Buddhist Boot Camp

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Explore the difference between feelings and emotions, the disparity between truths and facts, and the countless benefits of mindful living.

16/09/2026

When you meet someone new, instead of starting the conversation with the typical "What do you do for a living?" (which is actually considered rude or simply irrelevant in some countries or cultures), break the ice with questions like:

• What is your favorite thing about yourself?

• What makes you truly happy?

• What is your favorite compliment to receive?

Notice how people usually say what makes them happy is nature, health, calm and quiet serenity, not their car or their house. And people's favorite compliment to receive is rarely about anything superficial, but more to do with being kind, patient, and friendly.

14/09/2026

Kindness is my religion, not Buddhism.
Buddhist principles is how I practice Kindness.
Action is more important than any label.

13/09/2026

Every religious scripture documents someone else’s experience of God. Inspiring as the text may be, reading it is not the same as experiencing divinity firsthand.

Even romance novels and RomCom movies, for a similar example, describe love experienced by somebody else, but reading those books and watching romantic comedies is different from actually falling in love. And just as everybody’s encounter with love is different, so is each person’s experience of the divine.

Think of it like swimming: you understand more about swimming in the first few seconds that you jump into a pool than you ever would from reading 100 books about swimming.

Insight and clarity come to people at different stages in their lives. So, don't compare or limit the possibility of your own personal experience of the divine to what you have read in books. If you do, you might not realize that you are sitting next to God on the bus because books described God differently than the person sitting next to you.

Divinity, as I understand it, is in ALL beings, including you. So yeah.. scripture can be inspiring, but also dangerous if you confuse it for the real thing.

I say admire the teaching, not the teacher. Do not just read about generosity; BE generous. And do not just talk about patience, compassion and unconditional love; make them a part of your daily life!

11/09/2026

Before you talk, LISTEN (it may change what you say).
Before you react, THINK (it may change what you do).
Before you judge, make every effort to UNDERSTAND (once you understand, there will be nothing left to criticize).
And before you quit, TRY (the learning is in the effort, not in the achievement).

10/09/2026

On this day, 27 years ago, I got married at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on September 9th, 1999. I was young, in love, and under the impression that if you “seal the deal” when everything is great, then you don’t end up in a marriage like my parents’ (described by them as “unhappily ever after”), but rather remain youthful, elated, passionate, and optimistic “for as long as you both shall live.” Did I mention I was young and in love? 🤣

At the time, neither one of us had any role models for what a healthy relationship looked like, but we had more than enough reasons to be skeptical that any marriage could actually last (I was a paralegal at a family law firm when we met, and the divorce rate in California was about 75 percent back then).

So, we decided NOT to include “’til death do us part” in our vows. Instead, we said we would remain married “so long as we both want to stay in this.” Our love was unconditional, you see, but our staying together was conditioned upon happiness and willingness to continue. We were in love, but we were very logical about it.

We got married under that beautiful dome in front of 300 friends and relatives, and I still have wonderful memories from that incredible night of 9/9/99. The number nine, as it turns out, did NOT mean “longevity” after all, at least not for us.

Even though we were together for a ­ couple of years before getting married, we had very different expectations and assumptions about what “marriage” actually meant. That difference in opinion ultimately led to a mutual and civil agreement to separate that was reached during a couples therapy session just a few months after the big day.

We remained best friends for a handful of years after the breakup, but then the universe took us in completely different directions, and we lost touch.

I spent years trying to reproduce the positive aspects of that relationship with others, and then a few more years practicing celibacy while studying psychology and religion at the same time. I wanted to understand what ­ people believe, and why they believe what they do.

When I heard about an old man who introduced the woman he was with as the woman who walks beside him, I finally understood what Antoine D. meant when he wrote, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

It was clear that I had to redefine what the word “relationship” meant to me, and that two ­people can actually help one another stay on a spiritual path instead of lose focus.

I call it a REALationship.

27 years ago feels like multiple lifetimes ago. I'm glad I can still look back on that day and remember it fondly, laugh at how young and clueless I was, and have no regrets whatsoever.
Life is good.
Love is good.

08/09/2026

On my first book tour, more than a decade ago, I gave a talk at a public library somewhere in Virginia, where an elderly man with a white beard and round glasses listened intensely from the front row for the first hour or so, and then raised his hand to ask me if I had ever read anything by Stephen Batchelor (a Scottish author I had never even heard-of). I told him that I haven't, which is when the old man cracked his first smile of the evening and told me to read 'Buddhism Without Beliefs' or 'Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist,' which I immediately downloaded as audiobooks and listened-to on the road.

As soon as I finished the books, I called my editor at HarperCollins and said, "If I had read Stephen Batchelor before publishing Buddhist Boot Camp, I wouldn't have published my own book, I would have spent the rest of my life promoting this man's work instead!"

That's when my editor reassured me that even though the message in Stephen's books are similar in content to my own, Buddhist Boot Camp reaches and appeals to a completely different audience. So, I kept going.

Stephen Batchelor is also an ordained Buddhist monk, spending his life writing about secular and agnostic Buddhism (albeit in a more scholarly and professional manner than the amateur ramblings of yours truly). One of my favorite visuals from his messages is that when you think of the word Path, you probably imagine an established path like a sidewalk or a trail through the forest, basically a walkway from which all obstacles have already been removed. And, when you are lost (physically or spiritually), the idea of finding a path and starting to walk it is very appealing, but that path can only take you to where someone else had already gone before you; it may not be the right path for you or where you are intended to go, easy as it may seem.

