all of our anguish is a result of our refusal to do just that? After having a few monthly discussion circles about this very topic, a few additional questions were raised: is our True Nature something we all have in common, as in all of humanity, perhaps even other species as well, or does each of us have a different True Nature, like the natural ability to sing, perhaps, or someone who is naturally extroverted or introverted, or is that learned behavior?
So many ideas were suggested about our True Nature, from natural instincts to small children, even twins, often born with very different nature from one another from the start. So I'm inclined to conclude that our True Nature isn't one or the other,
neither set in stone nor malleable, but actually both. That is to say, as Buddhism suggests, that we all have a seed of Buddha Nature within us, and depending on conditions and circumstances, that seed is either buried under layers of conditioning by parents, teachers, preachers, society, the media, fear, paranoia, and other labels, or that seed is nourished and therefore continues to sprout and grow.
The old argument of nature versus nurture even came up, suggesting we all have Buddha Nature, the seed of compassion, kindness, patience, empathy, generosity, and forgiveness, but that seed, that side of us, either gets nurtured in life or it does not, at different levels and in various stages.
Ultimately, however, we concluded that despite one of the guys saying that he's Italian and therefore naturally loud, we joked and agreed that it's never too late for any of us to acknowledge, embrace, and act out of our Buddha Nature, which is to live in harmony with all that is. The seed is within us all.
And just like seeds, we need exposure to light and nourishment, which I hope our monthly discussion circles, this podcast, online posts, and monthly emails, provide a little bit at a time to remind us of the jewel within us all. So, the question is: are you being the Buddha you were born to be, or are you fighting nature? 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. 🙏🏼