Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast.

This is episode number 115. I am your host Noah Rochetta.

And today I'm going to talk about unhooking habitual patterns.

Keep in mind you don't need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist.

You can use this stuff to learn to be a better whatever you already are.

So let's get started with last week's Zen Khoan.

Bells and robes. Zen master Unman said,

the world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?

So this one is a fun one. I tried to imagine the world that Unman lived in.

As a monk, probably talking to another monk, the world of the monk would have consisted

in waking up every day to the sound of a bell. And when the bell rings, you put on your robes.

And that's just the start of your routine.

And it would be no different than in our day and age. It's like your alarm clock gets,

your alarm clock goes off and you get out of bed. And it would be like someone saying,

why do you get out of bed when your alarm clock goes off? Or why do you look at your phone when

the phone chimes? Or any, it could be any event where you have a stimulus and a response.

This happens and then you do that. Why? And to me, this is the, the key here is, he's asking,

why? Why do you put your robes at the sound of a bell? He's not saying it's wrong to put on your

robes. He's not saying it's wrong for there to be a sound of a bell. This is an invitation to

understand why do we do the things that we do? So for me, this is about habitual reactivity.

And just like in Unman's world, where the bell rings and people get dressed, monks put their

robes on in our day and age. It's so many, so many things, right? And for me, it's about having

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