What he was basically saying (or what i understood), is that you cannot use someone else's map to find yourself.

If you come across an obstacle on your path, it does not mean that you are lost or going the wrong way, it might mean that part of your journey involves learning to overcome that obstacle.

One of the last things I wrote in Buddhist Boot Camp is that a seemingly "easy" path in the wrong direction is ultimately harder than an uphill climb toward euphoria.

This is why I always tell people NOT to copy what I did (sell everything and move to Hawaii) and then expect the same results I got, I encourage each of us to find our own "Hawaii," so to speak, follow our own path, motivated by my cheerleading, sure, but ultimately guided by faith, love, and optimism, but not to use MY map to find yourself.

We are here to help each other, not to walk the path for one another. I hope that distinction makes sense.

Thank you, old man in Virginia, and thank you, Stephen Batchelor, and thank YOU for not mistaking the finger that is pointing at the moon for the moon itself.

07/09/2026

If your inner-peace depends on everything going your way, it's not even peace you are after, it's control. And the more you value things that are out of your control, the less control you have. It's a vicious loop that creates and re-generates your own frustration, the cure to which is letting go of trying to control anything except your own reaction to uncertainty.

How? Break your pattern of control slowly: let your friend decide when and where to meet for lunch, let the waiter decide what you eat, take a different route home, let someone behind you in line go first (especially if you are in a self-imposed hurry). It may sound like you are creating chaos, but the opposite is true: you are shattering your own false sense of urgency and realizing that so much of what you try to control doesn't really matter, especially when it's costing you your inner-peace.

When you are ready, get into one of those self-driving cars. If you can do that without freaking out, you are doing great!

You can either try to control everything, or you can be happy.

06/09/2026

It's amazing that we can do this!

Right now, in this very moment, I feel pretty good. Without moving a muscle, I can worsen how I feel by thinking about something sad, terrible, or painful, or I can choose to improve my mood by imagining puppies, baked goods, or a big bowl of fresh fruit.

Interestingly, even though I love puppies, baked goods, and fresh fruit, instead of smiling when I think of them, I could choose to be sad because I am not currently holding any of them. Happy or crappy, the choice is mine.

We are more deeply affected by our thoughts than our experiences, so it's important to learn how our minds work. Imagine if your television was always on and you didn't know how to shut it off or turn down the volume. Worse yet, it's not just playing shows and commercials, the voice in your head is loud and it judges everything you do. That would be enough to overwhelm anyone. Most people resort to yelling at the TV instead of looking for the remote, but it's time to do things differently.

I've been taught that even when we can't control our thoughts, we can still control the quality of our thoughts. If you have the gift of overthinking, wouldn't it be great to use it for your benefit instead of detriment? But before we can learn to do that, we need to stop reinforcing the thinking habits that drag us down.

Do you remember the old story about the mice who got food from the same spot every day? They assumed there would always be plenty to eat over there, so they kept going back to the same spot for more. One morning, they discovered that all of the food was completely gone. Two of them immediately accepted this new reality and went searching for food somewhere else, while the others got angry, irritated, or stuck in denial.

They were all hungry, but those who chose to accept change and move on suffered far less than those who chose to cling to their frustration. We can't stop change from happening, but we can stop our negative reactions to it.

It's amazing how much we worry about tomorrow with such strong conviction that tomorrow will even come. Buddhism reminds us to never assume there will be a tomorrow, which isn't grim, sad, or morbid, it actually encourages us to be grateful for today; to celebrate the right here and now.

That is why I said that in this moment, I feel pretty good. Not because there is anything incredible going on (we have already established that there are no puppies, baked goods, or fresh fruit within reach), but because I am choosing not to be angry, irritated, or stuck in denial. It's a choice we all have.

Imagine waking up tomorrow with only the things you were grateful for today, while everything you take for granted is gone. Does that help you change the quality of your thoughts?

The remote control is in your hand. If you don't like what you see or hear, change the channel. Happy or crappy, the choice is yours.

With much love from your brother,
Timber Hawkeye

03/09/2026

Think about what you value most, and notice how it directly relates to what upsets you the most when others don't live up to YOUR standards.

For example: if you were raised to believe that dressing up for church is important and you still think it's crucial, then it probably bothers you when people wear jeans and a T-shirt or—God forbid—shorts and a tank-top. Technically, there isn't an actual dress-code anywhere but in your own mind, and the more tightly you cling to your ideas of "right" and "wrong," the more judgmental and irritable you likely become, yet someone with less rules is simply happy that people still go to church regardless of their outfit.

So think about what you value most, and notice how it directly relates to what upsets you the most when people don't live up to YOUR standards, and keep in mind that we each prioritize our values differently, so just because you think kindness and compassion are important, it doesn't mean your coworkers or neighbors follow the same guiding principles. Our differing values are sometimes due to generational gaps, geographical, or cultural, but it's important to never think that your ideas on what's ethical are universal.. the world doesn't revolve around you (shocking, I know.. LOL..)

One day scientists will discover what's at the center of the Universe and many people are going to be shocked to find out it isn't them 🤭 😁

This was an excerpt from this month's food-for-thought. Many people are uncomfortable with this idea, but that's the beauty of spiritual growth: it begins when you step outside your comfort zone 🙏

Don't be mad at me; I'm just the messenger 😁
—Timber Hawkeye

02/09/2026

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